The Second Sex
Encyclopedia
The Second Sex is one of the best-known works of the French
existentialist
Simone de Beauvoir
. It is a work on the treatment of women throughout history and often regarded as a major work of feminist literature and the starting point of second-wave feminism
. Beauvoir researched and wrote the book in about 14 months. She published it in two volumes and some chapters first appeared in Les Temps modernes
. The Vatican placed it on its List of Prohibited Books
.
and Alfred Adler
. She then rejects them both, for example finding that a study of eroticism in the context of perception goes beyond the capabilities of the psychoanalytic framework. In chapter 3 "The Point of View of Historical Materialism", Beauvoir relates The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
by Friedrich Engels
but ultimately finds it lacking any basis or reasons for its claims to assign "the great historical defeat of the female sex" to the invention of bronze
and the emergence of private property
. She quotes Engels, "for now we know nothing about it" and rejects him because he "dodges" the answers.
, and eventually the opinion of ancient Greeks like Pythagoras
who wrote, "There is a good principle that created order, light and man and a bad principle that created chaos, darkness and woman." Men succeed in the world by transcendence
, but immanence
is the lot of women. In chapter 3, explaining inheritance historically, Beauvoir says men oppress women when they seek to perpetuate the family and keep patrimony intact. A comparison follows of women's situation in ancient Greece with Rome. In Greece, with exceptions like Sparta
where there were no restraints on women's freedom, women are treated almost like slaves. Menander
writes, "Woman is a pain that never goes away." In Rome because men were still the masters, women enjoyed more rights but, still discriminated against on the basis of their gender, had only empty freedom. In chapter 4, Beauvoir says that with the exception of German
tradition, Christianity
and its clergy
served to subordinate women, quoting Paul the Apostle, Ambrose
, and John Chrysostom
(who wrote, "Of all the wild animals, none can be found as harmful as women.") She also describes prostitution
and the changes in dynamics brought about by courtly love
that occurred about the twelfth century. Beauvoir then describes from the early fifteenth century "great Italian
ladies and courtesans" and singles out the Spaniard
Teresa of Ávila
as successfully raising "herself as high as a man". Through the nineteenth century women's legal status remained unchanged but individuals (like Marguerite de Navarre
) excelled by writing
and acting
. Some men like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
, Molière
, the Marquis de Condorcet
, and François Poullain de la Barre
helped women's status through their works. In chapter 5, Beauvoir finds fault with the Napoleonic Code
and criticizes Auguste Comte
and Honoré de Balzac
. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
is described as an antifeminist who valued a woman at 8/27th the value of a man. The Industrial Revolution
of the nineteenth century gave women an escape from their homes but they were paid little for their work. Beauvoir then traces the growth of trade union
s and participation by women. She then examines the spread of birth control
methods from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century, and then touches on the history of abortion
. She then relates the history of women's suffrage
in France
, New Zealand
, Australia
, the United Kingdom
, the United States
, Sweden
, Norway
, Finland
, Germany
and the U.S.S.R. Beauvoir writes that women who have finally begun to feel at home on the earth like Rosa Luxemburg
and Marie Curie
"brilliantly demonstrate that it is not women's inferiority that has determined their historical insignificance: it is their historical insignificance that has doomed them to inferiority".
, virginity
, and female sexuality including copulation
, marriage
, motherhood
, and prostitution
. To illustrate man's experience of the "horror of feminine fertility", Beauvoir quotes the British Medical Journal
of 1878 in which a member of the British Medical Association
writes, "It is an indisputable fact that meat goes bad when touched by menstruating women." She quotes poetry by André Breton
, Léopold Sédar Senghor
, Michel Leiris
, Paul Verlaine
, Edgar Allan Poe
, Paul Valéry
, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
, and William Shakespeare
(Hamlet
) along with other novels, philosophers, and films (Citizen Kane
). Beauvoir writes on the last page of the chapter that sexual division is maintained in homosexuality, presumably to indicate that she thinks her work applies to all humans.
Chapter 2 examines the bodies of work of five example writers, in six sections, Montherlant
or the Bread of Disgust, D. H. Lawrence
or Phallic Pride, Claudel
or the Handmaiden of the Lord, Breton
or Poetry, Stendahl or Romancing the Real, and an unnamed summary. Beauvoir writes that these "examples show that the great collective myths are reflected in each singular writer". "Feminine devotion is demanded as a duty by Montherlant and Lawrence; less arrogant, Claudel, Breton, and Stendahl admire it as a generous choice...." She finds that woman is "the privileged Other, that Other is defined in the "way the One chooses to posit himself", and:
The chapter closes with the thought, "The absence or insignificance of the female element in a body of work is symptomatic... it loses importance in a period like ours in which each individual's particular problems are of secondary import."
