Beauvoir. Second Sex

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THE SECOND SEX

SIMONE DE

BEAUVOIR

1949



feminism

Feminism is both anintellectual commitment

and a political movement that seeks justice for

women and the end of sexism in all forms.





Feminism has 3 waves

1st wave: focused mainly onoverturning legal obstacles to

equality (i.e. voting rights, property

rights). It also tried and failed toadd the Equal Rights

Amendment to the United States

Constitution.





second wave

2nd wave : period of feminist activity

which began during the early 1960s and

lasted through the early 1990s. second-

wave feminism addressed a wide rangeof issues: de facto inequalities, official

legal inequalities, sexuality, family, the

workplace, and, perhaps mostcontroversially, reproductive rights.









The Second Sex

– The Second Sex, Simone deBeauvoir examined the notion of women being perceived as

"other" in the patriarchal society.She went on to conclude thatmale-centered ideology was

being accepted as a norm andenforced by the ongoingdevelopment of myths.



what is a

woman?



“we are told that femininity is in

danger; we are exhorted to bewomen, remain women, becomewomen. It would appear, then,

that every female human being isnot necessarily a woman; to be

so considered she must share in

that mysterious and threatenedreality known as femininity.”



Dorothy Parker has

written: „I cannot be just to books which treat of

woman as woman ... Myidea is that all of us,

men as well as women,should be regarded as

human beings.‟





Surely woman is,

like man, a human

being; but such adeclaration is

abstract.



The fact is that every concrete

human being is always a singular,

separate individual.







To decline to accept such notions

as the eternal feminine, the blacksoul, the Jewish character, is not

to deny that Jews, Negroes,women exist today – this denial

does not represent a liberation forthose concerned, but rather a

flight from reality.



… to go for a walk with one‟s

eyes open is enough to

demonstrate that humanity is

divided into two classes ofindividuals whose clothes, faces,

bodies, smiles, gaits, interests,and occupations are manifestly

different.





they are different













Perhaps thesedifferences aresuperficial, perhapsthey are destined todisappear. What iscertain is that they do

most obviously exist







So - if women exist,

-but it not their femininity

that makes them women,- then we must face the

question again –

- “what is a woman”?



It is significant

that this question

itself is asked.

No man would ask“what is a man?”



The word „Man‟ represents both

the positive and the neutral, as is

indicated by the common useof man to designate humanbeings in general; whereaswoman represents only thenegative, defined by limiting

criteria, without reciprocity. Thefact of being a man is no

peculiarity

this difference of man and



this difference of man andwoman is supported by

religion and philosophy

„The female is a female by virtue of a

certain lack of qualities,‟ said Aristotle;„we should regard the female nature as

afflicted with a natural defectiveness.‟

St Thomas pronounced woman to be an„imperfect man‟, an „incidental‟ being.

This is symbolised in Genesis where Eveis depicted as made from a bone of

Adam.



Thus humanity is male

and man defines womannot in herself but as

relative to him.Man is the Self and

woman is the Other.



He is the Subject/

Self,

he is the Absolute –

-she is the Other.



man and manly



woman and womanly



Lévi-Strauss: Passage from the state of

Nature to the state of Culture is marked

by man‟s ability to view biological

relations as a series of contrasts; duality,

alternation, opposition, and symmetryThese phenomena would be

incomprehensible if in fact human

society were simply a Mitsein or

fellowship based on solidarity and

friendliness



Hegel: we find in

consciousness itself a

fundamental hostility towards

every other consciousness;

the subject can be posed onlyin being opposed – he sets

himself up as the essential, as

opposed to the other, the

inessential, the object.



But the other consciousness, the

other ego, sets up a reciprocal claim.

How is it, then, that this reciprocity

has not been recognised between the

sexes, that one of the contrasting

terms is set up as the sole essential,

denying any relativity in regard to its

correlative and defining the latter as



Why is it that women do not

dispute male sovereignty? Nosubject will readily volunteer

to become the object, theinessential; it is not the Other

who, in defining himself asthe Other, establishes the

Wh d / i d



Why do women/men remainedwithin the stereotype?



Diff t f th



Different from otheroppressed groups

Never formed a minority or a separate

collective unit of mankind.

The otherness in this case seems to be

an absolute partly because this othering

lacks the contingent or incidental natureof historical facts





The reason for this is that women lack

concrete means for organising

themselves into a unit – They have no past, no history, no

religion of their own; and they have no

such solidarity of work and interest as

that of the proletariat.



Nobody will ever win theBattle of the Sexes.

There's just too muchfraternizing with the

enemy.

- Henry Kissinger

h f il t l



why woman may fail to layclaim to the status of subject

• because she lacks definiteresources,

• because she feels the necessarybond that ties her to man

regardless of reciprocity, or• because she is often very well

pleased with her role as the Other.



French feminist de laBarre: „All that has been

written about women bymen should be suspect, for

the men are at once judgeand party to the lawsuit.‟



An attempt to grant „equality in

difference‟ to the other sex. Like

the „equal but separate‟ formula

of the laws aimed at the North

American Negroes. These so-

called equalitarian segregation has

resulted only in the most extremediscrimination



t e att e or t e equa ty o sexes s

often opposed with confusing

questions of happiness/peacebut the justification for

present existence is itsexpansion into an

indefinitely open future:greater opportunities, greater

Th d f ll i t th



The downfall into thebrutish life of subjection togiven conditions – and of liberty into constraint and

contingence, represents amoral fault if the subject

consents to it; and if it isinflicted upon him, it brings

frustration and oppression



simone de beauvoir

“when we abolish the slavery

of half of humanity,

together with the whole

system of hypocrisy

that it implies,

then the „division‟ of humanity

will reveal its genuine significance

and the human couple will find its true form”





I Ideological

Hannah Arendt has observed that

government is upheld by power supported

either through consent or imposed through

violence. Conditioning to an ideology

amounts to the former. Sexual politics

obtains consent through the "socialisation"

of both sexes to basic patriarchal politieswith regard to temperament, role, and

status.







































Documents

Beauvoir. Second Sex