ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Nathalie Nya inquires if and how Beauvoir’s concept of situated freedom gives pride of place to the struggles of colonized, black women. Comparing Beauvoir to Paulette Nardal, the Martinican writer, politician, and suffragist, Nya shows how the latter would have taken issue with Beauvoir’s assertions that women’s freedom is limited. Nardal, who established feminist organizations in Martinique and who was educated in the French system, was adamant about the importance and ability of Martinican women to vote, regardless of their education and political leaning. Although Nardal has not met Beauvoir or Sartre, according to Nya she would have been much more in agreement with Sartre’s radical and ontological concept of freedom than with Beauvoir’s situated notion. Yet, Nya concludes by arguing that both Nardal and Beauvoir opened up the conversation on the freedom of the oppressed, contributing in their own way to discussions of freedom in feminism and post-colonial philosophy; and both the analysis of Beauvoir and Nardal on freedom can give rise to the development of a more elaborative philosophy of freedom, offering starting points from which the situation of white women and non-white women can be further defined.