In Chapter 3, Beauvoir says that "mystery" is prominent among men's myths about women. She also says mystery is not confined by sex to women but instead by situation, and that it pertains to any slave. She thinks it disappeared for example during the eighteenth century when men however briefly considered women to be peers. Beauvoir believes that men's sensibility and sexuality could be changing and that a new outlook is being born right now. To close Part One, she quotes Arthur Rimbaud
who writes that eventually women can become fully human beings when man gives her her freedom.
, Helene Deutsch
, Thyde Monnier, and Dr. W. Liepmann, Beauvoir presents a child's life beginning with birth and attachment to maternal flesh. She contrasts a girl's upbringing with a boy's, who at age 3 or 4 is told he is a "little man". She describes and rejects Freud's "female castration complex" and says that girls do learn to envy aspects of boy's urination. Girls are given a doll as an alter ego and in compensation. A girl is taught to be a woman and her "feminine" destiny is imposed on her by her teachers and society. She has, for example, no inate "maternal instinct". Because housework can be done by a young child, sometimes her mother asks her to do it. A girl comes to believe in and to worship a male god and to create imaginary adult lovers. The discovery of sex is a "phenomenon as painful as weaning" and she views it with disgust. When she discovers that men, not women, are the masters of the world the revelation "imperiously modifies her consciousness of herself". Beauvoir concludes this chapter with a description of puberty
and starting menstruation
as well as the way girls imagine sex with a man.
In chapter 2 "The Girl", Beauvoir describes ways that girls in their late teens accept their "femininity". Girls might do this by running away from home, through fascination with the disgusting, by following nature, or by stealing. Chapter 3 "Sexual Initiation" is a description of sexual relations with men. Along with numbers of psychiatrists, Beauvoir believed that the repercussions of the first of these experiences informs a woman's whole life. Chapter 4 "The Lesbian" is a description of sexual relations with women, which Beauvoir believed that society thought was a "forbidden path". She wrote that "homosexuality is no more a deliberate perversion than a fatal curse".
which she says is "holding away death but also refusing life". She thinks, "what makes the lot of the wife-servant ungratifying is the division of labor that dooms her wholly to the general and inessential". Beauvoir says a woman finds her dignity only in accepting her vassalage which is bed "service" and housework "service". A woman is weaned away from her family and finds only "disappointment" on the day after her wedding. Beauvoir points out various inequalities between a wife and husband (in for example, age) and finds they pass the time not in love but in "conjugal love". She thinks that marriage "almost always destroys woman". She quotes Sophia Tolstoy who wrote in her diary: "you are stuck there forever and there you must sit". Beauvoir thinks marriage is a perverted institution.
Chapter 6 "The Mother" is two-thirds not about children. The first nine pages or so are an exposition on abortion and the following fourteen pages describe pregnancy
. When she arrives at children, Beauvoir continues in negative mode with, "maternal sadomasochism creates guilt feelings for the daughter that will express themselves in sadomasochistic behavior toward her own children, without end". She finishes with an appeal for socialist
child rearing practices, "in a properly organized society where the child would in great part be taken charge of by the group".
In chapter 7 "Social Life", Beauvoir describes a woman's clothes, her girlfriends and her relationships with priests, doctors, famous performers, and lovers, concluding that "...adultery, friendships, and social life are but diversions within married life...." She also thinks, "marriage, by frustrating women's erotic satisfaction, denies them the freedom and individuality fo their feelings, drives them to adultery...." In chapter 8 "Prostitutes and Hetaeras", Beauvoir describes prostitutes and their relationships with pimp
s and with other women, as well as hetaera
s who may be movie star
s like Rita Hayworth
. Chapter 9 "From Maturity to Old Age" is women's crazy path to menopause
which might arouse woman's homosexual feelings (which Beauvoir thinks are latent in most women). When she agrees to grow old she becomes elderly
with half of her adult life left to live. Woman might choose to live through her children (often her son) or her grandchildren but she faces "solitude, regret, and ennui". To pass her time she might engage in useless "women's handiwork" (which can't be a diversion because the "mind is vacant"), watercolors, music or reading, or she might join charitable organizations. While a few rare women are committed to a cause and have an end in mind, Beauvoir concludes that "the highest form of freedom a woman-parasite can have is stoic defiance or skeptical irony".
In chapter 10 "Woman's Situation and Character", Beauvoir says a woman knows how to be as active, effective and silent as a man. She says Stendahl said that woman handles masculine logic "as skillfully as man if she has to". But her situation keeps her being useful, preparing food, clothes, and lodging. She worries because she does not do anything, she complains, she cries, and she may threaten suicide. She protests but doesn't escape her lot. She may achieve happiness in "Harmony" and the "Good" as illustrated by Virginia Woolf
and Katherine Mansfield
. She is the target of religion
. Beauvoir thinks it is pointless to try to decide whether woman is superior or inferior, and that it is obvious that the man's situation is "infinitely preferable". She writes, "for woman there is no other way out than to work for her liberation
".
