The Second Sex: What's Inside
The Second Sex: What's Inside
Guide to Structure of The survey of the traumas of the girl's sexual initiation versus
that of the boy's is another part of the realist account.
relative. This ethic, set out in Beauvoir's earliest time, were Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. They
philosophical essay, Pyrrhus and Cineas, is the very shared disdain for the public institutions—especially, as
beginning of what she posits in The Second Sex as basic to Hazareesingh notes, "the republican State, the Communist
the alterity of sex difference—and key to reconciliation of Party, the French colonial regime in Algeria, [and] the university
the sexes. system."
Each chapter of The Second Sex is structured according to In their 50-plus years of association, Sartre and Beauvoir
the principles named above. Since the objective world is not consistently read and edited each other's work and spread the
ready-made, the third way leaves space for the consciousness word. First and foremost, they emphasized the public role of
of the commentator—and the reader—as a valid component of the citizen. Foundational to Beauvoir and Sartre's existentialist
a present reality. In the text, Beauvoir's direct and personal philosophy is the sense that in a godless world the duty to
commentary (she often refers to "we" and "us") that closes protect moral value rests with the individual. Ethical action is
most sections, and addresses each reader, is part of the world the guarantor of citizenship. In Beauvoir's take on
she investigates. This engaging structure provides guidance existentialism, freedom for the individual lay in bonding with
for the uninitiated reader. others to incite action. To be human is to rupture individual
being through spontaneous projects, to transcend the
stubborn inwardness (the immanence) of the individual's (the
Reading The Second Sex existent's) life.
Early Life and Education Sartre's philosophy. Although she agrees with the basic
premise of Sartre's existentialism—the idea that individuals
Born in Paris on January 9, 1908, to a devout Catholic mother determine fate through free will—she lays the groundwork in
and an atheist father, Simone de Beauvoir laid claim early on to her essay for the principles of relativity and reciprocity that
radical differences between the sexes. She inherited her explain a sense of otherness that defines traditional gender
father's distrust of organized religion and his love of books. At roles, the backbones of her argument in The Second Sex.
age 14, she abandoned her commitment to Catholicism, Although Beauvoir rejected the title of philosopher and gave
announcing there was no God. Still, she attended a private Sartre all the credit, current commentary confirms her gifts as
Catholic girls' school until she was 17. an original thinker, second to no man.
however, that established her credentials as a feminist. Her included his rejection of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964
love of travel resulted in two books, America Day by Day (1948) and a much-scrutinized open relationship with Simone de
and The Long March (1957), written after a lecture tour in Beauvoir. He was Beauvoir's closest associate and intellectual
China. Later publications include a four-volume autobiography, soul mate. He was also her critic.
h Key Figures
Frederick Engels
Frederick Engels completed volume 2 of Das Kapital after
Marx's death, and wrote The Origin of the Family, Private
Property, and the State in 1884. His work is the basis for much
of the history in The Second Sex.
Martin Heidegger
The influence of Heidegger's notion of "authenticity," the
individual's positive engagement with the world by heeding "a
call of conscious," operates throughout Beauvoir's appreciation
for transcendence as an ethical principle.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Merleau-Ponty's work in perception, although grounded in
phenomenology as a method, went beyond it in his focus in
bodily behavior as an original source of knowledge. Intensely
political and a Marxist, he broke with Sartre in a disagreement
over the Korean War.
Jean-Paul
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French k Plot Summary
philosopher, novelist, playwright, and
Sartre
proponent of existentialism.
Claude Lévi-
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French Volume 1, Part 1
anthropologist and intellectual, and a
Strauss
classmate of Beauvoir's. The Second Sex consists of two volumes. The first, "Facts and
Myths," has an "Introduction" and three parts. The first word of
André Breton was a French poet, the "Introduction" is "I." Thus, the reader is introduced to the
essayist, and critic. He is considered
unconventional nature of a seemingly academic work as the
André Breton the father of surrealism—a mode of
making art in which the lines between narrator announces herself informally in the first person.
dream and reality are obscured Moreover, she is identified by her sex. The second shocking
element is the author's point of view: not only is the female
Paul Claudel was a French poet, subordinate to the male, but she is complicit in the plot of male
playwright, and novelist. He is best
Paul Claudel dominance.
known for his symbolist plays and lyric
poetry.
Chapter 1, "Biological Data," considers females in the animal
world in order to consider the unique nature of human females.
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was a
Sidonie- successful French novelist whose Chapter 2, "The Psychoanalytic Point of View" presents
Gabrielle deeply and convincingly sensual work Beauvoir's criticism of the Freudian approach to sexuality in
Colette focused on women and love. She is women, particularly the notion that girls are developmentally
quoted often in The Second Sex.
delayed and thus prone to remaining in an "infantile state" or
"developing neuroses." Chapter 3, "The Point of View of
Jules Laforgue was a French
Historical Materialism," refuses the definition of woman as a
Symbolist poet whose linguistic
Jules Laforgue sexed organism and makes the argument that women's work
inventions deeply influenced the
modernist poets of the 20th century. and her society's economic structure determine identity.
