The Second Sex (book)

🔗Connect

🔼Topic:: feminism 2bc 🔼Topic:: Political Philosophy (MOC)

✒️ Note-Making

💡Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas

1. interdisciplinary - Women's oppressions as an object is a combination of biological, physiological and economical traits that have led to their social inferiority.
2. Path dependence - Since biological traits were more relevant during historical times, men had a "head start" on shaping the world in their image, creating institutions, cultures and myths to prolong women's social inferiority, and even convince them of that.
3. Myths - The social inferiority of women has been fixated through myths, that tie woman to nature, something mystical, scary and "animalistic", while man portrayed themselves as advanced beings, conquering both nature and women simultaneously in the quest of human transcendence.
4. Liberation starts with economics - the main factor limiting women nowadays is economical power. Since the labor force is no longer dependent on biological traits, there is no reason for women not to join the workforce and developing a career. By doing that, they have the ability to gain economical freedom, no longer dependent on men. This change is the first step in the process of liberation, that must include also social, moral and phycological change towards women, that we give them control on the narrative, allowing the possibility of breaking preexisting myths, as we see in our modern times.
5. outsourced transcendence - since women are synonymous with nature (according to men), they can't transcend it. Therefore many women "double down" on becoming an object, seeking control of the household as their "freedom", treat external appearance as internal expression, and compete with other women for men's attention. All this to say that their transcendence is dependent on external approval, i.e to be accepted by men, creating total dependence. While men are free to fulfill their will to transcend existence, not needing anyone's approval, seeing women as a small part of their life.
6. what is a woman - honestly it is hard to say. Much of women's behavior, situation and character has been developed either directly by, or as a response to men's oppression. Until true freedom is achieved, we will not know what is the true meaning of being a woman.

🗒️Relate

⛓ Life lessons, action items

1. let their voices heard - Women's involvement in all parts of life, from our political to the economical state should include women as active, equal and self representing voice.
2. Break preexisting myths - introspect on what you believe it is true, and even if it doesn't seem related, ask yourself whether this value was created by and for the enslavement of women.

🔍Critique

✅ by following this method, what will happen?

1. Men's invisible hand - you will see the "invisible hand" of preexisting patriarchy through myths and institutions that limit women's freedom and place them in a physiological prison, even in cases where it is of their own making
2. What is the true default - you will see that up until now, to be human was understood as to be male. Societies norms, expectations, and values are all set by and for men, but worse of all they are perceived as if representing the entire humanity, while in reality a whole different set of norms and values of women is being silenced, oppressed and opposed.

❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are...

1. outdated - it is fortunate to say that much has changed from the 1940s, and that many of the aspects described in the book are less common, or even non existent. Not only this means that some sections of the book are less relevant, it also means that it lacks the more modern aspects of what it means to be a woman, the challenges they are facing, and how they interacts with the "male world".

🗨️Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style...

1. there is a tendency to provide all available examples to the situation of women around the world, instead of focusing on establishing an argument and connecting in to the general message of the book. Meaning that it is often repetitive and over elaborated, However in most case this elaboration is eye opening and enriching, showing just how thorough De Beauvoir is.

🖼️Outline

📒 Notes

Part 1 - Facts and Myths

Introduction

In our culture, to be a man is to be the default, the positive and the neutral definition of humanity. It is the focal point, and everything else is defines relative to a man. To be a woman, is to detract several capabilities from a man, i.e to be defined relative to him, while he is to defined relative to her.

It is because we, as humans, quickly divide ourselves into groups of us vs them. The process of self defining requires creating an "other". While the "we" (aka "one") group are more characterized by subjectivity, as a capable, moral, transcendent being, the other is described as objectivity, as a lesser form, less deserving of rights and privileges.

While in most cases, both groups tend to accept themselves as the "one", while the other group is the "other". Women have agreed to this hierarchy and also define themselves as "other", they have accepted their objectivity.

Similarly, while other cases can "imagine a world" where the other disappears, where there is only "us", it cannot be the case for women. "Unfortunately", women are half of a whole who two components are needed for one another. I.e she is bound to a relationship with her oppressor.

These relationship is not equal. While men feels independent of women, women have internalized their need for men. Similarly, men hold all the power in the relationship, usually through economical and political means. To demand equality would be an act of war, especially for men who are most insecure about their position in life.

It is a self fulfilling prophecy, that men use their power to make women inferior, and then justify their inferiority based on the situation they have created Is vs Ought. Like forcing a black person to be only a shoe-shine, and then justifying their inferiority by saying "look, they are only good for shining shoes".