and in the theater. Chapter 12 "The Woman in Love" describes women in and outside marriage: "The day when it will be possible for the woman to love in her strength and not in her weakness, not to escape from herself but to find herself, not out of resignation but to affirm herself, love will become for her as for man the source of life and not a mortal danger." Chapter 13 "The Mystic" talks about the lives of among others, Mme. Guyon, Mme. Krüdener, Saint Catherine of Siena
, Angela of Foligno
, Marie Alacoque
, Catherine Emmerich, and Therese Neumann
, some of whom developed stigmata
. Beauvoir says these women may develop a relation "with an unreal"— with their double or a god, or they create an "unreal relation with a real being".
and Robert
Schumann. Beauvoir says that the goals of wives can be overwhelming: as a wife tries to be elegant, a good housekeeper and a good mother. Singled out are "actresses
, dancers
and singers
" who may achieve independence. Among writers, Beauvoir chooses only Emily Brontë
, Woolf and ("sometimes") Mary Webb
(and she mentions Colette
and Mansfield) as among those who have tried to approach nature "in its inhuman freedom". Beauvoir then says that women don't "challenge the human condition" and that in comparison to the few "greats", woman comes out as "mediocre" and will continue at that level for quite some time. A woman could not have been Vincent Van Gogh
or Franz Kafka
. Beauvoir thinks that perhaps, of all women, only Saint Teresa
lived her life for herself. She says it is "high time" woman "be left to take her own chances".
In her conclusion, Beauvoir traces a future when women and men are equals, something the "Soviet revolution
promised" but did not ever deliver:
Beauvoir explains "a basic law of political economy
" to stop "endless debate" about "the ambiguity of the words 'give' and 'take'". She says that a woman needs to understand that "an exchange...is negotiated according to the value the proposed merchandise has for the buyer and not for the seller: she was duped by being persuaded she was priceless...." Beauvoir takes time to answer skeptics and her critics but quickly reaches the end:
from the "normal" male. Men have objectified women in a case of Hegel's master-slave dialectic
. Beauvoir's solution is for men and women to see themselves as both subjects
and objects
. Beauvoir wrote the book after attempting to write about herself. The first thing she wrote was that she was a woman, but she realized that she needed to define what a woman was, which became the intent of the book. She concludes The Second Sex with a picture of a future in which men and women are equals: "recognizing each other as subject, each will remain an other for the other...."
says that Beauvoir's
formulation that "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman", distinguishes the terms 'sex' and 'gender'. Borde and Malovany-Chevalier, in their complete English version, translated this formulation as "One is not born, but rather becomes, woman" because in this context (one of many different usages of "woman" in the book), the word is used by de Beauvoir to mean woman as a construct or an idea, rather than woman as an individual or one of a group. Butler says that the book suggests that "gender" is an aspect of identity which is "gradually acquired". Butler sees The Second Sex as potentially providing a radical understanding of gender. However, to be true to the times in which the book was written and to the words chosen by its author, the translators did not use the word "gender", which is a term developed in a later period, instead using de Beauvoir's term "sex" throughout.
Many commentators have pointed out that the 1953 English translation of The Second Sex by H. M. Parshley, frequently reissued, is poor. The delicate vocabulary of philosophical concepts is frequently mistranslated, and great swaths of the text have been excised. The English publication rights to the book are owned by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc
and although the publishers had been made aware of the problems with the English text, they long insisted that there was really no need for a new translation, even though Simone de Beauvoir herself explicitly requested one in a 1985 interview: "I would like very much for another translation of The Second Sex to be done, one that is much more faithful; more complete and more faithful."
The publishers gave in to those requests, and commissioned a new translation to Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier. The result, published in November 2009, has met with generally positive reviews from literary critics, who credit Borde and Malovany-Chevalier with having diligently restored the sections of the text missing from the Parshley edition, as well as correcting many of its mistakes.
Other reviewers, however, including Toril Moi
, one of the most vociferous critics of the original 1953 translation, are critical of the new edition, voicing concerns with its style, syntax and philosophical and syntactic integrity. The publisher made at least one correction based on Moi's review; the book now ends in the word that Beauvoir chose: "brotherhood" . In Tamil
, Sujatha Rangarajan
was impressed by this book and wrote Eppothum Penn based on it.
Francine du Plessix Gray
, who cites some confused English in the new edition and compliments Parshley, in a review for The New York Times
wrote, "Should we rejoice that this first unabridged edition of “The Second Sex” appears in a new translation? I, for one, do not." But she concludes:
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
existentialist
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
. It is a work on the treatment of women throughout history and often regarded as a major work of feminist literature and the starting point of second-wave feminism
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
. Beauvoir researched and wrote the book in about 14 months. She published it in two volumes and some chapters first appeared in Les Temps modernes
Les Temps modernes
The first issue of Les Temps modernes , the most important cultural review of the period after World War II, appeared in October 1945. It was known as the review of Jean-Paul Sartre. It was named for a film by Charlie Chaplin...