Volume 2, Part 1
The title of Volume 2 is "Lived Experience," which consists of
an introduction and four parts: "Formative Years," "Situation,"
"Justifications," and "Toward Liberation." The introduction
explores the "common ground from which all singular feminine
existence stems." "Childhood" is the first chapter of "The
Formative Years." Beginning with the oft-quoted sentence,
"One is not born, but rather becomes a woman," this chapter
emphasizes the distinction between the individual woman and
the subordinated object, woman. The evolution of the
stereotype begins somewhere in the second half of the first
year of life when infant girls are treated differently from boy
babies. The succeeding chapters continue this developmental
study.
of their supremacy a right," creating laws they turned into active, and the female passive with respect to reproduction
principles. Simone de Beauvoir's short list of history's proceeds from Aristotle through Hegel. Across time allegories
sympathizers includes Christian theologian Saint Augustine, of sperm and egg, and dubious narratives about sexual
who concedes that the unmarried woman is perfectly adept at differentiation, sustain the myth of feminine passivity and
managing her personal affairs; French philosopher Denis masculine energy. Science, meanwhile, increasingly pursues
Diderot, who sees man and woman as human beings; and notions of symmetry and equality between the sexual organs
English philosopher John Stuart Mill, whose ardent defense of and the processes of spermatogenesis and
women is a matter of record. Beauvoir also observes that for oogenesis—respectively, the formation of sperm cells and egg
men, fear of competition, threats to morality, economic cells.
competition, and concerns over their own virility perpetuate the
oppositions. Similarly, reproductive behaviors assume narratives of violence
between the sexes: the giant female spider, bigger and
In sum, change can only occur when vague notions of stronger than the male, eats the male after coupling and
inferiority, superiority, and equality are abandoned. "There is no carries off the eggs; under stress conditions, the praying
public good other than one that assures the citizens' private mantis cannibalizes her partner. Yet the battle of the sexes
good," she concludes. Women's struggle is between the goes on, the male of the species often more beautifully and
fundamental claim of every subject to posit herself as colorfully marked, and fully indolent after coitus occurs, while
essential, while the demands of her culture deem her many females are enslaved for a lifetime, laying, incubating,
inessential. Individual possibility—different from individual and caring for larvae. Beauvoir—in heightened sexual
happiness—is the measure of freedom. language—describes the individualism and aggression of the
male fish and birds, while arguing that the "suppressed" female
is inhabited and much of her life "absorbed." In species more
Volume 1, Part 1, Chapter 1 given to the "flourishing of individual life," the male is at an
advantage. He is usually larger than the female, often lacks
paternal instinct, and is stronger and more adventurous.
Summary In the animal kingdom the male and the female perform two
diverse aspects of the life of the species. Here the male can
Chapter 1, titled "Biological Data," opens with a simple
"affirm himself in his autonomy," in Beauvoir's words. The
definition: Woman is "a womb, an ovary." Insult or exaltation,
female is the continuity of life, which "explains why sexual
the male version "roots woman in nature," and "confines her in
opposition increases ... when the individuality of organisms
her sex" where, taking value from the animal world, she
asserts itself." The process of giving birth is more painful for
castrates and cannibalizes, like the praying mantis or the
cows and mares than for mice or rabbits. Furthermore, "woman
spider, or flirts and succumbs, like the monkey and the wildcat.
... is also the most fragile ... and ... distinguishes herself most
To stop thinking in commonplaces, Beauvoir advises the
significantly from her male."
reader to ask what the female represents in the animal
kingdom and what "unique kind of female is realized in Because a woman's body is her sole possession in the world,
woman?" the world appears different to her depending on how it is
understood. These ideas are among the keys that help women
Studying reproduction in the lower animals, Beauvoir
understand what is woman, but they are not the basis of the
concludes that (1) sexual differentiation cannot be deduced at
sexual hierarchy. Furthermore, these ideas do not offer an
the cellular level, and (2) with respect to reproduction,
explanation as to why woman is Other, nor do they place her in
differentiation occurs "as an irreducible and contingent fact."
a subjugated role.
An early history of theories of reproduction favors male
"energy" and the feminine body as nurture without actual
participation in the formation of the individual. In 1887 the
sperm was identified penetrating the starfish egg, and not until
1883 was their fusion analyzed. The notion of the male as
Evaluating the woman's alienation from her body through masculine and feminine behaviors, of which, she insists, both
pregnancies and menopause, Beauvoir concludes, "in no other sexes are capable. Finally, making a myth of psychoanalytic
[female mammal] is the subordination ... to the reproductive narratives, and preferring choice over psychoanalytic
function more imperious." determinism, she notes that a girl climbing a tree is not
emulating her father, nor is she exhibiting virile behavior when
This narrative epitomizes alterity, and changes—for all she paints, writes, or engages in politics. These activities are
time—the conversation about woman, and the nature of her not only "good sublimations," but "ends desired in themselves."
subordination. Sublimation here provides an unusual comment on sexual
energy and the creation of art. For the psychoanalyst,
sublimation is the substitution of an acceptable and creative
Volume 1, Part 1, Chapter 2 act such as making art for an impulsive and likely sexually
inappropriate one, an unconscious conversion of sexual
energy. One might say that a dollop of talent and a burst of
borrowed from historical materialism, in Beauvoir's analysis, iron, and bronze; the advent of the plow; the acquisition of
has to do with the unfinished nature of striving: the ethical life private property, including land and slaves; and what Engels
developing from concerted moves beyond succeeding called "the world historical defeat of the female sex." Changes
freedoms. included women's restriction to housework, domination by
man, the replacement of maternal right with paternal right, and
Most riveting in this analysis is Beauvoir's assertion that the the transmission of property from father to son rather than
woman's sexual initiation begins in trauma. That is, Freud talks woman to her clan.
about the difficulty for the woman in shifting from the clitoral
orgasm to the vaginal orgasm. But it is Beauvoir who makes In this history, Beauvoir surveys the nature of man who seeks
the point that deflowering is a rape. Developmentally, two possession, thinking of the chief as a model for autonomy and
things are important in this insight. First, sexual initiation is accomplishment, as well as the acquisition of goods. Still, she
traumatic for women in the way it is not for men, and second, questions this individual whose interest in his property is an
the women's sexual initiation necessarily begins with a "intelligible relationship."
masculine intervention. There is a good deal of discussion of
sexual frigidity in the text, as Beauvoir's insights wash the Similarly, she says, "It is impossible to deduce woman's
romance from sexual initiation and take up the conventionally oppression from private property." She sees a chain reaction,
unspoken aspects of experience that are foundational to citing the "imperialism of human consciousness."
