Against a Single Logos

It could be stated that thought does not have a woman’s face, paraphrasing Svetlana Aleksievich’s phrase when she said, “war does not have the face of a woman”. The subject, the body, sexuality, maternity, even relationships, are a woman’s domain; but thought is not. Philosophy, that is reason, belongs to men; and both belong to men so much that in language, the masculine being and its logos represent both men and women.

However, is it really quite like that? Alternatively, is this belief also the result of the centuries that have not only discriminated against women, but also obscured them? Because there have been and still are women philosophers, women who have dedicated themselves to intellectual activity, reflection, and thought. In addition, there are mystics who have independently built their relationship with God, outside the canons of an organized Church dominated by a male clergy.

All we have to do is look for them, read their work, study their lives.

Here are two books that overturn the dominant thought. In Filosofe [Philosophers] (Ponte alle Grazie), Francesca Romana Recchia Luciani recounts the histories of ten women who rethought the world. In Dio non è così [God Is Not Like This] (Bompiani), Lucetta Scaraffia writes about the life and thought of eight lay mystics of the twentieth century who proposed their idea of God and their relationship with the divine.

Recchia Luciani writes about women who, in commencing with the female body and refusing to deny it, wove it into the production of theory, thought, and in doing so, proposes an original and unprecedented vision of the world and humanity.

Lucetta Scaraffia describes women who through their dedication to the divine, have effectively exercised the rejection of subordination and the activities assigned to them, while celebrating the construction of the self through silence, detachment from the world, prayer, and contemplation. These are women who proposed their God and had the courage to say to the Church and men, “God is not like this”, as you, say He is.

The two books can be read by following one’s curiosity, as they offer unique and fascinating accounts. In Recchia Luciani’s book, the lives of extraordinary women such as Lou Salomé, María Zambrano, Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, Agnes Heller, Carla Lonzi, Audre Lorde, Silvia Federici, and Judith Butler are explored. Each of these women brought their voice to philosophy, politics, and culture.

In Lucetta Scaraffia’s book, the biographies of Catherine Pozzi, Charlotte von Kirschbaum, Adrienne von Speyr, Banine, Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, Simone Weil, Romana Guarnieri, and Chiara Lubich are featured. As the author says, they are radically different from traditional mystics. They do not belong to the tradition of mystics, who were also laywomen but poor and simple who reproduce in the twentieth century forms of ancient mysticism. The new mystics live in the world, pursue professions they love, often have emotional and sexual lives, dress elegantly, and appreciate what life has to offer them. Their mysticism, as exemplified by Adrienne Von Speyr’s journey, leads them to listen to their inner selves, which leads them to “an experiential understanding of God”.

These books, one by the laywoman Recchia Luciani and the other by the believer Lucetta Scaraffia, speak of Simone Weil, which is no coincidence. The philosopher, as Recchia Luciani tells us, adopted the “working-class condition”, alternating the highest studies, readings, and love for philosophy with the suffering of hard labor in the fields and factories. She analyzed deeply the origin of oppression but also the creative freedom of labor. According to Scaraffia, she is “a perfect example of profound spirituality without faith”. And it is precisely this that both men and women are seeking today, “while faith distances them and fills them with distrust”. Simone Weil was a woman whose thought was not afraid of contradictions, a thinker who soared high and still speaks to all women, both believers and non-believers, who exercise their thought and convinced that through it, the world can be changed.

by Ritanna Armeni