. The Vatican placed it on its List of Prohibited Books
Index Librorum Prohibitorum
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of publications prohibited by the Catholic Church. A first version was promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1559, and a revised and somewhat relaxed form was authorized at the Council of Trent...
.
Destiny
Part One "Destiny" has three chapters. The first, "Biological Data", describes the relationship of ovum to sperm in all kinds of creatures (fish, insects, mammals). Then Beauvoir proceeds to the human being, comparing the physiology of men and women, and saying that women are weaker than men (for example, in muscular strength, with fewer red blood cells, and a lesser respiratory capacity). In chapter 2 "The Psychoanalytical Point of View", Beauvoir first expounds the theories of Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
and Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. In collaboration with Sigmund Freud and a small group of Freud's colleagues, Adler was among the co-founders of the psychoanalytic movement as a core member of the Vienna...
. She then rejects them both, for example finding that a study of eroticism in the context of perception goes beyond the capabilities of the psychoanalytic framework. In chapter 3 "The Point of View of Historical Materialism", Beauvoir relates The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State: in the light of the researches of Lewis H. Morgan is a historical materialist treatise written by Friedrich Engels and published in 1884. It is partially based on notes by Karl Marx to Lewis H...
by Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
but ultimately finds it lacking any basis or reasons for its claims to assign "the great historical defeat of the female sex" to the invention of bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
and the emergence of private property
Private property
Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...
. She quotes Engels, "for now we know nothing about it" and rejects him because he "dodges" the answers.
History
Part Two "History" has five chapters which are unnamed in the unabridged, second translation. According to Beauvoir, two factors explain the evolution of women's condition: participation in production and freedom from reproductive slavery. In chapter 1, Beauvoir states the problem that motherhood left woman "riveted to her body" like an animal and made it possible for men to dominate her and Nature. In chapter 2, she describes man's gradual domination of women, starting with the statue of a female Great Goddess found in SusaSusa
Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....
, and eventually the opinion of ancient Greeks like Pythagoras
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...
who wrote, "There is a good principle that created order, light and man and a bad principle that created chaos, darkness and woman." Men succeed in the world by transcendence
Transcendence (religion)
In religion transcendence refers to the aspect of God's nature which is wholly independent of the physical universe. This is contrasted with immanence where God is fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways...
, but immanence
Immanence
Immanence refers to philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence, in which the divine is seen to be manifested in or encompassing of the material world. It is often contrasted with theories of transcendence, in which the divine is seen to be outside the material world...
is the lot of women. In chapter 3, explaining inheritance historically, Beauvoir says men oppress women when they seek to perpetuate the family and keep patrimony intact. A comparison follows of women's situation in ancient Greece with Rome. In Greece, with exceptions like Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
where there were no restraints on women's freedom, women are treated almost like slaves. Menander
Menander
Menander , Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy, was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso...
writes, "Woman is a pain that never goes away." In Rome because men were still the masters, women enjoyed more rights but, still discriminated against on the basis of their gender, had only empty freedom. In chapter 4, Beauvoir says that with the exception of German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
tradition, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and its clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
served to subordinate women, quoting Paul the Apostle, Ambrose
Ambrose
Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Saint Ambrose , was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church.-Political career:Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family between about...
, and John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom , Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic...
(who wrote, "Of all the wild animals, none can be found as harmful as women.") She also describes prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
and the changes in dynamics brought about by courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
that occurred about the twelfth century. Beauvoir then describes from the early fifteenth century "great Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
ladies and courtesans" and singles out the Spaniard
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
Teresa of Ávila
Teresa of Ávila
Saint Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer...
as successfully raising "herself as high as a man". Through the nineteenth century women's legal status remained unchanged but individuals (like Marguerite de Navarre
Marguerite de Navarre
Marguerite de Navarre , also known as Marguerite of Angoulême and Margaret of Navarre, was the queen consort of Henry II of Navarre...
) excelled by writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
and acting
Acting
Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
. Some men like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was a German magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, and alchemist.-Life:Agrippa was born in Cologne in 1486...
, Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, the Marquis de Condorcet
Marquis de Condorcet
Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet , known as Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French philosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist whose Condorcet method in voting tally selects the candidate who would beat each of the other candidates in a run-off election...
, and François Poullain de la Barre
François Poullain de la Barre
François Poulain de la Barre , was a writer, Cartesian and feminist philosopher.-Life:...
helped women's status through their works. In chapter 5, Beauvoir finds fault with the Napoleonic Code
Napoleonic code
The Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified...
and criticizes Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...
and Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French politician, mutualist philosopher and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first person to call himself an "anarchist". He is considered among the most influential theorists and organisers of anarchism...
is described as an antifeminist who valued a woman at 8/27th the value of a man. The Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
of the nineteenth century gave women an escape from their homes but they were paid little for their work. Beauvoir then traces the growth of trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s and participation by women. She then examines the spread of birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
methods from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century, and then touches on the history of abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
. She then relates the history of women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and the U.S.S.R. Beauvoir writes that women who have finally begun to feel at home on the earth like Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
and Marie Curie
Marie Curie
Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry...
