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Women Are Physically Weaker Than Men. Science Has Proven

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Women are physically weaker than men. Science has proven their bodies to anatomically different and in return, society has made science a justification for oppression. The Chapter, “Biological Data”, in The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir, looks at the human biology and its’ relation to society. According to Beauvoir, a women’s body is not an enough to define her and biology alone shouldn’t be the driving factor in society making women the Other. The Other is women being place secondary to men and must define herself through men. Beauvoir understands the importance of the physical differences between genders but believes it should not be used as the social constructs of society. Written in the first wave, Beauvoir’s ideas reflect …show more content…

Society believed otherwise and echoed its’ belief in the weakness of the female body. Beauvoir also commented on society’s belief of the female body during the first wave: “As soon as we accept a human perspective, defining the body starting from existence, biology becomes an abstract science… this meaning immediately becomes dependent on a whole context; “weakness” is weakness only in light of the aims man sets for himself, the instruments at his disposal, and the laws he imposes” (Beauvoir 46). Beauvoir does not believe females should be limited because of man deeming them weak. Male dominated society has denied “a human perspective” and chose biology to impose domination. Societies belief of this “weakness” transferred over to athletics, where female athletes were deemed weaker and more fragile than their male counterparts. Ederle became an exception to this belief and society found it astonishing that a woman could achieve swimming the channel. She shattered the idea of the feeble and frail women and therefore was placed in a separate category than the rest of the female population. Placing her above females stripped her of her femininity and allowed for “man” to continued imposing oppression on the rest of the female population. Society continued to undervalue female athletes by using their sex as a manner of oppression during the second wave. In 1973, Billie Jean King played the famous tennis match, The Battle of the Sexes, against Bobby

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