Ambiguity in Revolutionary Praxis: Simone de Beauvoir’s Ethics and the "Woman, Life, Freedom" Movement of Iran
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33831/my79ed28Keywords:
Simone de Beauvoir, Iranian women’s movement, “Woman Life Freedom”, Existentialist ethics, Feminist phenomenologyAbstract
This paper examines the Iranian women’s revolutionary revolt of 2022-2026, which is popularly known as the “Woman, Life, Freedom” (Zan, Zendegi, Azadî) movement, through Simone de Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics, primarily following her works Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) and The Second Sex (1949). I argue that Iranian women’s uprising takes up and actualizes Beauvoir’s central ethical claims regarding ambiguity being the fundamental human condition, intersubjective dimension of freedom, and the moral imperative of collective liberation. By investigating how Iranian women’s resistance demonstrates the crucial distinction between ontological freedom and practical freedom, I present that Beauvoir’s phenomenological insight on the situatedness and its intimate relation to freedom provides an essential framework for understanding the philosophical significance of this revolutionary feminist movement. The paper exposes how the Islamic Republic of Iran exemplifies what Beauvoir terms as “mystified” oppression and analyzes the philosophical dimensions of Iranian women and men’s collective uprising as a concrete enactment of Beauvoirian ethics. Through this analysis I demonstrate that the movement vindicates Beauvoir’s foundational thesis: to will oneself free is to will everyone else free.
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