Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 03:52:36 -0400

From: Paul Trejo <pet@netcom.com>

To: Multiple recipients of list <hegel-l@bucknell.edu>

Subject: Re: HEGEL, FEMINISM AND REVOLUTION

In response to the 04Apr97 post by Professor Olga Domanski:

> ...*Feminist Interpretations of Hegel* is part of a series being edited

> by Nancy Tuana focused on "Re-Reading the Canon," to correct the

> "gender biases" in the philosophic canon by shifting attention,

> Tuana suggests, to how "woman is constructed within the text of

> philosophy," most of which have been written by men. At the same

> time, Mills stresses in her Introduction that there is no such thing

> as "the" feminist interpretation, and that she has tried to reveal

> the multiplicity by including both those for and those against Hegel...

As a contribution towards the study of Hegel and feminism, I recall a

book by Professor David MacGregor, HEGEL, MARX AND THE ENGLISH STATE

(1992, University of Toronto Press, 345 pages).

This contemporary study introduces a new face, the unknown feminist

theorist, Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel (1792). Hippel was in direct

synchronization with the contemporary feminists of his time, including

Condorcet and even the Paine-Godwin-Wollstonecraft circle. Hippel's

book, ON IMPROVING THE STATUS OF WOMEN, is perhaps the high point in

in 18th century Prussian feminism.

What Professor MacGregor raises in Hegel studies is that Hegel was aware

of Hippel's work and was favorable towards it. This surprising new study

goes so far as to trace Hippel's direct influence on Hegel. Hegel was

roasted for praising Hippel's literary experiments, and he even dared to

introduce some of Hippel's ideas into his well-known books, PHENOMENOLOGY

OF MIND and PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT.

Despite his well-known echoing of the sexism in Rousseau's EMILE, Hegel's

counter-motif of the feminine ideal of ANTIGONE has moderated its effects.

Professor MacGregor points to Hippel as regards this trend of favor towards

feminism. For example, Hegel says,

"The feminine, in the form of the Sister, has

the highest Intuitive awareness of what is

Ethical...Her law of the family is an implicit,

inner essence....a Divine element that is

exempt from an existence in the real world."

(Hegel, PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT, 1810, trans.

A.V. Miller, Oxford U. 1969, para. 457.)

Here we have Hegel's 19th century equivalent of the political phrase,

'Right On, Sister!' Some of Hegel's criticisms of the male sex, that

they can be morose and sulky compared to women, and even some

of Hegel's metaphors, can be viewed as taken directly from Hippel's

little-known work.

Professor MacGregor delivers a direct assault on the traditional

canon which views Hegel's political philosophy on the side of the

conservative and fundamentalist movements of history. Professor

MacGregor says,

"Hegel explicitly acknowledged woman's presence

in Civil Society and the State," (MacGregor, p. 102).

The correct interpretation of Hegel's descriptions of the differences

between the sexes is that their positive and negative polarization is

a dynamic source of development and evolution. In the newfound

light of Hippel's influence, nothing more can be ascribed to them

than that. The notice being taken of Hegel's favorable treatment of

Women in his analysis of ANTIGONE, and in his Brother-Sister

dyad, as well as in his radical statement that the Divine Law is

feminine, while the Worldly Law is masculine, suggests new

possibilities in feminist studies of Hegel.

We do not merely concede that Hegel, as a 'child of his own time,' was

afflicted with that rigid conservatism which characterizes the patriarchy;

not as long as this unexplored connection between Hegel and Hippel remains

before us, beckoning to historians.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo