Discussion starter- De Beauvoir

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir uses two different approaches, one gender-based and the other existential to explain the condition of women. Her main idea is that a woman is a subject, an individual, but her environment (society, other women, men, history) confines her in an image of the other (to man) and makes her an object through education, traditions, social values. It is her environment that engraves in her this passive attitude that serves to justify further objectification.

In the chapter on history, de Beauvoir explains the origin and the evolution of the idea of women inferiority that was for long maintained. Since women are not biologically, naturally destined to be inferior, this results in inferiority being social construct. The very idea of trying to justify inferiority through biology is itself nonsensical, because there is a lot more to society than the biology of its individuals. Psychoanalytical analysis similarly portrays men as superior without actually explaining why. This is why Simone de Beauvoir initially takes an existential approach in order to understand the condition of women.

The three axes that the author focuses on are:

Woman as a slave to the body: Her limited physical force and being a mother confine her to the household.

Woman as a slave to myth: Society has always been centered around the male, a historical social patriarchy. Religion played an important role in this.

Woman as a slave to property:  Man considers a woman to be a form of property, thus going from being the other to being an object.

De Beauvoir considers the evolution of women to deconstruct the various pre-conceived ideas about them, she challenges the role of marriage in their happiness, she pushes against the notion of motherly instinct and considers it to be a patriarchal idea. Instead, she believes that contraceptives and abortion are a way to escape from that social confine. She also examines the condition of prostitutes, whom she considers as rebels against the patriarchal system since they are using men as an instrument, but then pushes back against the idea and claims that women should have a “decent job”.

To conclude, the author believes that the liberation of women is underway but there is a lot of progress still to be achieved. The right to vote, was according to her, a step in the right way but not a very significant step without an equal access to work. (This is why she believes in socialism). She states, however, that the independent woman has to make sacrifices, including possibly not having a family in order to achieve her life goals.

Beauvoir dreams on an equality between the sexes but also of them living in harmony. This can only happen if men stopped mystifying women and women stopped being so feminine.