24 Facts About Monique Wittig

Monique Wittig's second novel, Les Guerilleres, was a landmark in lesbian feminism.

Monique Wittig was born in 1935 in Dannemarie, Haut-Rhin, France.

Monique Wittig was one of the founders of the Mouvement de liberation des femmes.

Monique Wittig earned her PhD from the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, after completing a thesis titled "Le Chantier litteraire".

Monique Wittig was a central figure in lesbian and feminist movements in France.

Monique Wittig was involved in the Feministes Revolutionnaires, a radical feminist group.

Monique Wittig published various other works, some of which include the 1973 Le Corps lesbien and the 1976 Brouillon pour un dictionnaire des amantes, which her partner, Sande Zeig, coauthored.

Monique Wittig's works, ranging from the philosophical essay The Straight Mind to parables such as Les Tchiches et les Tchouches, explored the interconnectedness and intersection of lesbianism, feminism, and literary form.

Monique Wittig continued to work as a visiting professor in various universities across the nation, including the University of California, Berkeley, Vassar College and the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Monique Wittig taught a course in materialist thought through Women's Studies programs, wherein her students were immersed in the process of correcting the American translation of The Lesbian Body.

Monique Wittig died of a heart attack on January 3,2003.

Monique Wittig had a materialist approach in her works.

Monique Wittig demonstrated a very critical theoretical approach.

Monique Wittig's essays call into question some of the basic premises of contemporary feminist theory.

Monique Wittig criticized contemporary feminism for not questioning this heterosexual political regime and believed that contemporary feminism proposed to rearrange rather than eliminate the system.

Monique Wittig believed that it is the historical task of feminists to define oppression in materialist terms.

Monique Wittig acknowledges that these two social classes exist because of the social relationship between men and women.

Monique Wittig's work has had a significant impact on feminist and queer theory, though her relationship to these fields is complex.

Monique Wittig lauds Djuna Barnes and Marcel Proust for universalizing the feminine by making no gendered difference in the way they describe characters.

Monique Wittig advocated a strong universalist position, saying that the expression of one's identity and the liberation of desire require the abolition of gender categories.

Monique Wittig developed a critical view of Marxism which obstructed feminist struggle, but of feminism itself which does not question the heterosexual dogma.

Monique Wittig is a major influence in Judith Butler's classic Gender Trouble.

For Teresa de Lauretis, Monique Wittig's work helped distinguish lesbian theory from feminist theory by conceptualizing lesbians as an "eccentric subject" existing outside the heterosexual framework.

De Lauretis emphasizes Monique Wittig's lasting influence, as contemporary gender studies increasingly move beyond fixed identity categories, inadvertently realizing Monique Wittig's vision.