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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 37, No. 19. July 31, 1974

Simone, Jean-Paul, & Alice

page 8

Simone, Jean-Paul, & Alice.

The following interview with Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir appeared in the April 1974 issue of the "Kursbuch", an independent leftist magazine published in West Berlin, comparable perhaps to Sartre's own "Les Tempt Modernes" or Sweezy's "Monthly Review". The interviewer, Alice Schwarzer, is a well known activist, writer and journalist. The translation is by Tom Appleton, His feeling was that one could probably assess the scope and meaning of this interview much better if one bears in mind that: a) those people are almost two generations older than probably most readers of "Salient"; and b) that despite certain finikerty or prejudicial intellectual traits, and although their intellectual reflections are primarily based on a distinctly European situation, their experiences might be of some interest to men and women attempting emancipation in New Zealand.

Drawing of Jean Paul Satre

Alice: Let us begin with two quotes from you Simone. You once wrote: "My most important work is my life," and: "The understanding experience of my life is the encounter with Sartre." You have now been a couple for some 40 years, but you have attempted to challenge the concept of "the couple", to not live like the others, to overcome things such as possessions, jealously, fidelity, monogamy. You have been criticised by many for your life style, but many have tried to emulate you. Whether consciously or not you have become something of an ideal, an idol for many couples, especially for women. They have oriented themselves after your theory, your practice, after your life. In this perspective I would not like to ask you, Jean Paul Sartre, and you, Simone whether the fact that you have never lived together wasn't perhaps more important for your relationship than the fact that you never got married?

Simone: By all means. Because if what is called a "free relationship" is run under the same conditions as a marriage — that is to say, if one runs a common household, with regular meals — the woman will still continue to play the woman's role. That makes hardly any difference to being married. Whereas we have a very flexible life style which occasionally allows us to live under the same roof without being entirely together. For example, when we were very young we used to live in a hotel, eat in a restaurant, sometimes together, sometimes with friends; we also spent our vacations together. But not necessarily always. I for instance like to go tramping, Sartre doesn't. So I'd march off alone, while he'd spend his time with friends. This kind of freedom, which we maintained in our everyday life is decisive and prevented the paralyzing effects of marriage from spreading between us. I believe this was more important than the fact that we aren't married.

Alice: After reading your memoirs I wonder whether you really wanted to question the validity of monogamy so much or whether not perhaps you both gave your mutual relationship an absolute priority, that reduced all third persons to a secondary role?

Simone: Yes, that's probably true.

Jean: Yes, you've got a point there. This is what put me into contradictions with other women, because they didn't want to play second fiddle.

Simone: That is to say that third persons in Sartre's life, as in mine, knew right from the start that there was a relationship that would crush the one one had with them. That was often not very pleasant for them. Our relationship really went down a bit hard on those others. So this relationship is really quite open to objections because at times it comprised some rather incorrect behaviour toward these other people.

Alice: So this happened on the backs of the others?

Simone: Yes, precisely.

Alice: And the decision — if there was one — to not have a child? Or did that go quite without saying for you?

Simone: For me, that was quite natural. Not because I'd have detested children.....when I was still very young and thought

of a civil marriage with my cousin Jacques, that would have also entailed children. But my relationship to Sartre was of such a kind — on an intellectual basis, and not on an institutional, familial or — you name it — one, that I never felt the wish for a child. I didn't feel a great desire to have a reproduction of Sartre — and he himself was quite enough for me! — and also no desire to have a reproduction of myself, I sufficed myself. I didn't know, did that question ever arise for you?

Jean: I didn't think about having a child when I was young.

Alice: It is often said that one regrets such a decision later, maybe too late. This is especially said of women. Have there been such moments in your life, Simone?

Simone: Not at all. Never have I regretted not having a child. Because I was very lucky, not only in my relationship with Sartre, but also with my friendships. Quite on the contrary, when I see the relationships women that I know have with their children, especially the girls, really, it seems ghastly to me and I'm glad to have gotten off that.