"brilliantly demonstrate that it is not women's inferiority that has determined their historical insignificance: it is their historical insignificance that has doomed them to inferiority".
Myths
Part Three "Myths" has three chapters. Chapter 1 is a long, wide-ranging presentation about the "everlasting disappointment" of women for the most part from a male heterosexual's point of view. It covers female menstruationMenstruation
Menstruation is the shedding of the uterine lining . It occurs on a regular basis in sexually reproductive-age females of certain mammal species. This article focuses on human menstruation.-Overview:...
, virginity
Virginity
Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth...
, and female sexuality including copulation
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
, marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
, motherhood
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
, and prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. To illustrate man's experience of the "horror of feminine fertility", Beauvoir quotes the British Medical Journal
BMJ
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
of 1878 in which a member of the British Medical Association
British Medical Association
The British Medical Association is the professional association and registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association’s headquarters are located in BMA House,...
writes, "It is an indisputable fact that meat goes bad when touched by menstruating women." She quotes poetry by André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, Léopold Sédar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese poet, politician, and cultural theorist who for two decades served as the first president of Senegal . Senghor was the first African elected as a member of the Académie française. Before independence, he founded the political party called the Senegalese...
, Michel Leiris
Michel Leiris
Julien Michel Leiris was a French surrealist writer and ethnographer.-Biography:...
, Paul Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...
, Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, Paul Valéry
Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
, and William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
) along with other novels, philosophers, and films (Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
). Beauvoir writes on the last page of the chapter that sexual division is maintained in homosexuality, presumably to indicate that she thinks her work applies to all humans.
Chapter 2 examines the bodies of work of five example writers, in six sections, Montherlant
Henry de Montherlant
Henry de Montherlant or Henry Marie Joseph Frédéric Expedite Millon de Montherlant was a French essayist, novelist and one of the leading French dramatists of the twentieth century.- Works :...
or the Bread of Disgust, D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
or Phallic Pride, Claudel
Paul Claudel
Paul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
or the Handmaiden of the Lord, Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
or Poetry, Stendahl or Romancing the Real, and an unnamed summary. Beauvoir writes that these "examples show that the great collective myths are reflected in each singular writer". "Feminine devotion is demanded as a duty by Montherlant and Lawrence; less arrogant, Claudel, Breton, and Stendahl admire it as a generous choice...." She finds that woman is "the privileged Other, that Other is defined in the "way the One chooses to posit himself", and:
"But the only earthly destiny reserved to the woman equal, child-woman, soul sister, woman-sex, and female animal is always man."
The chapter closes with the thought, "The absence or insignificance of the female element in a body of work is symptomatic... it loses importance in a period like ours in which each individual's particular problems are of secondary import."
In Chapter 3, Beauvoir says that "mystery" is prominent among men's myths about women. She also says mystery is not confined by sex to women but instead by situation, and that it pertains to any slave. She thinks it disappeared for example during the eighteenth century when men however briefly considered women to be peers. Beauvoir believes that men's sensibility and sexuality could be changing and that a new outlook is being born right now. To close Part One, she quotes Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
who writes that eventually women can become fully human beings when man gives her her freedom.
Formative Years
Part One has four chapters. In chapter 1 "Childhood", sometimes quoting Colette AudryColette Audry
Colette Audry was a French novelist, screenwriter, and critic. She won the Prix Médicis for the autobiographical novel Derrière la baignoire . As a screenwriter she first gained acclaim for The Battle for the Railway and also wrote for her sister Jacqueline...
, Helene Deutsch
Helene Deutsch
Helene Deutsch was an Austrian-American psychoanalyst and colleague of Sigmund Freud. She was the first psychoanalyst to specialize in women.- Life :...
, Thyde Monnier, and Dr. W. Liepmann, Beauvoir presents a child's life beginning with birth and attachment to maternal flesh. She contrasts a girl's upbringing with a boy's, who at age 3 or 4 is told he is a "little man". She describes and rejects Freud's "female castration complex" and says that girls do learn to envy aspects of boy's urination. Girls are given a doll as an alter ego and in compensation. A girl is taught to be a woman and her "feminine" destiny is imposed on her by her teachers and society. She has, for example, no inate "maternal instinct". Because housework can be done by a young child, sometimes her mother asks her to do it. A girl comes to believe in and to worship a male god and to create imaginary adult lovers. The discovery of sex is a "phenomenon as painful as weaning" and she views it with disgust. When she discovers that men, not women, are the masters of the world the revelation "imperiously modifies her consciousness of herself". Beauvoir concludes this chapter with a description of puberty
Puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes by which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of reproduction, as initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads; the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy...
and starting menstruation
Menstruation
Menstruation is the shedding of the uterine lining . It occurs on a regular basis in sexually reproductive-age females of certain mammal species. This article focuses on human menstruation.-Overview:...
as well as the way girls imagine sex with a man.
