Simone De Beauvoir's The Second Sex
Becoming a Woman: On Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex
In her book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir makes some strong claims about the social construction of women. She also offers attempts to explain women’s experience of subordination and the understanding of men and women dichotomy. In this paper, I will agree to Simone de Beauvoir’s notion of womanhood as a social structure, however, I will also consider some biological theories about gender according to different scientists. I will rationalize her claims on the different concepts that shape the becoming of a woman I will also take into account the three principles in her book and its applications on women’s situation in the world. These are all based on her book, The Second Sex.
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This means that she cannot be born out of a woman’s body, but rather, it is constructed and properly molded on how to become a woman. The main argument in her book revolves around the notion that woman has been experiencing a long-standing oppression from men through her relegation to being man’s ‘Other’ (Musset, n.d.). Women have been the ones who are widely discriminated among other men for their capacity to do work. On the other hand, through an analysis of Simone de Beauvoir’s views in The Second Sex, we can make transparent on what is the becoming of a woman, what is truly a woman, and what shapes a woman.
Beauvoir’s Notion
Beauvoir’s statement: ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman, distinguishes sex from gender and suggests that gender is an aspect of identity that is gradually acquired (Butler, 1986). This means that the roles associated with women are not given to them in birth, but rather are socially constructed. Becoming a woman is not actually a biological distinction; instead, it is constructed through the different forces surrounding the society. This distinction can be used to explore ways in which women have been historically oppressed in the ‘male world’ (Jacobi,
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According to Beauvoir, ‘the very isolation to which women are condemned to precludes them from seeing the generality of their situation.’ Beauvoir assumes that women, like men, are free. In so far as the status of ‘Other’ is imposed on her situation is unjust and oppressive. Finally, Beauvoir’s view that women are not born but made. This means that every society takes a great part in the construction or fabrication towards femininity. And that her identity is socially constructed. ‘Woman has been constructed by men, by a society which maintains ideological systems prescribing her subordination, and by women’s own participation in those systems. In other words, society keeps women blocked from freedom or transcendence. The women of today are in a fair way to dethrone the myth of femininity; they are beginning to affirm their independence in concrete ways; but they do not easily succeed in living completely the life of a human being (Beauvoir, 1949).
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