Alice: What are your rules? For instance, do you always tell each other the truth?

Jean: I have a feeling that I have always told the truth, but I have done so spontaneously. It wasn't necessary to ask me questions. One doesn't always tell the truth right away, maybe one week, two weeks later, but tell it one does, always, everything. I, at any rate. And you....

Simone: Me too. Me too — but I don't think you can make that a rule. For us this clarity was practical, we are intellectuals and know very well — as Sartre said — whether one has to say it today or a week later, whether it is necessary to use tactics, and so on...but you cannot advise all couples to always brutally tell each other the truth. Sometimes even there is a way of dealing with the truth where it becomes an aggressive weapon men often do that. They are not only unfaithful to their women, on top of that they derive pleasure from telling them, more to please themselves than to clarify their relationship with the other. I wouldn't call truth an absolute value. It is fortunate, if one can tell one another everything, but it isn't a value as such.

Alice: I would like to ask you a banal question which seems, however, important to me, regarding the practical side of your relationship. Between couples money often plays a big role, material questions have a great weight. Has money played a role between you?

Jean: Between us, no. That is, money was important for each of us, for us both, sometimes also for both of us together, because you've got to live. But it never was a problem for us, it didn't influence our relationship. We had money, or the one that had, shared it. We either shared it or we lived separately, as the case might be.

Simone: When we were young Sartre inherited a little bit of money from his grandmother and I felt absolutely no scruples that he should use that so we could travel away together. We never had particularly strict rules. There were times when I was literally bludging off Sartre, for two, three years, after the war, because I wanted to write — I believe "The Other Sex". If I had taken up a job — because I had given up teaching — I couldn't have done that. And he had a lot of money then. That didn't affect me badly. And then a few years ago when he was in a bit of a tight spot I helped him out. That's no problem, the money of one is the money of the other, even though we each look after our own, without having to account for it. I do with my money what I want and he with his but in a certain sense it's the same money.

Alice: I would like to go back to your social life for a moment. You have chosen not to live together. Isn't it true that such a model can only be realised by financially privileged people?

Jean: I believe, yes.

Simone: We weren't all that rich but each one of us had a teacher's salary and could thus afford a small hotel room. But if you don't make much money it's very hard to cover such costs. The idea to not live together came up because we both didn't want to burden ourselves with a house. So we lived in a hotel. I couldn't imagine at all having an apartment. At that time we not only didn't want to live together, but even — so to speak — not dwell at all.

Alice: But there have been times when you did live together in the same hotel?

Simone: Oh yes.

Jean: Oh yes.

Simone: Quite often even. We almost always lived in the same hotel. Sometimes on different floors, sometimes at different ends of the aisle in the same hotel. But still, that means a great deal of independence.

Alice: When one has such a close relationship as you, one influences on another. Could you, Jean Paul Sartre, or you, Simone, say in which regard you have influenced each other?

Jean: I would say we have influenced each other totally.

Simone: On the contrary, I would say it's not an influence but a kind of osmosis.

Jean: If you so wish. On special questions, that is to say, not only literary ones but also in matters o[ life we always arrived at a decision together, and each influences the other.

Simone: Yes, that's exactly what I call osmosis. Decisions are being arrived at together, thoughts almost developed together. So, there are some points where Sartre has influenced me. For example, he has done mainly philosophy, and I took over his philosophical thoughts. They came from him. Other things came from me, certain ways of life, for instance, the way we travel. Those were mainly pushed through by me. For instance, when we didn't have any money and travelling became a little difficult under these circumstances: Sartre liked to travel, but he wouldn't have made all those sacrifices that I demanded of him, to sleep outside, to march by foot....

Alice: What was your general reaction? Were you opposed to that?

Jean: No, I did what had to be done.