In chapter 2 "The Girl", Beauvoir describes ways that girls in their late teens accept their "femininity". Girls might do this by running away from home, through fascination with the disgusting, by following nature, or by stealing. Chapter 3 "Sexual Initiation" is a description of sexual relations with men. Along with numbers of psychiatrists, Beauvoir believed that the repercussions of the first of these experiences informs a woman's whole life. Chapter 4 "The Lesbian" is a description of sexual relations with women, which Beauvoir believed that society thought was a "forbidden path". She wrote that "homosexuality is no more a deliberate perversion than a fatal curse".
Situation
Part Two "Situation" has six chapters. In chapter 5 "The Married Woman" Beauvoir demonstrates her negative thoughts about marriage saying that "to ask two spouses bound by practical, social and moral ties to satisfy each other sexually for their whole lives is pure absurdity". She then describes the work of married women, beginning with several pages about housecleaningHousekeeping
Housekeeping is the act of cleaning the rooms and furnishings of a home. It is one of the many chores included in the term housework. Housecleaning includes activities such as disposing of rubbish, cleaning dirty surfaces, dusting and vacuuming. It may also involve some outdoor chores, such as...
which she says is "holding away death but also refusing life". She thinks, "what makes the lot of the wife-servant ungratifying is the division of labor that dooms her wholly to the general and inessential". Beauvoir says a woman finds her dignity only in accepting her vassalage which is bed "service" and housework "service". A woman is weaned away from her family and finds only "disappointment" on the day after her wedding. Beauvoir points out various inequalities between a wife and husband (in for example, age) and finds they pass the time not in love but in "conjugal love". She thinks that marriage "almost always destroys woman". She quotes Sophia Tolstoy who wrote in her diary: "you are stuck there forever and there you must sit". Beauvoir thinks marriage is a perverted institution.
Chapter 6 "The Mother" is two-thirds not about children. The first nine pages or so are an exposition on abortion and the following fourteen pages describe pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
. When she arrives at children, Beauvoir continues in negative mode with, "maternal sadomasochism creates guilt feelings for the daughter that will express themselves in sadomasochistic behavior toward her own children, without end". She finishes with an appeal for socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
child rearing practices, "in a properly organized society where the child would in great part be taken charge of by the group".
In chapter 7 "Social Life", Beauvoir describes a woman's clothes, her girlfriends and her relationships with priests, doctors, famous performers, and lovers, concluding that "...adultery, friendships, and social life are but diversions within married life...." She also thinks, "marriage, by frustrating women's erotic satisfaction, denies them the freedom and individuality fo their feelings, drives them to adultery...." In chapter 8 "Prostitutes and Hetaeras", Beauvoir describes prostitutes and their relationships with pimp
Pimp
A pimp is an agent for prostitutes who collects part of their earnings. The pimp may receive this money in return for advertising services, physical protection, or for providing a location where she may engage clients...
s and with other women, as well as hetaera
Hetaera
In ancient Greece, hetaerae were courtesans, that is to say, highly educated, sophisticated companions...
s who may be movie star
Movie star
A movie star is a celebrity who is well-known, or famous, for his or her starring, or leading, roles in motion pictures. The term may also apply to an actor or actress who is recognized as a marketable commodity and whose name is used to promote a movie in trailers and posters...
s like Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
. Chapter 9 "From Maturity to Old Age" is women's crazy path to menopause
Menopause
Menopause is a term used to describe the permanent cessation of the primary functions of the human ovaries: the ripening and release of ova and the release of hormones that cause both the creation of the uterine lining and the subsequent shedding of the uterine lining...
which might arouse woman's homosexual feelings (which Beauvoir thinks are latent in most women). When she agrees to grow old she becomes elderly
Old age
Old age consists of ages nearing or surpassing the average life span of human beings, and thus the end of the human life cycle...
with half of her adult life left to live. Woman might choose to live through her children (often her son) or her grandchildren but she faces "solitude, regret, and ennui". To pass her time she might engage in useless "women's handiwork" (which can't be a diversion because the "mind is vacant"), watercolors, music or reading, or she might join charitable organizations. While a few rare women are committed to a cause and have an end in mind, Beauvoir concludes that "the highest form of freedom a woman-parasite can have is stoic defiance or skeptical irony".
In chapter 10 "Woman's Situation and Character", Beauvoir says a woman knows how to be as active, effective and silent as a man. She says Stendahl said that woman handles masculine logic "as skillfully as man if she has to". But her situation keeps her being useful, preparing food, clothes, and lodging. She worries because she does not do anything, she complains, she cries, and she may threaten suicide. She protests but doesn't escape her lot. She may achieve happiness in "Harmony" and the "Good" as illustrated by Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
and Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield
Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. Mansfield left for Great Britain in 1908 where she encountered Modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and...
