Homework.

Essay devoted to Simone de Beauvoir and her outlook on different facets of social system.

To begin with, I would like to elaborate on why reading different books on existentialism seems
to me really significant and mind-changing. (Hi! Is the highlighted phrase correct
grammatically?) I believe, exploring existential literature alters your attitude towards diverse
facets of life, lets you broaden your worldview and, eventually, determine what is of truthful
importance for you. Therefore, due to the fact that such books change your mentality for the
better, you are less unlikely to waste your time on things that are of low significance for you as a
person. There are a lot of prominent ideologists of this philosophical direction, started in the 19th
century by French literary figures, and one of them is, definitely, Simone de Beauvoir.

Simone de Beauvoir is widely known primarily as a feminist writer thanks to her active
contribution to early feminist movement in the France of 20th century. She not only wrote valid
books on “women’s issue”, but also lots of French women were granted many crucial rights that
we now take for granted and think of them as inherent and always-existing. In her eminent
fundamental treatise called “The Second Sex” she redefined the limits of gender and
proclaimed that they were merely some sort of a social construct implanted in individuals by the
social norms and significantly influenced by overall social outlook of a time. She also argued
that women were historically considered second to men and therefore systematically restricted
from pursuing self-actualization in any domain but raising children, cooking for their husbands,
and doing manual labour that required no intellectual education. In addition, her literary work
offers a detailed history of women’s suppression and women’s combat against false sexist beliefs
and misconceptions.

Moreover, this inspiring woman was also a substantial influential philosopher, who,
unfortunately, is usually regarded first as a romantic companion of Jean-Paul Sartre, rather than a
separate individual with her own authentic creations. As a philosopher, she argued that humans
are born free, without a divine plan or any preordained purpose that they need to fulfill. She
exemplified her outlook on life exceptionally well with her own instance, as she was living truly
the way she wanted: sought for her own purpose and pursued meaning, not bothering about
conventional social norms of her epoch. (Sorry, is this sentence all right? I tried to communicate
that she was herself a great embodiment of her own ideology.) To support this thesis with some
examples, she did not have any blood children and she had never have a husband, which was
(maybe were?) considered to be absolutely uncharacteristic back then in France. (Sorry, is Past
Perfect relevant here?). She also strived for liberty granted to any individual despite their
ancestry and financial capacity. She, as well as Jean-Paul Sartre, denied the propriety of the
manual labour. They claimed that labourers on plants and manufactures were extremely
miserable and depressed, and that such a type of work makes a person dull and neutralizes
person’s intelligence.

Due to Sartre’s and Beauvoir’s mates, who were working in the field of pressing magazines,
manual workers had access to valid information concerning human’s rights that incited them to
organise revolts and, as a result, acquire new rights as labourers. For instance, they eventually
were granted a right to have a really short paid vacation once a year. To my mind, such
information can be another motive to get acquainted with de Beauvoir’s and Sartre’s viewpoints
since they were in the avant-garde of the 20th century intellectuals and described the social
structure of their period representatively.

To sum up what has been said, I would like to express my wholehearted respect to Simone de
Beauvoir. She is virtually an outstanding and inspiring person, who made a great deal in terms of
liberating women from the old-lasting anti-women suppression. To my way of thinking, we
should also appreciate this person more due to the fact that she lived in an epoch when
suppressive attitude towards women was considered to be just a normal ordinary thing. To
elaborate, in her times women were paid far less than their male counterparts, they could not
vote, to say nothing of the fact that socially they were treated in a biased way and regarded as
secondary creatures to men. Despite what the majority thought about “women’s issue”, madam
de Beauvoir was not afraid to defy public opinion and facilitate people’s liberation.

Thanks for checking! 