Beauvoir The Second Sex Summary

Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her feminist philosophy, The Second Sex, that "It was as a Mother that woman was fearsome: it is in maternity that she must be transfigured and enslaved". She appropriately described how in Motherhood, a woman 's identity can be devalued. A relevant example of this point is the derogatory icons of Black Women - Jezebel, Mammy, Aunt Jemima, Matriarch, and Welfare Queens (Roberts, 8). Each of these icons is rooted in the deep mythology that applies racial politics to black women by corrupting the reproduction process at

Paragraph 1 - 6: The author asserts that women gained rights and freedom after long silence but contemporary women are not free as they want to. She explains that “we are in the midst of a violent backlash against feminism,” (Wolf 185) which the notion of beauty is poisoning women’s liberty and rights. The images of “beautiful” women are used against women’s advancement.

Moments, events, and cases that mark a pivotal change in the course of history are considered “turning points”. With each turning point, a clear effect can be seen and studied. These consequences may be considered turning points for a variety of reasons, whether it be change in domestic or foreign policy, society, or the economy, however, the main criteria are that the event sparks change. When studying turning points, the personal views and opinions of historians often play a role in what they personally consider a true turning point, though others may disagree with them. Some may say this adds to the events, by giving them modern context and significance. *Agreeing with such sentiments, my personal turning points are ranked in their significance

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908 to Georges de Beauvoir and Francoise Brasseur.1 Her father was born and raised in a rich family with that drew him to the extreme right on the political scale.1 He was a strong atheist, and pushed his proclivities on Beauvoir and her sister.1 Her mother on the other hand was a devout Catholic, and that along with her meek and submissive personality, something that manifests itself in the fact that she grew up in a time before first wave feminism, really polarized her and Beauvoir. Her father fed her intellectual side, providing her with many works of literature and encouraging her to read and write from an early age. Beauvoir was a deeply religious child as a result of her education and her mother 's training; however, at the age of 14 she had a crisis of faith and decided that there was definitely no God.1 This followed the end of WW I, when her family lost a

The role of a woman in society has always fit into a perfect box. Women were expected to be the dutiful wife, loving mother and housekeeper for her family. Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, in 1963 hoping to unveil the truth behind women’s thoughts about their role in society. Friedan exposed that things were not always, as they seemed for the average mother and homemaker in the 1950s and 1960s. Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening in the 1850’s which told the story of Edna Pontillier and her struggles as a housewife and finding her true identity. These two literary works captured how women really felt about their everyday lives. They displayed that women were often unhappy and felt unfulfilled regardless that they were living the lifestyle

De Beauvoir wrote her second sex book in which she discussed the reasons beyond calling women as the other. She kept on examining the biological differences between each sex to see whether the duality between them is fair or not. She found that men would always see women as the other sex; as the object. She wasn’t

The old feminism is crumbling because it simply does not answer the needs and questions of the 21st-century women. “Women are the equals of men. Men and women are not separate political classes” (Socialist Alternative, 2). Anyone who shares the desire to reduce inequality and promote opportunity must embrace feminism. “If the future is men and women dwelling as images of each other in a world unchanged, it is a nightmare” (Greer, 2). All of us benefit from the same political circumstances… like freedom of speech, conscience, private property, and the right of self-defense. Any particular man is no more my enemy, no more a threat to me, than any particular woman is. We are all individuals to be evaluated

Judith Butler’s Gender Troubles emphasizes gender as the constant repetition of non-existent ideals to uphold a masculine-dominant culture. Likewise, “Body Politics” highlights this belief within the overtly feminine qualities of city women. As a whole, the poem contrasts idealized feminine “city women” with a “real woman” who possesses both feminine and masculine qualities. The mother figure challenges both the gender binary and the patriarchal order by rejecting the feminine gender norms of the society. This feminist reading of the poem makes many valuable and probable claims, however the feminist approach contains some weaknesses. This becomes evident in a lack of information about the type of society, and the reader therefore lacks a complete understanding of how the women are oppressed. As a whole, this poem sets forth the idea that female gender is fluid, and asks its readers to questions what it means to be a woman in a male dominant

