Womanhood And Identity In The Second Sex By Simone De Beauvoir

Conceptualizing Becoming “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.” Arguably Simone de Beauvoir’s most famous quote, it raises questions about womanhood and identity that we struggle to grasp and accept even in todays society. To Beauvoir, this statement in her writing questioned the very entity of what it meant to be a woman, highlighting the idea that societies expectations and norms imposed the idea of womanhood on a young women. This issue of becoming is even further discussed by authors like Judith Butler, who applies this idea to her own lesbian identity, and how it defines her relationship to society. In Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex”, the woman’s place in relationship to men is often discussed. She asserts that women are seen as the other, juxtaposing man’s place as the self, the main point around

Is there a true gender, or is gender something imposed upon us by society? This can be answered by her thoughts on gender performativity, and her opinion on “drag”. In some aspects, drag is often seen as taboo, and is commonly seen as an activity in which men dress as women. In this context, Butler argues that drag in an essence doesn’t really exist, because there is no proper gender to dress yourself as. This idea of a proper gender comes from society, and the societies imposed ideals of what proper gender is. Butler says “there is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original”; thus, there is no true gender., no ideal to be imitated through drag. Gender, according to the text, is simply a performance we put on every day. We become the gender we chose through our daily decisions, through our hair cuts and clothing choices; these choices are also influenced by what the society deems is gender appropriate (p.312). As she states, “the notion of proper operates …improperly installed as the effects of a compulsory