Sex In Simone De Beauvoir

Gender derives its formative meaning from culture and societal values, it is not a universal entity as there are various cultures, societal values, beliefs, and preferred ways of organizing collective life across the globe and even within a single culture the meaning of gender varies over time. Chapters three and four of Gendered Lives by Julia T. Wood helps to insightfully look at those views, and rhetorical movements (women and men’s movements) that have overtime influenced, defined and given various meanings to gender (masculinity and femininity).

‘‘Sex’ is a biological term; ‘gender’ a psychological and cultural one’ (Oakley 1972, p.158). To further expound on Oakley, ‘sex’ refers to the biological framework a person is born with while ‘gender’, an identity that we acquire as a result of social and cultural influence. Sex is naturally constant throughout an individual’s life whereas gender is a variable. Via gender socialisation, men and women constantly learn to adapt to society’s expectations associated with their biological form as society changes. This very concept clearly elucidates the dichotomy between sex and gender. Therefore, coming from such a perspective, it is true to say that we are born as human beings (males, females or intersex) who formulate socially accepted gender identities as a product of social and cultural implications (Abbott, Wallace & Tyler 2005). Conventionally, societies associate the male and female sexes with their definitions of masculinity and femininity respectively.

Throughout history, women have constantly been objectified and forced into submission by the male dominated society. Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical work, The Second Sex, echoes the intense oppression of women and reflects the first wave feminist movement. Her existentialist decoding of genders resulted in the idea of the Other, which explores the phenomenon of women forced into the role of an object, while men are the subject. In the second chapter, “The Girl”, Beauvoir further studies the idea of this oppression during one’s transition from a girl into a woman. Beauvoir states that no matter how much freedom and sense of self a girl holds, she is always forced into the role of the Other in society. Beauvoir 's idea of the Other held

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir questions the idea held in society that those who live simpler lives with no foreseeable challenges are inherently content and satisfied in their lives. Specifically, she disagrees with the idea that women who are oppressed, and thus, due to their lack of opportunities and freedoms, must lead lives that the patriarchal society makes available to them, are “happier” than the women whose freedom brings them challenges and shortcomings. De Beauvoir claims that we cannot assume someone is happy from what we see, and we cannot simply assume happiness means to that person what it does to us; “it is not too clear just what the word happy really mean and still less what true values it may mask. There is no possibility measuring the happiness of others, and it is always easy to describe as happy the situation in which one wishes to place them,” (de Beauvoir 261). She continues to discuss this idea of seeing one as happy in the situation the observer views as ideal, specifically the non-working woman stripped of her rights, whose lack of purpose and duties is seen as peaceful happiness, “in particular those who are condemned to stagnation are often pronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being at rest,” (de Beauvoir 261). This is not to say a woman’s happiness cannot be found being a housewife, but one cannot assume what will bring women joy and fulfillment, because all people are different with varying wants and needs. Women need all the opportunities available and full liberation in order to be able to find their happiness, if it can be found. Sara Ahmed says, “Feminism does not guarantee what we will find through this expansion of bodily horizons. It simply opens up the places where we can look,” (Ahmed 70). Ahmed goes on to explain how “happiness” may not even be a healthy goal, as often women are expected to give up much in order to be able to find a happiness that is likely unachievable. Ahmed also discusses the 2002 film The Hours, which tells the stories of three women living in different eras all struggling with their happiness in their vastly different lives. All three women experience other people in their lives telling them that they should be happy

The social ideology is a large contrast between “Groom Service” and “The Return”. In “Groom Service”, the society is dominated by females because Marie is shy and will not bully Bernard. It illustrates to the reader that women have the dominant position in the family. Therefore, it causes them not to take consideration of the husband’s feeling. In “The Return”, the society is dominated by males. Muthoni waited for Kamau until Kamau’s parents knew that the family cannot go on, so they gave her permission to leave. In fact, if Kamau’s parents do not give away their daughter – in – law, so Kamau can end up being with his wife. However, in “Groom Service”, no matter how hard Bernard tries to stay together with Doris; his desire will never be fulfilled.

The institution of poverty and lack of opportunity for woman is demonstrated by the characters of this novel. Sally, a girl abused by her fathers marries an older man because she is taught that marriage and “belonging” to a man is what will give her happiness and fulfillment in her life. The role of housewife and mother has always been

Jairaj and Ratna are Bharatanatyam dancers. The play opens with Jairaj and Ratna in their 1960s, looking again to their days of war on reflection, and within the 1950s while there has been a social stigma connected to the Bharatanatyam; that it is a dance shape of the devadasis. It is miles a prostitutes’ dance and participants of “respectable households” don’t perform or practice this form. Subsequently it is doubly hard for a man to pursue a profession in such a bodily dance as this which has categorically been confined to women. Jairaj consequently puts into question the perception of dance being a feminine art, instead of approximately sheer artistry and a female hold. Amritlal appears inside the play as a custodian of rigid gender roles. He emerges as the daddy whose authority finds expression simplest in conditioning the son’s desire together with his very own on the pretext of caring for him. Amritlal boasts of his task to eradicate the unpleasant practice of divine prostitution which he believes to be a "disgrace" to the society. But the reality concealed under his rhetoric is that he is more opposed to those hapless women than interested in exposing the foundation reason of the flesh exchange.