. She is the target of religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
. Beauvoir thinks it is pointless to try to decide whether woman is superior or inferior, and that it is obvious that the man's situation is "infinitely preferable". She writes, "for woman there is no other way out than to work for her liberation
Feminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...
".
Justifications
Part Three "Justifications" is brief and has three chapters. Chapter 11 "The Narcissist" describes narcissistic women who might find themselves in a mirrorMirror
A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...
and in the theater. Chapter 12 "The Woman in Love" describes women in and outside marriage: "The day when it will be possible for the woman to love in her strength and not in her weakness, not to escape from herself but to find herself, not out of resignation but to affirm herself, love will become for her as for man the source of life and not a mortal danger." Chapter 13 "The Mystic" talks about the lives of among others, Mme. Guyon, Mme. Krüdener, Saint Catherine of Siena
Catherine of Siena
Saint Catherine of Siena, T.O.S.D, was a tertiary of the Dominican Order, and a Scholastic philosopher and theologian. She also worked to bring the papacy of Gregory XI back to Rome from its displacement in France, and to establish peace among the Italian city-states. She was proclaimed a Doctor...
, Angela of Foligno
Angela of Foligno
Angela of Foligno was a Christian author, Franciscan tertiary, and mystic. She was noted not only for her spiritual writings, but also for founding a religious order.-Early life and conversion:...
, Marie Alacoque
Marguerite Marie Alacoque
Marguerite Marie Alacoque or Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was a French Roman Catholic nun and mystic, who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in its modern form.-Early life:...
, Catherine Emmerich, and Therese Neumann
Therese Neumann
Therese Neumann was a German Catholic mystic and stigmatic.She was born in the village of Konnersreuth in Bavaria, Germany, where she lived all her life. She was born into a large family with little income. She was a member of the Third Order of St...
, some of whom developed stigmata
Stigmata
Stigmata are bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus, such as the hands and feet...
. Beauvoir says these women may develop a relation "with an unreal"— with their double or a god, or they create an "unreal relation with a real being".
Toward Liberation
Part Four "Toward Liberation" has one chapter and a conclusion. In chapter 14 "The Independent Woman", Beauvoir describes the difference for a male, who might for example move to a hotel in a new city, and a female who would feel the need to set up a household. She also mentions women with careers who are able to escape sadism and masochism. A few women have successfully reached a state of equality, and Beauvoir, in a footnote, singles out the example of ClaraClara Schumann
Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...
and Robert
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
Schumann. Beauvoir says that the goals of wives can be overwhelming: as a wife tries to be elegant, a good housekeeper and a good mother. Singled out are "actresses
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, dancers
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
and singers
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
" who may achieve independence. Among writers, Beauvoir chooses only Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
, Woolf and ("sometimes") Mary Webb
Mary Webb
Mary Webb , was an English romantic novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew. Her novels have been successfully dramatized, most notably the film Gone to Earth in 1950 by Michael...
(and she mentions Colette
Colette
Colette was the surname of the French novelist and performer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette . She is best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title.-Early life and marriage:Colette was born to retired military officer Jules-Joseph...
and Mansfield) as among those who have tried to approach nature "in its inhuman freedom". Beauvoir then says that women don't "challenge the human condition" and that in comparison to the few "greats", woman comes out as "mediocre" and will continue at that level for quite some time. A woman could not have been Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
or Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
. Beauvoir thinks that perhaps, of all women, only Saint Teresa
Teresa of Ávila
Saint Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer...
lived her life for herself. She says it is "high time" woman "be left to take her own chances".
In her conclusion, Beauvoir traces a future when women and men are equals, something the "Soviet revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
promised" but did not ever deliver:
...women raised and educated exactly like men would work under the same conditions and for the same salaries; erotic freedom would be accepted by custom, but the sexual act would no longer be considered a remunerable "service"; women would be obliged to provide another livelihood for themselves; marriage would be based on a free engagement that the spouses could break when they wanted to; motherhood would be freely chosen—that is, birth control and abortion would be allowed—and in return all mothers and their children would be given the same rights; maternity leave would be paid for by the society that would have responsibility for the children, which does not mean that they would be taken from their parents but that they would not be abandoned to them.
Beauvoir explains "a basic law of political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
" to stop "endless debate" about "the ambiguity of the words 'give' and 'take'". She says that a woman needs to understand that "an exchange...is negotiated according to the value the proposed merchandise has for the buyer and not for the seller: she was duped by being persuaded she was priceless...." Beauvoir takes time to answer skeptics and her critics but quickly reaches the end:
...to carry off this supreme victory, men and women must, among other things and beyond their natural differentiations, unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.