In the meantime, Beauvoir has rhetorically put her arm around which her ability to reproduce is as important as her ability to
the shoulders of her readers, saying we and us, making produce. Engels wanted to eliminate the family in a socialist
community for readers of all sexes. This is community of the state, enabling women to work. In a collective society in which
sort that she studied in "The Introduction," one made of everything is shared, including child-rearing, the woman thus
subordinates, ethnic Others, who find their individuality in becomes an erotic object, while finding her subjectivity in her
resistance. Thus the feminist finds her model in the lives of public life. One might say she manifests the "doubleness"
racially identified Others, in retrieving—hopefully extolled by Lacan extolls, something Freud saw as incomplete
community.
Analysis
Volume 1, Part 1, Chapter 3 Nothing goes to waste in this text. Even as Beauvoir rejects a
point of view or a discipline that does not satisfy her original
questions, she gathers information that she puts to good use in
Summary following chapters. In this section, the reader begins to receive
notice for what they likely have always already known but need
In this chapter, "The Point of View of Historical Materialism," to hear again—that no matter how satisfying and/or oppressive
historical materialism refuses the definition of woman as a domestic life can be for women, equality between the sexes
sexed organism. As Beauvoir points out, humanity in historical necessarily begins in the shared enterprise of meaningful work.
materialist theory is a "historical reality. ... Only those with The lesson of historical materialism is the one that places
concrete value in action have any importance." Woman's work women in a position of equality with men: for Engels in the
and her society's economic structure determine her identity. economic structure, but for Beauvoir in the recognition of the
Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the encounter with the imperative of existentialist morality. The
State (1884) chronicles the importance of women in the Stone imperative is to live a life of freedom accomplished in the
Age. A primitive division of labor meant equality between the challenge of sustaining a life of process, of progress—always
sexes, the men hunting and fishing and the women gardening moving beyond to succeeding freedoms. To be human is to
and making pottery and cloth. Equal participation in the break through the world of givens with an individually chosen
economy and equal status led to discoveries of tin, copper, transcendence. To be passive is also a choice. In Sartre's
professions."
Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 3
Analysis
Summary
Beauvoir states, the "Roman woman ... has a place ... but ... is
According to Beauvoir, "once woman is dethroned by ... private still chained ... by lack of ... rights and ... independence." Thus,
property, her fate is linked to it for centuries." She lives with this chapter circles back to a theme developing from the
her husband's family, she cannot inherit his wealth, and his book's opening sections: happiness is not the necessary
children are not hers. Owning nothing, she is hardly a person. component or condition of freedom. Value in life is a matter of
She can be disowned at will, male prenuptial chastity is not a surpassing freedom by "transcending Life through Existence."
value, and a husband's adultery is not judged severely. She is Freedom begins in individual choice. Women need to have the
sent without her consent from her father's house to her courage, the imagination, and the proper legal circumstances
husband's family where she is little more than a servant. She in order to find their place in the world.
tends to the children of her body who are not considered hers.
Around the 11th century the feudal system accepts women's time, it is the wealthy woman who pays for her idleness with
succession as head of her household. Military service, submission. And, if the reader is to draw conclusions from the
however, was required of vassals, so a woman still needs a historical narrative, one would be that not only does the
male guardian to hold her fiefdom—a plot of land granted to women pay with her life, but with her divorce from life itself.
vassals in return for labor. Her domain is not her property, but The uncomfortable corollary is the male resentment of women,
instead belongs to the local lord, as does she and her children, their fear of women, the belief that women fake submission in
who are to be turned over to him as vassals. In a warlike order to trap men into taking care of them and that women are
culture in which women are scorned—and horses manipulative and scheming.
preferred—women share the activities of men. Women ride
horses and participate in hunts. Such ladies of the manor, Even if people believe in historical notions of progress, and see
called "viragoes," are admired, Beauvoir says, because "they some elements of women's lives improving in the historical
behave exactly like men ... greedy, treacherous, and cruel." narrative, the 16th century is marked by a turn against women.
Beauvoir states, "European codes ... were unfavorable to ...
Equality between men and women happens, however, when woman, and all ... countries recognized private property and
"service of the fief" is "converted to a monetary fee." Since the family." Prostitution remained an important part of society.
men and women could be taxed identically, both sexes are Wives remained in servitude to the family, and public women
considered equal. In the countries of Italy, Switzerland, and kept the male population honest. "Getting rid of prostitutes,"
Germany, women remain subject to wardship. French and according to Saint Augustine, would "trouble society by
German women, unmarried or widowed, have the same rights dissoluteness."
as men. Still, a married woman remains subject to her
husband's guardianship.
