Summary Of The Second Sex By Simone Lucie-Marie-Simone De Beauvoir

Simone Lucie-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir was a woman of many talents, one of which included being an existentialist philosopher. In perhaps her most famous book, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that “one is not born, but rather, becomes a woman.” This statement is the basis of de Beauvoir’s claim that femininity is not a result of biology, but rather a result of the difference’s between men and women’s situations. In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir dives deep into the analysis of the position of women in society. She focuses in on what she believes to be the cause of tension between the sexes in her era. In doing so, she defines women as the “others” in society, differentiates between the situation of the proletariat and the

“The parallel drawn by Bebel between women and the proletariat is valid in that neither ever formed a minority or a separate collective unit of mankind…But proletarians have not always existed, whereas there have always been women (De Beauvoir, 1994).” For the proletarians, there is separation between the oppressors—the rich, and the oppressed—the economically poor. For the most part, the two classes do not interact. Women, on the other hand, are oppressed, yet live alongside their oppressors. Another difference between the two situations is the way in which the proletarians and women refer to themselves. “Proletarians say ‘We’…Regarding themselves as subjects, they transform the bourgeois, the whites, into ‘others’. But women do not say ‘We’…men say ‘women’, and women use the same word in referring to themselves. They do not authentically assume a subjective attitude (De Beauvoir,

The emancipated woman, on the contrary, wants to be active, a taker, and refuses the passivity man means to impose on her (De Beauvoir, 1994).” In other words, the “feminine woman’s” position in society is one of object and desire and she uses this to entice men. De Beauvoir furthers this idea in the story of a man and woman on a date. In the story, the man is strongly suggesting that he is sexually interested in the woman. The woman is more interested in spending time with the man for her own enjoyment and she convinces herself that the man is simply in admiration of her, not trying to seduce her. The man then places his hand on hers and the woman is left with a choice to make. If she leaves her hand touching his, she must come to terms with what the man is thinking and is essentially consenting to his sexual desires. If she moves her hand, she no longer gets the satisfaction of attention from the man for herself. From here the woman could be one of two things—“feminine” or “emancipated.” For the woman to be “feminine” she would stay indecisive until there was no longer a choice