Simone: Oh, he had a very special way of resisting, He had little bottles and pills, or he didn't feel well... but in general he did what was necessary. And then there was something else, not really an influence: I mean our habit of confronting each other with everything we write. Everything that I wrote Sartre has criticised, and almost everything he wrote I have criticised. And sometimes we don't quite share an opinion. With some books, he said: I don't believe you can pull that off, better leave it be... but I persevered. And sometimes I used to say to him, I think you should rather concentrate on literature than on philosophy — when I was very young. But he went on with it, thank god. Each one of us is independent, inspite of this alliance.

Alice: Do you believe that today, after your long experience, you have escaped, as far as possible — I'm not saying totally — the traditional relationship between man and woman and the corresponding role behaviour?

Simone: I believe that with the life style we have chosen I didn't have to play the woman's role very often. Only once I remember. That was during the war when someone had to take care of food, tickets, and so on, and do a little cooking. And that of course I did, not Sartre, because he was completely incapable of it.

But I've often had to do with other men, especially one very good friend. There, he often took care of that because he had been brought up completely different, he was more or less a boy scout and often took the material things into his hands, he ran his own household and I've often peeled beans with him, went shopping and so forth. So I don't think it had anything to do with my relationship with Sartre — because it was him — but rather because of Sartre's incapability. But that of course is due to his male upbringing which shut him off from all housework. I think he can only do fried eggs.

Jean: Yes something like that.

Alice: Those women who would like to think that there is at least one emancipated woman sometimes found sentences in your memoires that disappointed them....when you were speaking about your relationship to Olga, for instance, you said: "I was annoyed" or "irritated" or something similar, "but Sartre liked her very much so I made efforts to see things his ways, because it was very important for me to get along with Sartre in all things." And I remember another episode when you, Jean Paul Sartre, came back from the war and said: "Simone, now well do politics." And you write: "So we made politics."

Simone: I don't believe I said that because I'm a woman. Because many of my friends who were very confused and didn't know what to do had a reaction similar to mine and let themselves be convinced. That is just one of his merits: he always sees possibilities — which then sometimes become impossible, but he always opens up possibilities. And not only me, but almost all our younger and also friends of the same age followed him then. It was therefore not so much a relation between man and woman. And as for your first question: I always felt the need to have an understanding with Sartre on all points, yes, in important things that was always necessary for me. I don't know whether for you...

Jean: For me too, absolutely.

Simone: I don't believe you would have accepted a great distance between us.

Alice: Could you have made the same statement?

Jean: Yes definitely.

Alice: For two years, now, Simone, you have been more or less associated with the women's movement. We shall come back on that in a moment. Now I would like to take the opportunity and put the question to Jean Paul Sartre. What do you think of the autonomous liberation struggle of women?

Jean: What do you mean by "autonomous"?

Alice: The struggle of women's organisations and groups without men.

Jean: As concerns the relations between man and woman I quite agree with Simone de Beauvoir. But as for the organisation without men I've often asked myself whether that is necessary. I can't decide that at the moment because I do see that it is important for women; but I wonder whether it's the right form of struggle. Whether not also forms could be important that involve men who think like them.

Simone: But men never quite think like women.

Jean: That you tell me over and again.

Simone: Yes, exactly.

Jean: You should admit straight away that you don't have a great deal of trust in me on this matter.

Simone: Even you, who are theoretically and ideologically totally a proponent of women's emancipation do still not share what women — and I with them — call their female experiences. There are things you cannot understand. Sylvie and I, we often attack you because of that, because there are things that you simply cannot comprehend. For instance what Alice said the other day, that she can't go walking about on the streets of Rome without feeling aggressions all the time — that isn't part of your male experience. And when I told you about it, you said, "What you are telling me there doesn't affect me very much, because I've never shown aggressive behaviour toward women."

Alice: But that is almost a reactionary reply. Would you say, "It isn't that awful that classes exist because I, Jean Paul Sartre have never yet done any harm to a worker"? You'd never dare say such a thing.