In this observation, the reader finds the repetition of the key thereafter. In 1790 the right of the firstborn and masculine
theme: the idea that women's emancipation comes not with privilege are eradicated, and in 1792 divorce law is established.
and they do not seek change. During the aftermath of the woman is mother and lover. There are governing myths, the
French Revolution, women enjoy an anarchic freedom. The beliefs of a culture transmitted in familiar stories—legends,
Napoleonic Code that follows in the early 19th century, fairy tales, folk tales—that transmit certain beliefs or habits of
however, delays women's emancipation in France for over a mind from one generation to another. The objectification of
century. women, and the generalizations that define women, are
common in myths across human culture. Just as the history of
Beauvoir says that in the 19th and 20th centuries, "participation women has been written by men, the mythological
in production and freedom from reproductive slavery ... explain infrastructure that defines woman is a male projection.
the evolution of woman's condition." Nothing happens, Inescapable is the governing myth of Judeo-Christian culture,
however, without a fight. From the 1890s through the first the story of Eve, who was not Adam's equal, but was made
decades of the 20th century, feminists and their supporters from his flank. Eve, one might say, was God's afterthought, a
rally in favor of reproductive rights, abortion, divorce initiated companion for Adam, the first human, who might otherwise
by women, and, above all, women's suffrage. At the same time, have been lonely in the Garden of Eden. From the beginning,
the bourgeoisie claims new rights. Refusing to be revolutionary, Eve's potential as an individual is irrelevant. Eve is a
they want to reform behavior by ridding society of prostitution, convenience for Adam: a thing, an object.
alcohol, and pornographic literature. In 1897 French women
won the right to testify in court and admittance to the National Key life principles are immortalized in the story impressed
Council for Public Health Services and the École des Beaux- upon people's collective memory as well as in the poetry and
Arts. In 1901, recalling a familiar prejudice, the case for the song of the myth. English poet William Blake called the earth,
women's vote is presented to French parliament, limiting the "The Matron Clay." An Indian prophet told her disciples not to
right to unmarried and divorced women. Women's suffrage is dig in the ground, saying, "It is a sin to hurt or cut, to tear our
delayed through the 1920s, despite the support of the Catholic common mother." The Baidya, a Hindu caste community in
Church. Many believe the political resistance has more to do central India, thought it was a sin "to rip the breast of their
with the potentially conservative nature of a swing vote of earth mother with the plow." Often, the objectification of
Catholic women, than to the principle of women voting. women is cloaked in language of lasting beauty.
Volume 1, Part 3, Chapter 1 them." The myth has a long life, though. Even as people resist
the myth, they guard it as part of their heritage, their
membership in culture. Today, people study the myths and
speculate on the real lives of individual women who wrest
Summary independence and individuation from the chokehold of the
myth. Part of the answer to why women are complicit in their
In this untitled chapter, Beauvoir claims that woman, in the
subordination has to do with the staying power of the myth, the
eyes of all men, remains a singular value. In Italy, for example,
early life lessons that remain even for women who strike out on
their own, and the cultural practices that recall the myth. novels in which a libertine novelist seduces and abuses his
willing victims. His earlier work is unabashedly
According to Beauvoir, the subordination of women serves autobiographical, and reflects an egocentric and autocratic
men's economic interests and suits their "ontological and moral personality.
ambitions." This important statement points to the powerful
ways in which the subordination of women describes culture In considering Montherlant's work, Beauvoir isolates the
and people's place in it. As an ontological example: Mother writer's habits of mind that elevate male subjectivity, and
Earth—an objectified version of woman—is both the source of reduce women to objects of masculine disgust. As Beauvoir
nurture, and the realm of "chaos, where everything comes from observes, a woman in Montherlant's work is not merely Other,
and must return one day." Thus, Mother Earth is both life and but "monster." Femininity is defined negatively: "woman was
death—and the oft-cited masculine fear of the feminine is woman through a lack of virility." In other words, woman is
rooted in such myths of power and loss of control. woman because she lacks masculine vital energy. For
Montherlant, this energy would include sadism, aggression,
Power is reinstated, and control over fear regained in myths contempt, and a sense of entitlement.
that diminish the feminine. For example, in many cultures,
menstruating women are viewed as unclean. In some cultures Montherlant's work demonstrates a misogyny that the
they are separated from the general population for a week preceding chapter on myth suggests is derived from man's
each month. In others, there are purifying rituals. In the late hatred of his carnal origins and, therefore, his sensual mother.
19th century the British Medical Journal reported the The mother's body is a site of disgust. In his earlier
"indisputable fact that meat goes bad when touched by autobiographical work, Montherlant presents a mother who
menstruating women." Menstruating women have been known cannot let her son, Alban, go. In a later work, Alban identifies
to destroy products in factories, turning sugar black and opium his lover with his mother. Love is her trap—her demand for his
bitter. vulnerability, and her focus on his troubles. He makes a
distinction between masculine strength and autonomy, and
The moral ambition tends to emerge in the study of taboo, feminine lack of self-sufficiency. She is a "parasite." For him, to
unspoken rules about unspeakable practices. For example, the be unmarried, unattached, is to be free. Marriage is a burden.
little boy who loves his mother's flesh grows up to be
frightened of it. If he wants to see her as chaste, he cannot Another representation of the need for domination is revealed
acknowledge her body. in Alban's sexual practice. His pleasure is solely to give
pleasure, to remain in control, to dominate. The loss of control
that signals consummation is exactly what he avoids. He
Volume 1, Part 3, Chapter 2 prefers a "haughty solitude of domination," and "cerebral, not
sensual, satisfactions in women."
