Simone De Beauvoir Research Paper

Beauvoir is a French feminist icon who helped establish the idea of feminism not only in France, but all over the Western world. I believe Beauvoir’s opinions on the root causes of sexism can also, to an extent, be applied to the issues faced by all minority groups in a world dominated mostly by Protestant white men. To Beauvoir, they are all considered the “Other” by the majority, who are the “One”. The One does not define itself “without immediately setting

Simone de Beauvoir starts her second volume of book, The Second Sex, with the statement, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (267). This is one of the most famous statement 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. She is not born shy, gentle, or passive, but is gradually shaped in that way by her upbringing. I agree with de Beauvoir’s argument. I also believe that femininity does not come from birth, it is shaped by our culture and sophistication. The difference between characteristics of male and female is not because of any biological reasons, but it is because of the

Simone de Beauvoir is to this day one of the key central figures in the women’s rights movement. She inspired people all over the world. Although she may not be the extreme feminist that people believe her to be. Beauvoir said many times that she naturally didn’t believe that women were inferior to men, but she also didn’t believe that they were naturally equal either. Beauvoir wrote the book The Second Sex which holds many of her opinions towards feminism and is what many believe started the feminist movement. Many may think that Beauvoir was an extreme feminist trying to get women into every aspect of the world that men are in, but in reality she just wanted to see women appreciated better in life. She didn’t want to see society and the world mistreat women. With Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex she became “one of the most preeminent French existentialist philosophers and writers” (Mussett). Furthermore, Beauvoir’s main source of injustice towards women are society, the world, and overall how they were expected to be in that time period (Post World War II).

Simone de Beauvoir’s is a feminist who believed that their were distinct differences of superiority between classes, race, gender and religion. Throughout her theories she uses the terms “self” and “others” to define the two distinctions and how coincide with one another. Being a feminist, de Beauvoir focus’ mainly on the notion of women throughout her readings. De Beauvoir observes that women are looked at as inferior, or the other, to men in society and believes that this needs to change.

Though both human beings, Simone claims that woman is not equal to man and that she may never achieve full independence from him. However, the author claims woman can and should claim for liberty. By her own nature woman is different than man. The author states that “woman has ovaries [and] a uterus; these peculiarities imprison her in her subjectivity, circumscribe her within the limits of her own nature’ (4). Hence, to de Beauvoir her biology and even the way she thinks (4), woman is different from man and there is no reason to argue about equality. De Beauvoir states “a condition brought about a certain time can be abolished at some other time” (8); in that the author claims that it is impossible for women to break its condition of dependency

Beauvoir discusses woman’s evolution and how they are the Other. What was striking was Beauvoir saying a woman is waiting for Man. A woman shouldn’t wait for a man; she should be her own person. This is why a woman is downsized to the Other, because she is not being respected and needs to be at the feet of a man. By waiting for a man they are susceptible to defeatism. Women are oppressed in their development from girl to woman. Beauvoir explains the painful experience that women endure during menstruation. They go through torturous changes in order to be this “woman” that will only be treated like Other; an object. It is as though women need to go through the impossible in order to be Woman. It is also disturbing that a young man is allowed

At the time if it’s writing and publication, there existed minimal philosophical works on women from a feminist perspective. With the exception of a few books the systematic oppressed treatment of women in modern age and historically were virtually unheard off. Striking on the basis of the profundity of its fundamental insights and research, The Second Sex subsist a foundational text in feminism, women studies and philosophy. The Second Sex’s main thesis revolves around the belief that a woman has always been held in a long-standing oppressive relationship to the man via her relegation to being the man’s “other.” In agreement with Sartrean and Hegelian Philosophy, Beauvoir depicts that the self needs otherness to define itself as a major subject. For this reason, the category of otherness is necessary for the establishment of self as a self (Beauvoir et al, 2010, pp.76-85). She however digresses through a feminist existential perspective by stating that the self-understanding movement via alterity should be reciprocal in nature, such that the self is objectified by its other just like the self objectifies it. This is the philosophical thought that defines The Second Sex. Based on this understanding, The Second Sex aims at postulating the manner in which religious French social.

Second wave feminism started when women were forced out of the workplace after the end of World War II and focused on expanding women from their traditional roles. After World War II, writers began to question how women in society were perceived and the result of this perception. In her book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan brings consciousness to women "the problem that has no name", the dissatisfaction and yearning that women are suffering from as a result of society’s encouraged fulfillment of femininity. In her book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir investigates popular definitions, or rather “myths” of femininity and how these definitions have been used to suppress women. Both writers paved the work of second wave feminism to transform society and women's place in it.

