The Slave, Antigone and the Housewife: Hegel’s Dialectics of the Weak

Abstract

This article moves across the wide spectrum of feminist interpretations of Hegel, starting with Carla Lonzi and revisiting the queer analysis of Judith Butler, in order to re-interpret the famous figure of “Unhappy Consciousness.” From a feminist perspective, these passages in Phenomenology of Spirit should be read as a re-evaluation of the care and reproductive labour, which the Subject experiences as miserably repetitive and mundane, at the stage of dialectics focused on symbolic realm of recognition. The dialectics of the weak can be established based on an in-depth re-evaluation of the material, life maintaining activities traditionally neglected in the discussions of Hegel’s legacy. Here these marginalized elements of the Subject’s lived experience are taken into account, thus allowing the introduction of the Housewife into the dialectical process.