Abstract

This study is an examination of the existentialist concepts of bad faith and authenticity in the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir with application to the specific social phenomenon of women's liberation. By use of his ontology in Being and Nothingness, Sartre explores the question of authenticity for Jews in Anti-Semite and Jew. In that work he demonstrates that there is, in addition to metaphysical bad faith, another social level of bad faith which may arise in people who are the victims of oppression in society. Sartre refuses to blame Jews for this level of bad faith, since the barriers created by anti-Semitism are very real: the victims of prejudice must not be blamed. ;A major problem in de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is an equivocation between the two kinds of bad faith: at times she appears to blame women for complicity in their own oppression, while at other times she blames society. It is crucial to point out that neither the Jews nor women are at fault. Although de Beauvoir fails to emphasize this point in her study, the clearest indication of the harm of the stereotypes of masculine and feminine is revealed in a discussion of violence against women, specifically in the phenomena of rape and the battered woman syndrome. ;The question of authenticity for Jews reveals certain solutions to the problem which may also be applied to feminism. Sartre emphasizes that the Jewish problem is social and will not be overcome by individual conversions to authenticity. De Beauvoir, too, recognizes the need for changes on a social level when she recommends economic independence for women as a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for liberation. In addition to the suggestions made by Sartre and de Beauvoir, a discussion of androgyny as a solution to sexism must be explored. It is only by a complete re-evaluation of femininity and masculinity that both sexes can be free