Beauvoir acknowledges the "gulf" between Claudel's religious educated as men would be more successful than their male
orientation, and Breton's poetry, and nonetheless recognizes counterparts. He also understands that the "deadening
the analogous positions to the role each assigns women. For educations" women are given are part of the oppressor's
Breton, it is at the height of "elective love" for a particular attempts to diminish those he oppresses.
woman that the "floodgates of love for humanity open wide."
Colliding with the mystery of life is the only way of finding it. Beauvoir concludes, "Woman, according to [Stendhal], is ... a
human being: dreams could not invent anything more
Breton finds women the key, and thus prizes women over men. intoxicating."
Beauvoir states, "beauty for Breton ... exists ... only through
passion; only through woman does beauty exist in the world."
And beauty is more than beauty. It fuses with knowledge—it is VI. Woman is the "privileged Other"
truth, eternity, and the absolute. It is love, the reciprocity of one
being to another, the natural and supernatural bridge spanning That is, she is "one of the measures of man, his balance, his
life. Breton's definitive statement, the conclusion to this notion salvation, his adventure, and his happiness." As "privileged
of reciprocal love, claims "the time has come to value the ideas Other," she is beauty, poetry, grace, and giver of peace and
of woman at the expense of man." harmony. In her failures, she is an ogress, witch, or praying
mantis who eats her partner. In this final section of "Facts and
Still Beauvoir objects: "It is exclusively as poetry and thus as Myths," Beauvoir points out that each of the authors she has
Other that woman is envisaged." Exchanging male privilege for treated has a particular and idiosyncratic version of the
female privilege is not an adequate solution. If one were to ask woman. Beauvoir believes the difference is "orchestrated
about women's destiny, "The response would be implied in the differently for each individual ... according to the ... way the One
ideal of reciprocal love." However, one cannot know if the chooses to posit himself." The crucial factor is the nature of
answer for her would be the same as for him. Would beauty be each man's freedom. The key, she notes, are men who "posit
found there? Would beauty be all? Breton, Beauvoir notes, themselves as transcendences but feel they are prisoners of
does not speak of woman as subject. She concludes, "She is an opaque presence in their own hearts." They blame the
All: once more all in the figure of the other, All except herself." woman for this limit on their freedom. Stendhal's kinder version
is distinct: "He needs woman as she does him."
V. Stendhal or Romancing the Real Beauvoir concludes: "In defining woman, each writer defines
his ... ethic and the ... idea he has of himself." There is an
Beauvoir calls Stendhal, born Henri Beyle (1783–1842), a improvement, however, when a writer—like Stendhal—is
"tender friend of women." In the life and affections and work of interested in the woman's individual life adventure rather than
this French novelist of the early 19th century, Beauvoir finds a merely casting her as Other. Beauvoir laments that the latter
model for a moral and credible representation of women. loses importance in an era when "each individual's particular
Stendhal not only understands and reports the situations that problems are of secondary import." Still, woman as Other
circumscribe women's lives, and therefore their habitual necessarily plays a role as each writer needs to discover
responses, but also creates female characters whose himself.
identities are made by their specific experiences and needs.
He avoids the mythic woman "disguised as shrew, nymph,
morning star, or mermaid." Analysis
Stendhal, whose mother died when he was seven, "loved Beauvoir refuses to allow the reader to lapse into
women sensually from childhood." Beauvoir claims that rationalization, or into a false sense of security with respect to
Stendhal has no use for the notion of feminine mystery, or the misogynist writers, as opposed to men who are sympathetic to
idea of the eternal female. Moreover, he understands the women. Although there are significant variations in the ways
specific lack of opportunity in women's lives and the effects of these five authors treat notions of femininity or the alterity of
oppression. He rejects negative judgments about women's the male/female relation, all—but Stendhal—hold the woman as
intelligence and idleness, and supports the notion that women Other. Oddly enough, even among the most sympathetic of the
20th-century writers, not one posits a female subject. For recognition of woman as individual subject in relation to the
Beauvoir and for the feminists who succeed her, subjectivity is masculine subject. Here the reader finds complicity between
the liberating criterion. She locates this clarity in the fifth writer, the sexes. Hence, one could view the title, The Second Sex, not
Stendhal, whom she considers a "tender friend of women." as a matter of a secondary sex, but a matter—or dream, or
wish—of two equal sexes.
On Montherlant: his sadomasochistic narratives simply affirm
the extremes of masculine behavior, and the forces of Women manifest themselves in numerous ways, but myth
discontent and disorder that characterize the historical interferes, summarizing them as a whole. Men, however, are
account of the subordination of women. perplexed by the many ways women participate in the
archetypes of femininity. Beauvoir claims that men are
On Lawrence: Men and women operate within the respective condemned to ignorance about the women's body, her "sexual
cults of virility and femininity. To depart from these assigned pleasure, the discomforts of menstruation, and the pains of
positions means disabling the potential for the perfect union childbirth." The same is true for women with respect to men:
with the other—something Lawrence posits as ideal, and the "As she is mystery for man, woman is regarded as mystery in
source of all knowledge. herself."
On Claudel: Woman is very specifically objectified in the Here it must be acknowledged that the complex physiology of
persona of the "good Christian woman." the woman, as noted earlier, means her body is not a clear
expression of herself. Does this mean woman is a sphinx,
On Breton: Breton's idea that "colliding with the mystery is the
indefinable to herself?
only way of discovering it," is closer to Lawrence's view of the
"sexual shock," the latter's term for the effects of the collision Beauvoir presents an existential analysis. This is the very
with life's mystery, and in Breton, the discovery of beauty. center of her argument. It is not a matter of women's
ambivalent relation to their bodies, or men's oppositional habits
of mind. It is not a matter of hidden truth, too fluctuating to be
Volume 1, Part 3, Chapter 3 described. People have been looking in the wrong places.