The Other
In it Beauvoir argues that women throughout history have been defined as the "other" sex, an aberrationAberration
An aberration is something that deviates from the normal way.Aberration may refer to:In optics and physics:*Optical aberration, an imperfection in image formation by an optical system...
from the "normal" male. Men have objectified women in a case of Hegel's master-slave dialectic
Master-slave dialectic
The Master-Slave dialectic is a famous passage of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. It is widely considered a key element in Hegel's philosophical system, and has heavily influenced many subsequent philosophers...
. Beauvoir's solution is for men and women to see themselves as both subjects
Subject (philosophy)
In philosophy, a subject is a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity . A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed...
and objects
Object (philosophy)
An object in philosophy is a technical term often used in contrast to the term subject. Consciousness is a state of cognition that includes the subject, which can never be doubted as only it can be the one who doubts, and some object or objects that may or may not have real existence without...
. Beauvoir wrote the book after attempting to write about herself. The first thing she wrote was that she was a woman, but she realized that she needed to define what a woman was, which became the intent of the book. She concludes The Second Sex with a picture of a future in which men and women are equals: "recognizing each other as subject, each will remain an other for the other...."
Gender and sex
Judith ButlerJudith Butler
Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
says that Beauvoir's
formulation that "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman", distinguishes the terms 'sex' and 'gender'. Borde and Malovany-Chevalier, in their complete English version, translated this formulation as "One is not born, but rather becomes, woman" because in this context (one of many different usages of "woman" in the book), the word is used by de Beauvoir to mean woman as a construct or an idea, rather than woman as an individual or one of a group. Butler says that the book suggests that "gender" is an aspect of identity which is "gradually acquired". Butler sees The Second Sex as potentially providing a radical understanding of gender. However, to be true to the times in which the book was written and to the words chosen by its author, the translators did not use the word "gender", which is a term developed in a later period, instead using de Beauvoir's term "sex" throughout.
Translations
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
and although the publishers had been made aware of the problems with the English text, they long insisted that there was really no need for a new translation, even though Simone de Beauvoir herself explicitly requested one in a 1985 interview: "I would like very much for another translation of The Second Sex to be done, one that is much more faithful; more complete and more faithful."
The publishers gave in to those requests, and commissioned a new translation to Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier. The result, published in November 2009, has met with generally positive reviews from literary critics, who credit Borde and Malovany-Chevalier with having diligently restored the sections of the text missing from the Parshley edition, as well as correcting many of its mistakes.
Other reviewers, however, including Toril Moi
Toril Moi
Toril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. Previously she held positions as a lecturer in French at the University of Oxford and as Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Bergen, Norway...
, one of the most vociferous critics of the original 1953 translation, are critical of the new edition, voicing concerns with its style, syntax and philosophical and syntactic integrity. The publisher made at least one correction based on Moi's review; the book now ends in the word that Beauvoir chose: "brotherhood" . In Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, Sujatha Rangarajan
Sujatha Rangarajan
Sujatha was the pseudonym of the Tamil writer S. Rangarajan, author of over 100 novels, 250 short stories, ten books on science, ten stage plays, and a slim volume of poems. He was one of the most popular writers in Tamil literature, and a regular contributor to topical columns in Tamil...
was impressed by this book and wrote Eppothum Penn based on it.
Francine du Plessix Gray
Francine du Plessix Gray
-Biography:She was born September 25, 1930 in Warsaw, Poland where her father, Vicomte Bertrand Jochaud du Plessix, was a French diplomat - the commercial attaché. She spent her early years in Paris, where a milieu of mixed cultures and a multilingual family influenced her...
, who cites some confused English in the new edition and compliments Parshley, in a review for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Should we rejoice that this first unabridged edition of “The Second Sex” appears in a new translation? I, for one, do not." But she concludes:
“What a curse to be a woman!” Beauvoir writes, quoting Kierkegaard. “And yet the very worst curse when one is a woman is, in fact, not to understand that it is one.” No one has done more than Beauvoir to explain the conditions of that curse, and no one has more eloquently, irately challenged us to turn that curse into a blessing."
See also
- Feminist existentialism
- Le Mondes 100 Books of the Century
Le Monde's 100 Books of the CenturyThe 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....- Sexual Politics
Sexual PoliticsSexual Politics is a classic feminist text written by Kate Millett, said to be "the first book of academic feminist literary criticism", and "one of the first feminist books of this decade to raise nationwide male ire"....- The Female Eunuch
The Female EunuchThe Female Eunuch is a book first published in 1970 that became an international bestseller and an important text in the feminist movement. The author, Germaine Greer, became well known in broadcast media of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and her home of Australia...- The Feminine Mystique
The Feminine MystiqueThe Feminine Mystique, published February 19, 1963, by W.W. Norton and Co., is a nonfiction book written by Betty Friedan. It is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States....
External links
- The Guardian review
- The Times (London) review
- The Irish Times review
- The Independent (London) review
- 'The Second Sex' by Simone de Beauvoir (Free English Translation of a small part of the book)
- Paris Writers News (Paris) interview
- Translating the 'Second Sex (Sydney) radio interview