In her 1975 article, “Feminism in the French Revolution,” Jane Abray provides a dismissive view of women’s movements during the Revolution. In the article, Abray emphasizes the failures of revolutionary feminism. In her opinion, the most compelling reason for revolutionary feminism’s failure was that it was a minority interest that remained inaccessible to the majority of French women who accepted their inferior status to men. Abray suggests additional reasons for the movement’s “abject failure,” including its inability to garner support from the male leaders of the Revolution, the disreputable characters of the feminist leaders, the strategic errors made by the movement’s leaders, and a “spirit of the times” that emphasized the nuclear family

The Feminine Mystique (1963) examines the dehumanizing conditions of middle class American women who were excluded from social and political life to be anchored in their wifely and motherly roles. The book marks the Second Wave of American feminism. Friedan writes, “Their only dream was to be perfect wives and mothers” (61). This meant that the whole of an American woman’s life was meant to attract and keep her husband and serve his and children’s needs. She deals with this painful ordeal of women and clearly brings out the ennui, unhappiness, and the lack of companionship experienced by women in their marriages.

“Adele Ratignolle: Kate Chopin’s Feminist at Home in the Awakening” was written by Kathleen M. Streater and featured in the famous “The Midwest Quarterly”, a famous peer reviewed periodical. Kathleen Streater has not written many articles, which is suggested by doing a thorough research on her background; however, this paricular article is highly quoated. Furthermore, she does not seem to possess in-depth knowledge on Chopin but the arguments made by her in the article are quite convincing and unique. There are many encouraging quotes used by Kathleen, for instance she once argued that Chopin is only concentrating on the radical feminism of Edna which has limited her assessment of feminism to a great extent. This is a unique argument presented

In these two scenes and in many other scenes and quotes throughout the book beauty is portrayed in a way that does not solely depend on outward appearance and is not defined by normative standards of class, sex, gender, sexuality, and femininity. Simone de Beauvoir’s thoughts in “The Second Sex” also agree with these statements by reiterating the fact that the “feminine woman” is a social construct and that society has controlled how people are supposed to think about normative beauty and women. Beauty cannot be defined. A woman cannot be defined. Beauty is an intersectional concept that includes all identities and all people regardless of outward appearance or what society says is beautiful. Women are not characterized as sexual objects, and do not have to identify as feminine, sexual, high class, normatively beautiful, attractive to men, or any other identities, if one feels they are a woman then they are a

The Magazine in which this article was published is known as Ms. Magazine, and was co-created by Gloria Steinem as an insert of New York magazine in the early 70’s. it has been the voice of many feminists throughout the decades. In this article, Gloria Steinem calls to arms the feminists of today. She states that this era of feminism should not take up the mindset of “relax; feminism was their mothers’ movement.” (3) Her fear is, the women of the wave she was involved in will be rooted in the past, when they really need to be focused on the future. She stressed the fact that we need to be focused on fighting for the rights the feminists in the 60’s and 70’s fought so hard for.

“People are always ready to see the lesbian as wearing a felt hat, her hair short, and a necktie; her mannishness is seen as an abnormality indicating a hormonal imbalance” (De Beauvoir, 479). With this quote French feminist writer, Simone the Beauvoir, starts her chapter on “The Lesbian” in her book The Second Sex (1949). It is peculiar that the stereotype of the masculine lesbian can still be found in contemporary popular culture and literature, yet slightly altered to a more contemporary version. This chapter will explain what lesbian literature is, give some historical background on how lesbian literature developed from 600BC to present day, and show various lesbian identities and stereotypes that recur in lesbian fiction. As stated in

The first wave of feminism has been a revolutionary social movement in terms of that it could lead to an overcoming of the previous social order (Newman, 2012 p. 487) through its social agents and create, through this, a new social ordering of time and space. Moreover, through reaching their previously described aims, the first wave of feminism has been able to literally “overthrow the entire system itself, (…) in order to replace it with another one.” (Skocpol, 1979, as cited in Newman 2012, p. 487). Thereby, one can even state that a new ordering of time and space by which routines and routinised behaviour has been challenged as well as changed took place. The interactions influenced the way how societies work today. (Allan, 2013, p. 323).