Revolutionary and thought-provoking, Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is a novel that challenged the subordination of women brought upon by men and illustrated a feminist and philosophical perspective on rights of women. Working alongside with Jean-Paul Sartre, De Beauvoir’s work in The Second Sex underlies Sartre’s concept of bad faith in relation to De Beauvoir’s concept of the “battle of the sexes.” Being confined by her own immanence in a male-dominated society, De Beauvoir illustrates that the feminine subject “declares herself as their equal” in relation to the transcendence of the male for the struggle for recognition because it is affecting her free will and responsibility (De Beauvoir 428). By recognizing the female, the male attempts to “find himself” as a stable identity to transcend as the male figure through “the devaluation of femininity” and the oppression of women. Lastly, De Beauvoir believes that the construct of femininity is itself a product, as Sartre puts it, of bad faith because “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

Written and published first in 1949, La Deixieme Sexe (The Second Sex) is a book published by feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir. The time frame of this book is essential when considering its impact on the audience involved. In the preface, the author discusses the essential bridge that this book formed between first-wave and second-wave feminism (de Beauvoir, 1949, p. 674), and the wide and continuous impact that it has had on readers throughout time. In the historical context of its writing, people considered feminism dead, its impacts diminished and its need nonexistent. With the publication of The Second Sex, de Beauvoir changed the narrative, and highlighted the ways in which women have been produced to be the “Other”, valued and understood only in our relation to the male “subject”.

Women are given a standard and pre-destined path for them to play in their lives. In the second volume of The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir tries to describe how a woman is trained to accept her position and what she has to go through as well as the escape mechanisms that are permitted to her. We can then understand the problems women face and their keenness for a better tomorrow.

This leads to her questioning the existence of a woman altogether, though seemingly quite an extreme move, an interesting one. “Provisionally” she asserts, women do exist, the adverb “provisionally” holding some significance as it is not a definitive. Not only does De Beauvoir fail to give a definitive answer on the matter, she almost foreshadows an imminent fall of the ‘woman’ as we know and define her, opening debate. De Beauvoir makes a radical suggestion that the character of the “woman” does not actually exist but instead suggests men and women should be categorised together and defined primarily as humans rather than separate entities. Is this really a step forward in equality? Removing labels to bring us back to basics? The act of labelling people generally is so that they can identify as or with something and in most cases, allows them to feel included or part of something bigger. Judith Butler makes an argument that there is in fact no identity outside language as this is what creates labels . Arguably a vast collection of literary texts rely on the labelling and division of humanity to create their story, as does society. Oranges are not the only fruit by Jeanette Winterson and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte would hardly function without this idea of there being a division between men and women. Both texts explore the hierarchical nature of society and the rise of a woman, if we grouped together both sexes we would be left equal in terms of definition, yet there

The basic concept in feminist theory recognizes the fact that gender is produced psychologically and socially rather than physiologically. Conceptually, sex means the biological sex of a child whereas gender is the culturally and socially produced behaviour assigned to that particular category of human beings into which the child is born. Under the patriarchal set-up, the male is supposed to imbibe a set of ‘masculine’ traits such as aggression, tenacity, courage, intelligence, ambition, initiative, dynamism, force and efficacy. The female is expected to inculcate a set of ‘feminine’ traits such as passivity, ignorance, acquiescence, docility, delicacy, obedience, affection, kindness, virtue and ineffectuality. In Simone de Beauvoir’s words,

The French feminist Simone de Beauvoir famously declared “one is not born but rather becomes a woman”. Beauvoir’s thesis distinguishes the two categories sex and gender and suggests that while sexuality may be natural and physical, gender is a social construct inculcated through cultural conditioning. Sex is understood as something unalterable, constant, associated with the anatomy whereas gender is the cultural meaning and the form that is ascribed to the body. Despite the fact that gender and sex are distinct from each other unequal power play and sexual politics continues to be important between different gender roles. Beauvoir is also of the view that the prime category of human thought is relation between self and the other. Society

The existence of Feminism Theory Simone de Beauvoir pioneered . Beauoir paper entitled The Second Sex has given a tremendous influence in the field of feminism . It developed in France after World War II . The function of this theory is to rebuild the confidence of the public after the war . Beauvoir denies weakness and softness of the female form naturally. He thinks women should give the definition of themselves . He also proposes that the traditional role of women reject them for independent life . Beauvoir alleged that the social role of an institution of men to control women. In the process of socialization for generations , women have formed a group that is passive and feminine . Beauvoir also stressed that women should be economically self-sufficient in order to bring changes to the moral , cultural and social . For Feminism Radical Theory says that the suppression of women is a fundamental form of oppression . Chatarine representative Mackinnon considers only radika theory merupakn real feminism theory . Campaign by radical feminism has recorded U.S. history feminism movement 's most glorious . In a nutshell , this theory alleges that the suppression of women has been the foundation of all other oppression .