Marcos Bisticas-Cocoves

I demonstrate that the distinction between sex and gender is essential to Hegel's analysis of male and female roles in society through his recourse to the categories of nature and spirit. I then argue that the structure of self-consciousness in the Phenomenology is implicitly and necessarily male on Hegel's own terms for systematic reasons. Further, I maintain that Hegel's model of mutual recognition is patterned on fraternity, and thus excludes women from a wider political community. Finally, I contend that Hegel's problematic formulation of the sex/gender distinction can nonetheless be critically appropriated by contemporary social and political philosophy

For most readers of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel’s example of “Ethical Action” is taken from Sophocles’ Antigone. In fact, however, Hegel provides us with a trilogy of tragic examples. The first is Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos; the second, Aeschylus’s Seven against Thebes; Antigone is but the third. Further, just as a dramatic trilogy was followed by a satyr play among the ancients, ethical action’s final moment is taken from Aristophanes’ Ekklesiazousai. These four examples do not form a simple series where each equally expresses the truth of ethical action. Rather, they are increasingly adequate to that truth.