Jean: But that's not quite the same.

Simone: Still, it isn't all that far fetched. Even the most well-meaning man finds it hard, especially those of Sartre's generation, because I know younger people, 35-year-olds, who react most sensitively toward the aggression suffered by women of their page 9 age. But I believe there's still something else: when I was young I was never so exposed to such aggression. The men might well have changed somewhat, I believe emancipation has made them more hostile toward women than before and they are more aggressive, obtrusive, ironic, unpleasant than they were in my time.

Photo of Simone de Beauvoir

Alice: Jean Paul Sartre, you said that theoretically you'd go along with Simone de Beauvoir on the issue of women. So you do agree that a specific oppression does exist, exacted by the system and the men. And if I'm not mistaken your political theory and practice subscribes to the liberation of the oppressed, i.e. you would never allow yourself to prescribe to workers how to organise or what mode of action to take. So how is it that this isn't just as natural for you in the matter of women?

Jean: First, I must say that Simone is exaggerating when she says that I have absolutely no experience of what it is like to be humiliated as a woman, just because I am a man. But whenever the women in my environment tell me how in the course of the day they have fallen victim to one such persecution I feel indignant. In this respect I have the experience that I can possibly make. Exactly theirs I cannot have. But I have the experience of a human being who loves other human beings and who holds the contention that they experience disgraceful treatment. What more can you actually ask?

Alice: Over the last five years there have been women in America and several western countries who are part of revolutionary movements and have drawn the consequences of their experiences i.e. that women are intimidated in the presence of men, even if they are well meaning men (because they do exist). There are very subtle structures of domination at work which women cannot shake off in the pretence of men. For this reason, I repeat, I'm astonished that you should have no concept, no clear answer to this demand, this right of women to their own political group. It is only an intermediate step, not a final aim.

Jean: Well, firstly. I do indeed believe that women are persecuted and that men do everything in their power to treat them as the secondary sex, as Simone de Beauvoir, has described it. And I do realise that such groups have to exist. I only said that these groups in my opinion do not always justify the loneliness of the women who congregate alone. There ought to be meetings where men could participate. That is something quite apart that doesn't have anything to do with the overall issue. I mean, women are indeed — if you like — oppressed in a special way. That hasn't got anything to do with the workers and furthermore the type of suppression also doesn't coincide. The worker is oppressed in a specific way and the woman is suppressed in a Specific way. Even when they are not working class women. Neither the form of oppression nor its scope are the same. And so, I mean the relation between woman and man and man and woman, whichever you prefer, is indeed one of oppression. But I don't see what more I can do than denouncing that.

Simone: I must say here that he has done some very good propaganda among his friends of Liberation**, for instance, to convince them to take women onto their paper, that they must direct their attention to women's problems. For instance they did a very good thing on abortion, and he even tried to cure them of their machismo***. He fights against the machismo of his younger comrades because in spite of all their radicalism many of them are more or less machists.

Alice: To many people you are the companion of Sartre, Sartre was never the companion of Beauvoir. Has this discrimination influenced your relationship? Has it annoyed, disturbed, or weighed you down?

Simone: It didn't at all strain my relationship with Sartre, it wasn't his fault after all. It also wasn't very impedimental for me, because I found a certain personal recognition through my writing and even some very personal relationships to women and readers. Sometimes of course I was annoyed when I'd read in a review of my books that I might perhaps never have written a single line had it not been for Sartre, or that it was he who managed my literary career or even — as some said — that Sartre had written my books.

Alice: How did you, Jean Paul Sartre, react to such slander?

Jean: I found it mainly ridiculous. I never protested, because those were only rumours and not really articles that were to be taken seriously. Personally I didn't care — not because I'm a man who is so aware of his virility, but because it didn't mean anything, because it was just gossip. Between us that never existed as a fear or a threat.

** A small Maoist paper, of which Sartre is a co-director.

*** Machismo: male chauvinism; machist: male chauvinist.