Judith Butler’s essay, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” calls for a new way to view sex and gender. Butler argues that “gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo”. In this case, gender is not constituted by what one is, but rather what one does; the performative acts constitute gender. In other words, gender is not the starting place; it is an identity repeatedly constructed throughout time. Butler is trying to show us a feminist perspective of sex and gender. She attempts to follow Beauvoir’s path in a fight against society norms.

Simone de Beauvoir, in her 1949 text The Second Sex, examines the problems faced by women in Western society. She argues that women are subjugated, oppressed, and made to be inferior to males – simply by virtue of the fact that they are women. She notes that men define their own world, and women are merely meant to live in it. She sees women as unable to change the world like men can, unable to live their lives freely as men can, and, tragically, mostly unaware of their own oppression. In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir describes the subjugation of woman, defines a method for her liberation, and recommends strategies for this liberation that still have not been implemented today.

In this essay I discuss that "doing gender means creating differences between girls and boys and women and men...." (West & Zimmerman 2002:13) I am concentrating on the female perspective, how societyputs forth expectations of what is 'natural' or biological even though, in some cases, it can be quite demeaning and degrading. I am using some examples from the local media and also a few childhoodexperiences that have helped me to now strongly suspect that the quote from Simone Beauvoir (1972) "One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one" most likely has quite a bit of truth to it.

Simone de Beauvoir starts her second volume of the book, The Second Sex, with the statement, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (267). This is one of the most famous statements of de Beauvoir. She argues that a woman is not born fragile, passive, or secondary; she is forced by her environment and the society to become so. A woman learns her role from her circumstance. I agree with de Beauvoir’s argument because nobody is born shy, gentle, or passive, they are just gradually shaped in that way by their upbringing. The same claim is plausible for women too. Femininity does not come from birth, it is shaped by our culture and sophistication. The difference between the characteristics of male and female is not because of any

In the chapter of her book The Second Sex entitled “the Woman in Love,” Simone de Beauvoir characterizes the romantic ideal of the relationship with a man as a woman’s purpose as a form of self-deception (translated here as “bad faith”). The self-deception de Beauvoir describes is based in the thesis of The Second Sex. This is the idea that women have been deceived into believing that they are second-class humans. Western culture, according to de Beauvoir, teaches us that women are missing some elusive element of the self that endows men with freedom- a concept essential to the existentialist definition of the conscious being. Therefore, a woman can never find fulfillment as a thinking person as

The following text comes from Simone de Beauvoir called “The Second Sex,” which discusses the ideas of the feminist

It may be possible to imagine a place where no one would make a fuss over the differences between a white or a black man, but unfortunately, it is likely impossible to imagine a society that would not comment on the differences between a man and a woman (Heinämaa, 127). Simone de Beauvoir was quite determined to give society a glimpse into what it meant to be a woman within her time period, and did so by writing her novel The Second Sex which brought many controversial topics to light. There are four concepts I will be mentioning in different sections of this paper, and it is best to know how Beauvoir personally defines these terms. Firstly, “alienation” refers to the action of projecting oneself into a different person or object, thereby losing all responsibility for yourself (Moi,

At the point when a person fitting in with a Western society weds a person who has experienced childhood in Islamic society, both the people try to adjust to each other’s culture. Case in point in the book Not Without My Daughter, Betty who was brought up in Western society tries to absorb into the way of life of her Iranian spouse. She goes with her spouse to Iran to spend a two-week excursion there. As she is mindful of the way that a lady is required to cover her head in Iran, she utilizes a scarf to cover her head even before coming to Iran. She likewise permits her little girl to be named Mahtob, which was an Iranian name. Through these endeavors, Betty tries to turn into a piece of the way of life to which her spouse had a place. Betty's marriage was a union of Western society and Islamic society. Albeit there were numerous distinctions in the way of life of Betty and her spouse Moody, they lived agreeably after their marriage. Living in America, Betty and Moody drove an upbeat and placated wedded life. In a marriage where the life partners fit in with diverse societies, it is critical that every mate adjusts and comprehend the way of life of other companion. In a house where two societies exist, the kids are raised in a social domain which is affected by the way of life of the mother and father. The conduct and thinking about the youngsters show the impact of both the way of life. The meeting of two societies in a marriage has beneficial outcomes and negative impacts. It relies on the life partners whether they change over their marriage into concordant union of two societies or clashing meeting of different