Quotes

• Is femininity secreted by the ovaries? Is it enshrined in a Platonic heaven? Is a frilly petticoat enough to bring it down to earth? Although some women zealously strive to embody it, the model has never been patented. (Location 330)
• Humanity is male, and man defines woman, not in herself, but in relation to himself; she is not considered an autonomous being. (Location 370)
• She is determined and differentiated in relation to man, while he is not in relation to her; she is the inessential in front of the essential. He is the Subject; he is the Absolute. She is the Other. (Location 375)
• No group ever defines itself as One without immediately setting up the Other opposite itself. (Location 381)
• the subject posits itself only in opposition; it asserts itself as the essential and sets up the other as inessential, as the object. (Location 391)
• it is not the Other who, defining itself as Other, defines the One; the Other is posited as Other by the One positing itself as One. But in order for the Other not to turn into the One, the Other has to submit to this foreign point of view. Where does this submission in woman come from? (Location 398)
• If woman discovers herself as the inessential and never turns into the essential, it is because she does not bring about this transformation herself. (Location 412)
• This is the fundamental characteristic of woman: she is the Other at the heart of a whole whose two components are necessary to each other. (Location 427)
• in the master-slave relation, the master does not posit the need he has for the other; he holds the power to satisfy this need and does not mediate it; the slave, on the other hand, out of dependence, hope, or fear, internalizes his need for the master; (Location 435)
• Refusing to be the Other, refusing complicity with man, would mean renouncing all the advantages an alliance with the superior caste confers on them. (Location 446)
• no one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or more disdainful, than a man anxious about his own virility. (Location 520)
• she discovers and chooses herself in a world where men force her to assume herself as Other: an attempt is made to freeze her as an object and doom her to immanence, since her transcendence will be forever transcended by another essential and sovereign consciousness. (Location 579)

Part 2 - DESTINY

Biological Data

What is the nature of different sexes in the animal world? the distinction is not as clear and simple as it seems. when considering evolutionary theory, neither biological system can be called “superior.” The biological differences between the sexes within the human world doesn't entails a certain destiny, for example, being a child barer doesn't mean that female should be the care takers of the children. Biology is not enough to explain why woman is “the Other” in society, because we as humans have already surpassed nature in many aspects, therefore our social, and economical context is much more relevant when we analyze women's situation than biology. nature vs nurture

Quotes

• she is the most deeply alienated of all the female mammals, and she is the one that refuses this alienation the most violently; in no other is the subordination of the organism to the reproductive function more imperious nor accepted with greater difficulty. (Location 1068)
• the woman’s body is one of the essential elements of the situation she occupies in this world. But her body is not enough to define her; it has a lived reality only as taken on by consciousness through actions and within a society; biology alone cannot provide an answer to the question that concerns us: why is woman the Other? The question is how, in her, nature has been taken on in the course of history; the question is what humanity has made of the human female. (Location 1153)

The Psychoanalytical Point of View

Women feel inferior to men, they envy men and judge themselves based on the male standard. But in contrast with other thinkers who tie this feeling to women's subconscious, de Beauvoir ties it to society Narratives. Society, not their own subconscious, teaches them to feel this way

Quotes

• Nature does not define woman: it is she who defines herself by reclaiming nature for herself in her affectivity. (Location 1174)
• Deprived of this alter ego, the little girl does not alienate herself in a graspable thing, does not reclaim herself: she is thus led to make her entire self an object, to posit herself as the Other; the question of knowing whether or not she has compared herself with boys is secondary; what is important is that, even without her knowing it, the absence of a penis keeps her from being aware of herself as a sex; (Location 1338)
• Psychoanalysis could only find its truth within a historical context. (Location 1346)

The Point of View of Historical Materialism

It is not economical reasons alone that have led women into their inferior state, although it is a large part of it. It stems from the human quest towards transcendence, and specifically the transcendence of nature that has lead to the separation between the sexes, that had shaped the world in men's image, which one of it's aspects is difference in economical power. materialism

Quotes

• Humanity is not an animal species: it is a historical reality. Human society is an anti-physis: it does not passively submit to the presence of nature, but rather appropriates it. (Location 1418)
• woman cannot simply be considered a sexed organism: among biological data, only those with concrete value in action have any importance; woman’s consciousness of herself is not defined by her sexuality alone: it reflects a situation that depends on society’s economic structure, a structure that indicates the degree of technical evolution humanity has attained. (Location 1420)
• her social oppression is the consequence of her economic oppression. Equality can only be reestablished when both sexes have equal legal rights; (Location 1448)
• the division of labor by sex might have been a friendly association. If the original relation between man and his peers had been exclusively one of friendship, one could not account for any kind of enslavement: this phenomenon is a consequence of the imperialism of human consciousness, which seeks to match its sovereignty objectively. Had there not been in human consciousness both the original category of the Other and an original claim to domination over the Other, the discovery of the bronze tool could not have brought about woman’s oppression. (Location 1491)
• be compelled in the way a freedom can be. There is no way to directly oblige a woman to give birth: all that can be done is to enclose her in situations where motherhood is her only option: laws or customs impose marriage on her, anticonception measures and abortion are banned, divorce is forbidden. (Location 1515)
• Underlying the personal emotional conflicts as well as the economic history of humanity there is an existential infrastructure that alone makes it possible to understand in its unity the unique form that is a life. (Location 1532)

Part 3 - HISTORY

CHAPTER 1

At first, at least in the theoretical sense, while humanity was still in it's infancy, no more than mere animals, there was a balance between the sexes. the balance of male production and female reproduction did not naturally lead to one dominating the other, since both were equally valuable to society.

