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The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir

Since the beginning of time, women have played a notable role in the development of

the world. Despite their efforts to make the world a picturesque place to live, women are still

trying to compensate for the imbalance of power between them and men. Beauvoir argues that

subjugation is something that has been constructed by society and has been instigated by men.

Throughout this book Beauvoir enlightens us on the role of the “other sex”. This quotation from

the introduction, summarizes Beauvoir’s abstract argument. “Instead of rejecting “otherness”

as an imposed cultural construct, women, in their opinion, should cultivate it as a source of self-

knowledge and expression, and use it as the basis to critique patriarchal institutions”. (Pg. 14).

Beauvoir believes that men oppress women by characterizing them, as the other sex, which is

an underlying assumption.

In the chapter of her book The Second Sex, entitled “Density,” Beauvoir argues that

femininity does not arise from sameness, intellect, or differences in biology. Simply,

femininity is a reflection not an underlying difference between man and woman, but a

variance between situations. One of Beauvoir’s most famous contentions is, “One is not

born, but rather becomes, woman” (Pg. 14). To some people it could be hard to

decipher her words, but to me I believe Beauvoir is elucidating how woman aren’t born

fully formed; she is slowly taught by her parents and society. A woman isn’t a woman

because of her biology, a woman learns she is such by what she has been taught to by a

man. If the premise is true, then a person can be born a female, raised a girl, but

become a woman. So, if she’s being taught to be submissive, passive, or nonessential:

that is what she will be. That’s until she realizes that women aren’t born to be
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submissive or nonessential, it’s society that has rendered anything else practically

impossible.

A world where men and women would be equal is easy to imagine, and it starts when

both sexes can share equally in the distribution of power. Beauvoir says equality was

promised to us by the Soviet revolution, “women raised and educated exactly like men

would work under the same conditions and for the same salaries, erotic freedoms

would be accepted by custom, but the sexual act would no longer be considered a

remunerable “service” (Pg 856). If these rights were promised to women, why does it

seem like they’re being taken away? Does it help to change laws and institutions for

men and women to become equal. Skeptics say, “Women will always be women,” even

if a woman exudes her femininity, they will not succeed in becoming men. The problem

is that I don’t believe women want to become men, they just want to be treated like

more than the other sex. Dorothy Parker wrote, “Certainly woman like man is a human

being; but such an assertion is abstract; the fact is that every concrete human being is

always uniquely situated” (Pg. 23). It seems that a woman is confined by her sex while a

man is liberated through his.

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Works Cited

Katy. “Simone De Beauvoir on Woman, the Second Sex, Female, Femininity & The.” Katy Jon
Went, Katy, 15 Apr. 2016, http://www.katyjon.com/simone-de-beauvoir-on-woman-the-
second-sex-female-femininity-the-other/.

McHugh, Jess. “How 343 Women Made History by Declaring They'd Had Abortions.” Time,
Time, 26 Nov. 2018, https://time.com/5459995/manifesto-343-abortion-france/.

Simone De Beauvoir Simone De Beauvoir Was Born in Paris in ... - Uberty.

https://www.uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1949_simone-de-beauvoir-the-
second-sex.pdf.

“The Second Sex.” The Second Sex - The Feminist EZine,

http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/books/The-Second-Sex-Simone-de-Beauvoir.html.