Women and Femininity in D.A.F. de Sade’s Thought

Abstract

In Sade’s thought we find two archetypes of woman: a virtuous woman, who is identified with the victim and vicious woman who is identified with the libertine. The virtuous woman has all the features of femininity’s construct — she is gentle, caring, and tries to protect her virginity at all costs. Sade despises all these features and his ideal of woman is prostitute. Sade especially disdained mothers and motherhood, because it is contrary to the laws of nature which desires only destruction, not reproduction. Libertines usually have ambivalent attitude towards their mothers — desire them and want to kill them at the same time. Also, the image of the mother in Sade’s works is not unambiguous — apart from virtuous mothers who are despised he described vicious mothers, who kill their infants. The second part of article is an attempt to defend the thesis that Sade’s works contain a feminist message. Above all, Sade wanted to liberate women from the construct of femininity, which dictates them virtue and modesty. For this reason women portrayed by him might seem masculine — because they lack features typically considered feminine. Therefore the vision of women in Sade’s work is emancipatory — both compared to his contemporaries and some of his interpreters.