French Literature Reviews - 2026
B. Cannone, The Temptation of Penelope
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
The Temptation of Penelope
Belinda Cannone
Published: 27/01/2010
Publisher: Stock
Series: L'Autre Pensée
ISBN: 978-2-234-06373-0
EAN: 9782234063730
No. of pages: 213
Publisher's price: 18.50€
After so many years of progress, we are told today that women have a completely different nature from men, that they think differently, and that they feel differently simply because they bear children.
A regrettable step backward on the path to equality. Let us resist the temptation of Penelope, who undid at night what she had woven by day! There is no war of the sexes. We love and desire men. Yet we must still work to free ourselves from outdated models and prejudices in order to endlessly reinvent our lives. Thus, let us beware of identity politics: nothing matters more than freedom.
Alternating between concrete cases and reflection, thirty-six brief chapters explore the female brain, the beauty of men, the choice to remain childfree, the possibility of suspending gender roles, prostitution, politics, alienation, and more. It is an optimistic book, because tomorrow holds many surprises and equality is steadily advancing—inexorably so, provided we do not slow it down ourselves.
It is a committed book because, by tracking down the representations that hinder emancipation, it puts forward profound convictions regarding desire and freedom.
Belinda Cannone is a novelist and essayist.
She has published six novels, including Entre les bruits, and several essays, among them L'Ecriture du désir (French Academy Essay Prize 2001), Le Sentiment d'imposture (Grand Prix for the Essay from the Society of Men of Letters 2005), and La Bêtise s'améliore (2007).
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An article on this book can be read on the nonfiction.fr website: "The Failure of the Ego-Essay", by S. Burdet.
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In Libération dated 18/2/10, the following article could be read:
The Ideal Gender
Review
Belinda Cannone cheerfully argues against the retreat into female identity
By CLAIRE DEVARRIEUX
Just as Elisabeth Badinter enters the fray over women's emancipation, expressing concern at seeing young mothers return home to breastfeed their babies (1) and clearly making an impact, Belinda Cannone in turn warns us with (or rather against) The Temptation of Penelope. What does the experience of the second sex look like today, given that “there are only historical ways of being a woman”? She proceeds with a thoroughly delightful blend of rigor and free-spirited whimsy—a freedom that no doubt stems from the fact that she alternates, from book to book, between being a novelist and an essayist.
Penelope unwove her tapestry every night. Imitating her, Belinda Cannone writes, “our contemporaries have set out to undo (it takes only pulling a single thread) the wonderful work accomplished by previous generations.” Panic has set in: it suddenly seems crucial that “femininity resist feminism.” Like Elisabeth Badinter, the author of La bêtise s'améliore deplores the current valorization of motherhood—“our old trap.” A woman, yes, says Belinda Cannone, even if we no longer quite know how to define ourselves as such. Mother, not necessarily: “I prefer to write.”
Brain. One will not find in The Temptation of Penelope an in-depth theoretical commentary on the major works. Judith Butler (Undoing Gender) and Marcela Iacub (What Have You Done with Sexual Liberation?) are dismissed in passing in favor of a reasonable compromise: “In short, gender studies notwithstanding, an irreducible anatomical difference between the sexes certainly exists; and differentialism notwithstanding, these facts carry very little weight outside of a system of representation that welcomes them and gives them meaning.”
Differentialism (what used to be called essentialism) highlights the specificity of women. It is biological, it is natural, and it is a matter of identity: they are capable of procreation. “Differentialists defend themselves by declaring that difference does not imply inequality.” Cannone and Badinter, on the contrary, see this as nothing but “a new ruse of alienation.” The Temptation of Penelope argues for universalism, “which suspends all differences between beings to make them citizens and persons, free and equal in rights.”
While women may have a uterus, they first and foremost have a brain like everyone else. There are many moments in life (gardening, working) when we are “neither man nor woman,” Belinda Cannone reminds us. This is what she calls “the suspension of the gender question.” She thus weighs in just as much on the debate over falsely triumphant motherhood as on the one concerning assigned identity: “Let them stop trying to confine us to our organs and let us—my laughing nieces and myself—invent ourselves day by day.”
A series of joyful reflections punctuates the work of this anti-Penelope. She is no more interested in the idea of male domination than in the posture of female victimhood. “Gentlemen, be handsome,” she tells men, because she loves them. Which is echoed later by: “Let us be powerful, my sisters, for in this way the joy of life and the fire will be kept alive.”
Corporal. Regarding the question of power, which women supposedly exercise “differently,” Belinda Cannone has decisive arguments. “When conditions change,” she writes, “behaviors change. The early 21st century has already taught us, for example, that as soon as women enter the army, they do not display superior moral virtues.” And she cites the example of the Abu Ghraib corporal. Without looking so far afield, let us listen to her suggestion: “Let us ask ourselves if we really desire that power so much.”
(1) Le Conflit, la Femme et la Mère (Libération, February 10).
In the landscape of French feminist thought, the debate between universalism and differentialism represents a long-standing intellectual division. Universalism, rooted in the Enlightenment tradition, advocates for equal rights by transcending gender differences to treat individuals primarily as citizens. Conversely, differentialism emphasizes the distinct biological and social experiences of women, particularly regarding motherhood and procreation. By defending universalism, Belinda Cannone aligns her essay with thinkers who view the emphasis on innate female difference as a potential source of alienation. She addresses contemporary debates on gender roles, the choice to remain childfree, and the social representations of power.
As both a novelist and an essayist, Cannone alternates between concrete cases and reflection. Her book, The Temptation of Penelope, is structured into thirty-six brief chapters that explore topics such as the female brain, the choice to remain childfree, and the suspension of gender roles. Rather than offering an in-depth theoretical commentary on major works, the text focuses on the pursuit of individual freedom. Readers interested in contemporary French feminist essays and debates surrounding gender identity may find this perspective relevant.