Beauvoir states, "An existent is nothing other than what he
does ... the human being is nothing." It is action that defines a
Summary person.
Up to around age 12, girls are as sturdy and self-sufficient as to recognize the plight of women in societies more repressive
boys. A survey of preteen boys and girls establishes that most or conservative than Beauvoir's, this chapter brilliantly
boys are glad they are not girls, while girls in the study are chronicles the development of the small girl.
sorry not to be boys. Beauvoir describes this finding by saying,
"Boys are better ... a boy has more aptitude for school ... a boy
does more interesting work." Volume 2, Part 1, Chapter 2
It is at this point that the girl begins to accept things as they
are. Beauvoir argues that a girl's passivity is condoned by
family; compensating temptations are dangled before her eyes;
Summary
and she yields as the "thrust of her transcendence comes up
In Chapter 2, "The Girl," the separation between boys and girls
against harsher and harsher resistance." The boy's future is
is exacerbated as the girl succumbs to the hormonal
open, while the girl will become a wife, a mother, a
challenges that come with menses. She is often in physical
grandmother. This is why she becomes preoccupied with sex.
pain, emotional distress, and experiences mood swings.
It is her future and her destiny. The secrets of sexuality and of
According to Beauvoir, her body is turned into a "screen
pregnancy frighten her. She does not trust the adults who
between [herself] and the world." She becomes a stranger to a
reassure her. Likely, she has had some experience with pain: a
self whose body is out of control. She is also a "stranger to the
toothache, an appendectomy. In her anxiety, she links sex with
rest of the world."
something dirty, and childbirth with blood and suffering.
Disgust with her developing body, with menses, with unwanted
While the boy at 13 is aggressive, competitive, and ready to put
attention by strangers on the street, and shame at the change
his body on the line to preserve his freedom, a girl's body is
in her appearance are all part of her daily experience.
more fragile, and she is less likely to engage in competitive
athletic activities. Beauvoir writes that a girl, detached from her
With puberty, the insults of a girl's body are compounded.
childhood past, seems to be in a period of discomfort and
Moreover, "puberty has a ... different meaning for the two
transition, during which she "is consumed by ... waiting for
sexes because it does not announce the same future." While
Man." And marriage is not only "an honorable and less
boys may find their bodies an embarrassing presence, there is
strenuous career than many others," it enables her to realize
a good deal of pride in their virility. The pain of menses, the
her sexuality and maternity, as well as attain social dignity.
threat of inappropriate and intentional touch, and unwanted
attention, are all worrisome. A girl's dreams and fantasies
While the young man's erotic drives confirm his pride in his
consist of sensual love and warm caresses, as well as rape and
body, the girl's body challenges her well-being, emotional and
fear of penetration.
physical: "Puberty means ... problems arise ... The anguish of
being a woman eats away at the female body," according to
Beauvoir.
Analysis
Girl's timidity is attributed to her physical fragility. Boys have
The chapter echoes and confirms the book's key point—that access to violence that confirms the power of their choices.
the developmental experience of boys and girls is significantly From puberty, girls lose ground in artistic and intellectual
different. Moreover, the book's opening conundrum—the pursuits. The disparity is seen in part as lack of
question of why and how women are complicit in their encouragement from teachers, but also lack of ambition.
subordination—is so clearly demonstrated that the issue of Beauvoir says that "she becomes an object ... she is existing
blame becomes irrelevant. Patriarchy is a male development, outside of herself." It is unclear whether she wants to be
but not a conspiracy against women. It is this very observation beautiful as the attractive other, or beautiful for herself. Both
that perhaps presents a tipping point for the status quo. are likely the case.
Although the experiential and theoretical models are drawn Confusion, trauma, and secrets to hide her distress are
from the late 1940s, when The Second Sex was written, these characteristic of the girl's transition to womanhood. At 16, she
ideas hold up even as times change. Also, as the reader comes has experienced many uncomfortable episodes: puberty,
The context here is the developmental shift the girl must make homosexual love, and the roles that lesbian lovers play, she
from pleasure in her clitoris, to vaginal sensitivity—at least as acknowledges that much the same may be said of
an accepted proposition in psychoanalytic theory. If the erotic heterosexual couples. That is, sex play itself—in private and
zone of the mature male is the penis, it is a simple matter for public life—may involve a range of performances by both
the boy/man of what comes naturally, a message from his sexes, including active and passive, virile and feminine. She
body to his receptive mind and memory. For the woman, her also refutes the notion of categorizing lesbians by type,
mature erotic zone is established by a body outside her own, although it may be observed that in today's culture of fluid
and unlike her own. And this adjustment is not easily achieved. sexualities, categories do operate. It's just that in the present,
Finally, the feminine adjustment to sexual pleasure is initiated such categories need not be banned since they are merely
in rape, in the forceful penetration demanded by the virgin descriptive, neither coercive nor pejorative—butch and femme.
Summary
Volume 2, Part 2, Chapter 5
In this chapter, "The Lesbian," although Beauvoir uses
inversion—a term for homosexuality contemporaneous with her
work—she assumes an existential position, saying, "The past is
grasped ... by a new choice, and ... must be judged by its
Summary
authenticity." Beauvoir believes "psychoanalysts' great error ...
