Background
Monique Wittig was born on July 13, 1935, in Dannemarie, Haut-Rhin, France. Her parents, to escape the Nazi regime, moved to Rouergue in the Aveyron, where Monique spent an idyllic childhood before the family moved to Paris.
54 Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris, France
Monique moved to Paris in the 1950s to study at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris and majored in writing and literature.
Photo of Monique Wittig
Photo of Monique Wittig
Photo of Monique Wittig
Photo of Monique Wittig
Photo of Monique Wittig
Photo of Monique Wittig
Photo of Monique Wittig
(Monique Wittig's first novel, "The Opoponax," is about wo...)
Monique Wittig's first novel, "The Opoponax," is about women as girls. Told completely from inside the mind of a Catholic schoolgirl, it lays bare the violence of the girl underworld.
https://www.amazon.com/Opoponax-Monique-Wittig/dp/0913780154/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Monique+Wittig&qid=1602249131&sr=8-3
1976
(These political, philosophical, and literary essays mark ...)
These political, philosophical, and literary essays mark the first collection of theoretical writing from the acclaimed novelist and French feminist writer Monique Wittig.
https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Mind-Other-Essays/dp/0807079170/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Monique+Wittig&qid=1602249131&sr=8-1
1992
(One of the most widely read feminist texts of the twentie...)
One of the most widely read feminist texts of the twentieth century, and Monique Wittig’s most popular novel, Les Guérillères imagines the attack on the language and bodies of men by a tribe of warrior women. Among the women’s most powerful weapons in their assault is laughter, but they also threaten literary and linguistic customs of the patriarchal order with bullets. In this breathtakingly rapid novel first published in 1969, Wittig animates a lesbian society that invites all women to join their fight, their circle, and their community. A path-breaking novel about creating and sustaining freedom, the book derives much of its energy from its vaunting of the female body as a resource for literary invention.
https://www.amazon.com/Guerilleres-Monique-Wittig/dp/0252074823/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Monique+Wittig&qid=1602249131&sr=8-2
1994
novelist philosopher author poet
Monique Wittig was born on July 13, 1935, in Dannemarie, Haut-Rhin, France. Her parents, to escape the Nazi regime, moved to Rouergue in the Aveyron, where Monique spent an idyllic childhood before the family moved to Paris.
Monique moved to Paris in the 1950s to study at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris and majored in writing and literature. She earned there a Doctor of Philosophy.
Monique Wittig worked in Paris in various semi-academic positions, including posts at the Bibliothèque Nationale and Les Éditions de Minuit, where she was a proofreader. She later wrote radio dramas and became involved in feminist protests.
Wittig published her first novel, "L'Opoponax," in 1964, which immediately drew attention to her. The book was written in an unorthodox manner with minimal punctuation, and it depicted her childhood as a rebellious girl who did not conform to gender roles and norms. "L'Opoponax" was a lash at the Male-orientated power structure in France and surrounding countries at the time.
Wittig was avidly involved in the events surrounding the revolt of students and workers in May of 1968. However, she later became aware that the radical men leading the revolt were not willing to share the 'spoils of war' with their female peers. She then gained the inspiration to become one of the first theoreticians and activists of the new feminist movement. It was in the atmosphere of male-dominated radical political action that she created her most influential works, including "Les Guérilléres."
In 1970, Monique co-published what can be portrayed as the platform or manifesto of the French Feminist movement. From there on out she continued to write more fictional and non-fictional novels, essays, and accounts about the struggles and lives of women. Throughout the early 70's Wittig became known as a central figure in the radical feminist and lesbian movements in France. She was also the founder of feminist groups such as the Petites Marguérites and Féministes Révolutionnaires.
In 1976, Wittig and her Wife Sande Zeig moved to the United States to further spread the feminist agenda. Wittig became a visiting professor to many universities while producing a series of plays and critical essays. She was a permanent member of the faculty at the University of Arizona in 1990, in French and Women's Studies. In the 1980's she completed a doctoral dissertation called "Le chantier littéraire" under the direction of Gérard Genette.
Her collected essays, published as "The Straight Mind" in 1992, made her work available to a wider audience and influenced feminist theory around the world.
In 1994, at a special session of the Kentucky Foreign Language Convention, she read extensively from her first work written in English, a short story entitled "The Girl," which evolved into the screenplay for a feature film of the same title directed by Sande Zeig. Through the late 1990s, she oversaw the publication of her collected short fiction (Paris-la-Politique, 1999) and the translation of The Straight Mind into French (La pensée straight, 2001).
To celebrate the latter publication, an international panel of Wittig specialists, with Wittig and Zeig, gathered in Paris in June 2001 for a three-day conference examining all aspects of her work.
Her doctoral dissertation, "Le Chantier littéraire," was published posthumously in 2010 by Éditions iXe and Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Her papers were acquired by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.
(One of the most widely read feminist texts of the twentie...)
1994(These political, philosophical, and literary essays mark ...)
1992(Monique Wittig's first novel, "The Opoponax," is about wo...)
1976Wittig states that the labeling of a group of people as "women" is a means of naturalizing and mystifying an exploitative social relation. By rejecting the idea that womanhood is a matter of bodily characteristics, Wittig argues that the idea of a natural group of women on the basis of the body is a result of social oppression. The fact that most people take gender for granted and refuse to look at it as a social construct, leaves them blind to the material conditions of women's oppression and further reinforces it.
Through her various works and essays, Wittig highlights the need to do away with the concept of gender in order to end the oppression of women. For Wittig, the goal of women’s liberation is achieved through the annihilation of gender as a social construct, the social construct that perpetuates the economic freedom and social behavior by controlling the way women function in society. Wittig explains, "Our fight aims to suppress men as a class, not through a genocidal, but a political struggle. Once the class 'men' disappears, ‘women’ as a class will disappear as well…" Women’s liberation requires the abolition of the conditions and institutions which produce womanhood in the first place. Women's liberation requires women to organize as a class for the abolition of the class of women. To create a society where everyone has bodily autonomy and thus no constructs to restrict freedom.
Wittig was deeply influenced by the films of Jean-Luc Godard and by the nouveau roman of the 1960s (now fallen into disrepute). Robbe-Grillet read one of her early "textes" and Lindon wrote her a kind letter of rejection, but asked to see whatever else she wrote. She sent him a novel called "La Méchanique" ("Mechanics" - a true nouveau roman title). Lindon wisely advised her to wait a little longer, though, if she wanted to find another publisher for it, he would issue it at once.
Monique was married to Sande Zeig.