Sexist Sartre?

Helen, in previous correspondence concerning criticism of Sartre by Le Doueff, you have mentioned to me that she argues that Sartre's philosophy lacks basis because of inherent sexism and a 'superiority complex' exhibited in the examples he uses to justify his understanding of acting in bad faith. Both of the apparent unfortunate weaknesses of Sartre's outlook can in some way be identified in his example of the woman in the cafe that we discuss. However, I do not believe that such an attack by Le Doueff is particularly useful in trying to undermine Sartre's work in its philosophical validity. It is true that the language exhibited by Sartre does at times unfortunately embody the character of sexist language. Sartre does sometimes talk of the woman as if she is beneath him, as he does with the case of the waiter who, in his role of service to others, is "playing, amusing himself" (Sartre, 1993, p.59). It is true that at first glance this sentence is demeaning, as if Sartre believes he is superior to this 'poor and unfortunate' waiter who's occupation is so monotonous that he must play games with his own imagination and act out roles to pass the time whilst at work. I also agree with what you have said to me in correspondence Helen, in that language is indeed a powerful communicative tool, particularly, as you have mentioned, in the way that Foucault would contest. However, and this is important, I think that the sense of superiority that Le Doueff attempts to identify is not exactly what she conceived. We can point to Sartre elaborating on what he means when he says that the waiter plays. He writes "the waiter in the cafe plays with his condition in order to realize it" (1993, p.59). We should be careful not to appropriate meaning to terms because of the commonsense applicability that encapsulates them. To play is not always to engage in the trivial. This can be understood when we look at Wittgenstein's understanding of how we play language games. It is not a loosely conceived term intended to exhibit casual and uncomplicated phenomena. To play is to engage oneself in this sense. I am sure Sartre would agree that he too was playing the role of the philosopher when he engaged in critical analysis of his ontological outlook, and in doing so he too was playing with his condition in order to realize it. In addition, apart from perhaps proving that Sartre may have indeed been sexist and viewed women as subordinate, what does this discovery of Le Doueff actually contain that effectively refutes Sartre's philosophy 'in-itself'? She may have concluded that Sartre understood women as "beings-to-be-referred-to-by-their-sexual-existence-alone" (Le Doueff, 1991, p.61), but that in itself does not detract from Sartre's philosophy as a valid ontology.