Drawing on literature, diaries and anecdotes for Chapter 5,
is that they never envisage [homosexuality] as anything but an
"The Married Woman," Beauvoir presents the beleaguered
inauthentic attitude." With this statement, Beauvoir's work
state of the married woman and the burdens of the married
leaps into the 21st century with respect to a non-judgmental
man, developing the view that the failure of marriage is the
appreciation of the fluidity of gender and the range of
failure of the institution, rather than the fault of individuals. The
accompanying identifications and practices.
prominently, her refusal to marry him although he proposed on According to Beauvoir, maternal love is perhaps more difficult
several occasions. While full of engaging examples, this and great in that there is no reciprocity. She cares for "a little
chapter includes fictional and non-fiction narratives, all of stammering consciousness, lost in a fragile and contingent
which are dealt with equally as examples of the plight of the body." Her freedom consists in expecting no compensation for
married woman. The chapter is a welcome synthesis of the the gifts she bestows. There is no guarantee, however, that the
major ideas in the book, and it is perhaps the one that most natural state of becoming a mother insures for the infant a
forcefully sounds the alarm of women's subordination, good mother. The mother is always subject to her past: her
presenting a totally unacceptable solution for love matches, relationship to her family of origin, to her husband, and to her
marriage itself, and the romance of intimately shared lives. own sexual history.
meaning" and "cannot try to be a mother without playing a role as "this equality is not ... recognized ... it is ... difficult for ...
in economic, political, or social life"—the necessary conditions woman to act ... equal to ... man."
for giving birth to "free men."
sexes." The prostitute seeks not only the economic advantage, grows older continuously, the woman is brusquely stripped of
but the "apotheosis of her narcissism." her femininity."
The argument asks the reader to believe these are universal Analysis
judgments produced by the woman's situation and reproduced
over time. This argument may not fly for the literate, This chapter loses focus in its overstated examples, as
contemporary reader, however. While many of these Beauvoir explores the age-old indictments against women. She
statements tend to logically follow from the earlier scientific fails to distinguish among those that are blatantly stereotypical
and historical accounts, they seem strained as conclusions. and designed to perpetuate the subordination of women
They also seem hard to fathom as aspects of the stereotypical (Eternal Femininity), and those that seem to have some basis in
Eternal Female. the real conditions of the lives of men and women.
For example, Beauvoir claims that "woman's mentality The failure of existential morality would seem to be the
perpetuates that of ... civilizations that worship ... earth's underside of this angry and chaotic chapter.
magical qualities: she believes in magic." While this statement
echoes the earlier historical account, it does not seem familiar
in thinking stereotypically, or logically, about women. In the Volume 2, Part 3, Chapter 11
agricultural time of men and machines, certainly there is—or
have been—male farmers who find the seasons magical.
Moreover, believing in magic is not as unfashionable as it once
Summary
may have been.
important object is accessible to her." She cultivates a love. Worn out by her adventure, she discovers years too late
personal style in her clothing and in her surroundings, and she she has taken the wrong path.
engages in passionate and unusual interests designed to
represent, rather than occupy her. All this is a failed hedge Psychoanalysis suggests that the girl seeks the adoring father
against objectification, which doesn't work since she simply whom she can worship: that love has to do with seeing herself
creates and recreates herself as object. Authenticity is lost in through his eyes. And once she loves another man, the
the love of the mirror image. In the context of theater, such a difficulties multiply. In love, woman reconciles her sense of
woman is not a successful actress since her goal is not to self-love and eroticism. For the woman who can get past the
transcend herself in a role, but simply to be in the spotlight, to division between the animality of eroticism and the spirituality
be seen. Thus, she is a pretense of a subject—she performs a of love, sexual satisfaction awaits. It is then that she wants to
subject she cannot be. Women wish to be important, rather give everything and demand nothing. She finds herself by
than accomplish something that makes them important. They loving another and losing herself in him.
The basic terms for women remain different from those for
men. Men pursue sexual partners aggressively. Beauvoir
argues that "a woman who is not afraid of men frightens them," Beauvoir gives of herself as a means of improving humanity at
and ceases to be attractive unless she is taken by the male. If, large. All of this operates in a uniquely personalized and
afterwards, he finds she has "taken" him, he feels as though authentic synthesis of Marxist/existential thought.
she has been dishonest and he has been trapped. Similarly, in
bed, "he wants to take and not receive, not exchange but
ravish." Conclusion
Motherhood is the one female function the woman cannot
undertake in complete freedom. Beauvoir notes that British
and American women have access to birth control, while
Summary
French women do not. Still, women are not free to
The conclusion opens with the question: do people believe the
procreate—or not—as they please. There is the matter of
"battle of the sexes" is "an original curse," or rather "a
painful and dangerous abortions, a lack of respect for single
transitory moment in human history"?
motherhood and their illegitimate offspring, and a lack of
children's services and daycare for working mothers.
The subtle and overt differences between men and women
developed throughout the text are reviewed here in a summary
Thus, the independent woman is caught between her sexual
fashion: Is male superiority defined in its transcendental
and professional desires. Women's health issues are not
proclivities, and female subordination in her "natural"
considered in the marketplace. There is neither sympathy nor
tendencies to immanence? Beauvoir asks if it is true that for
allowances for a menstruating worker. Women often have
men, who have always been dominant, there is no reason to
defeatist attitudes, the result of inferior educations and late
trade their "insolence"?
arrivals in the marketplace. A woman often "lacks confidence,
inspiration, and daring."
