Tentative Answer: de Beauvoir and the Other

What is negative about woman being ‘the Other’?

            In Chapter XI of The Second Sex, “Myth and Reality”, Simone de Beauvoir introduces her concept of the postulation of women as “the Other” by men when discussing the myth of women as it compares to the reality of women. She writes, “…against the dispersed, contingent, and multiple existences of actual women, mythical thought opposes the Eternal Feminine, unique and changeless” and that “we are told not that Femininity is a false entity, but that women concerned are not feminine. The contrary facts of experience are impotent against the myth. In a way, however, its source is in experience. Thus it is quite true that woman is other than man” (253). Here, de Beauvoir argues that there is a Woman men view as the true woman, who is characterized by absolute feminine ideals, and that men judge “actual” women by the standard of the mythical Woman. In the second quote, she explains that while the myth does not adhere to the experiences of real women, in a way it’s based off of experiences of men in relation to women. At the end of the paragraph, de Beauvoir concludes, “To pose Woman is to pose the absolute Other, without reciprocity, denying against all experience that she is a subject, a fellow human being” (253). Thus, de Beauvoir argues that positioning women as the exact opposite of men, as the Other, takes the humanity away from women and turns them into objects that are shaped by the experiences of men. Because men pose women as the Other, de Beauvoir argues that women are not allowed the same engagement with their own humanity or the world; because they are oppressed and construed as one image/object, they cannot reach full self-actualization.