Abstract

The Feminine Authentic is the confirmation that connection precedes alienation in experience as well as the understanding of existentialist ethics. ;There is a direct link between Jean-Paul Sartre's characterization of the human condition as free and alienated and the feminine perspective which recognizes being-in-relation at the same time that it grants the fact of alienation. The Feminine Authentic becomes a furthering of the Sartrean description and moves it explicitly into the ethical domain. The Feminine Authentic accepts Sartrean anguish and alienation of being-for-itself from Other, but retains an awareness of Freedom to be in relation to Other as implicit in the alienation itself, i.e., it embraces Sartrean facticity, not as a limit, but as a conditioning context. ;The Feminine Authentic is a posture which is based, absolutely, on choice. The ethics which flows from the Feminine Authentic is an ethics which recognizes choice as the primary form of relatability between one and the Other. ;Illustrated, primarily, through the example of relationship between mother and infant, the thesis of the Feminine Authentic is that an infant is loved authentically only if the mother chooses to give love. From this experience of authentic love the child learns both to receive love and to love self. These two postures precede the possibility of giving love authentically to an Other. ;The possibility of an existentialist ethics depends upon the recognition of the maternal bond. It exists prior to the conflict which later complicates erotic love and it introduces the hope that in both modeling and acting on a full and anguish-filled awareness of her freedom, the mother presents a way of being in the world which acknowledges both alienation and connection. ;In a final example, using the relationship between teacher and student, the Feminine Authentic is illustrated as a motivation for practical action in human engagement