The author claims the tension will remain "as long as men and
women do not recognize each other as peers." But what of the
Women who try their hands at creative work have many
woman who wants her freedom and her femininity, and the
obstacles to overcome. Accustomed to idleness, they "play" at
man who demands that she assume her limitations? Beauvoir
working. Unaccustomed to self-discipline, they often do not
reminds the reader that men find "more complicity in their
know how to work hard, acquire solid technique, or persevere
woman companions than the oppressor usually finds in the
to solve a problem. Women are often discouraged by criticism,
oppressed."
and usually called upon to change a lifetime of coddling in
order to learn how to succeed.
It seems little progress is being made. And just how much of
the conflict is built from irreconcilable conviction? Beauvoir
Most of all, culture must be apprehended "through the free
argues that woman is "a distraction ... for the man; for her he is
movement of a transcendence"—a mode women must learn to
the ... justification of her existence." He is the alleviation of her
master. Beauvoir argues that "misfortune and distress are
boredom, the respite for which she had been biding her time.
often learning experiences" that women need to be prepared
Man, on the other hand, values his time in terms of his ambition
to encounter.
for his creativity, his business partners, and his transcendental
inclinations that insure the comforts of his and her world.
Analysis Beauvoir thinks about the Soviet vision in which men and
women are equals in education, work life, erotic freedom, and
The deeply personal observations here—convincing to most in
where maternity is paid for and managed by the state.
their bare familiarity—represent a daring and stimulating mode
However, she immediately recognizes it is not enough "to
for a polemic. The intimate details reflect the intellectual's self-
change laws, institutions, customs, public opinions and the
consciousness as an innovative approach to argument. From
whole social context."
the earliest sections, where the reader encounters the inner
life of the girl, to these disclosures of the independent woman's Despite the briefest reconsideration and rejection of the
shame and enthusiasm for a sexual life as free as a man's, socialist vision, Beauvoir returns to Marx in the end. She
This emphasis in the end on the masculine must be evaluated Beauvoir calls this "the most striking conclusion of this study."
in a text written in a time when the masculine pronoun was in The cyclical nature of the female body operates without
ordinary usage as the universal pronoun. This effect of natural direction and governs mood, health, and welfare. That the body
usage enforces the notion of the propriety of cooperation operates outside the volition of the woman herself does not
between the sexes. That is, men and women, recognizing the disqualify it as the source of wholeness and sexual and
other as other, reciprocally appreciate their alterity while "not reproductive satisfactions.
doing away with the miracles that the division of human beings
... engenders."
One cannot help but see a movement in the organization of the "Freud was not ... concerned with
sexes as 21st-century practice separates sex from gender. If
woman's destiny ... he modeled ... it
there are biologically two sexes forever, there is a range of
sexualities that provides potential for brotherhood across a full on ... masculine destiny ...
spectrum of human beings, and a full spectrum of human
modifying ... the traits."
identities.
g Quotes
To Beauvoir—whose emphasis across all the disciplines she
studies is on the difference between the sexes—Freud misses
"American women ... think ... the point. The greater complexity in feminine development
from masculine development is her topic, and feminine
woman ... no longer exists ... opportunity and choice as destiny is her conclusion.
friends advise her to ... get rid of
this obsession." "The categories clitoral and
— Narrator, Introduction vaginal, like ... bourgeois and
proletarian, are ... inadequate to
Thinking of her purpose in writing a book on woman, Beauvoir
encompass a ... woman."
reflects on "the idiocies" on the subject churned out over the
20th century. Here she makes fun of Americans' pragmatic
approach to women in the workforce after World War II, and — Narrator, Volume 1, Part 1, Chapter 3
Beauvoir takes the opportunity in Chapter 4 to begin reflecting The economic inequality fundamental to most marriages
on the social standard that not only condemns homosexuality, throughout history is just the beginning of the story of the
but makes femininity compulsory to humans with the body subordination of women in marriage and the burdens men
parts of women. bear.
m Glossary
"Marriage must combine two agnation (n) patrimonial succession. Inheritance is exclusively
autonomous existences, not be a through the male line of the family.
withdrawal ... an escape, a alienation (n) Marxist diction for the worker's estrangement
from himself, his work, and his species. Most powerful in
remedy." Beauvoir's usage is the woman's alienation, an estrangement
from her own body recognized as beyond her control.
— Narrator, Volume 2, Part 2, Chapter 5
alterity (n) usually paired terms that are different, one from the
other, in one or more ways, not reciprocal. Derived from the
This formula, a welcome note in a chapter in which marriage is
same root as alternative, this relation occurs between paired
for the most part disparaged, represents a proposal for
terms (i.e. male/female) in which opposition is the principle of
change in the traditional forms of marriage, not at all a simple
relation, and one term—male—is subject and individuated, while
matter if one factors in the organizing argument of this
the other—female—is summarized and objectified.
book—the foundational objectification of women. Here, in the
hopeful account, are prospects for women's autonomy. binarism or binary opposition (n) an opposing pair. Binarism
refers to two terms paired in opposition.
existential morality (n) in which the subject experiences Benjamin, J., et al. "Simone de Beauvoir: An Interview." Feminist
freedom only by perpetually moving beyond it to other Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2. 1979, pp. 755–800.
freedoms. The individual justifies his existence in experiencing
it as an indefinite need to transcend himself, a commitment to Heinämaa, Sara. "Simone de Beauvoir's Phenomenology of
moving beyond selfish concerns to a larger world. Sexual Difference." Hypatia, Vol. 14, No. 4, 1999, pp. 114–32.
e Suggested Reading
Bair, Deirdre. Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography. New York,
Touchstone, 1991.