However, as humanity developed, there was the urge to surpass nature, to transcend from our animalistic nature and become something more. Not only survival, but domination and control over nature. it is only in surpassing the animal condition that humans can find meaning—by defining their own humanity as separate from the existence of animals.

This is the point of separation, because from the point of view of transcendence women’s role in producing children entails a simple, passive submission to biological necessity, one that even animals can perform, a mere maintenance of the status quo, of adhering to natural tendencies. However, men’s role in inventing new things and asserting their power over their environment surpasses the capacities of animals and allows men to recognize their own humanity and their future potential, they create value for society, they helped humanity advance.

Based on this narrative, women are the same as nature, the thing we as humans try to surpass, our enemy and weakness, while men are our transcendental being, the force of creativity and power to drive us forwards.

Quotes

• This world has always belonged to males, and none of the reasons given for this have ever seemed sufficient. (Location 1550)
• as robust as women may have been at that time, the burdens of reproduction represented for them a severe handicap in the fight against a hostile world: (Location 1565)
• The worst curse on woman is her exclusion from warrior expeditions; it is not in giving life but in risking his life that man raises himself above the animal; this is why throughout humanity, superiority has been granted not to the sex that gives birth but to the one that kills. (Location 1605)
• The female, more than the male, is prey to the species; humanity has always tried to escape from its species’ destiny; with the invention of the tool, maintenance of life became activity and project for man, while motherhood left woman riveted to her body like the animal. (Location 1627)
• Male activity, creating values, has constituted existence itself as a value; it has prevailed over the indistinct forces of life; and it has subjugated Nature and Woman. (Location 1630)

CHAPTER 2

certain societies associated women with childbirth, and worshipped women’s role in producing new life. However, she argues that even in these societies, woman was still considered an “Other;” she can only be worshipped in the first place because she is considered to be not a peer, but outside of the human order. This means that society has always been centered around men, rather than an equal consideration of both sexes. It also means that woman is still always defined by men: they created women as idols in the first place, and therefore can also destroy these idols. Furthermore, these female idols were based in male fear, not love or respect. Once agriculture gave way to creative labor, men could reclaim control over both children and crops, and women lost all power they may have had as idols. agricultural revolution

Quotes

• Insofar as woman is considered the absolute Other, that is—whatever magic powers she has—as the inessential, it is precisely impossible to regard her as another subject.3 Women have thus never constituted a separate group that posited itself for-itself before a male group; they have never had a direct or autonomous relationship with men. “The relationship of reciprocity which is the basis of marriage is not established between men and women, but between men by means of women, who are merely the occasion of this relationship,” (Location 1717)
• The prestige she enjoys in the eyes of men comes from them; they kneel before the Other, they worship the Goddess Mother. But as powerful as she may appear, she is defined through notions created by the male consciousness. (Location 1753)
• Thus, the triumph of patriarchy was neither an accident nor the result of a violent revolution. From the origins of humanity, their biological privilege enabled men to affirm themselves alone as sovereign subjects; they never abdicated this privilege; they alienated part of their existence in Nature and in Woman; but they won it back afterward; condemned to play the role of the Other, woman was thus condemned to possess no more than precarious power: slave or idol, she was never the one who chose her lot. (Location 1811)
• it is because she did not participate in his way of working and thinking and because she remained enslaved to the mysteries of life that the male did not recognize in her an equal; (Location 1822)

CHAPTER 3

After the agricultural revolution, private property became a human concept. No more hunter gatherers who share everything, since they don't own anything, but rather societies with permanent settlements that can gather and create property. With this shift, women were defined as property as well, which led men to value sexual fidelity. If a woman was not a virgin or faithful to her husband, his ability to pass on his property to his own children would be threatened.

Quotes

• the Roman woman of the decline is typical of false emancipation, possessing, in a world where men are still the only masters, nothing but empty freedom: she is free “for nothing.” (Location 2184)

CHAPTER 4

She analyzes Christian demonization of sexuality as the root of its discrimination against women, who represent a temptation. She also describes Germanic traditions in which women are respected and well treated under the law as long as they remain man’s property and give up individual right.

over time the position of privileged women did change. In the Italian Renaissance, individualism became celebrated across both sexes. Women could join in freethinking activities and sponsor the arts, or run their own salons. However, they were only allowed to participate in such cultural activities because these did not tangibly change the political landscape.

Overall, de Beauvoir concludes that democratic and individualist ideals of the 18th century did somewhat help women’s position in society.

Quotes

• In a religion where the flesh is cursed, the woman becomes the devil’s most fearsome temptation. (Location 2204)
• In common law as in feudal law, the only emancipation is outside marriage; the daughter and the widow have the same capacities as the man; but by marrying, the woman falls under the husband’s guardianship and administration; (Location 2309)

CHAPTER 5

the French Revolution did not actually change the fate of women. It was run by men and focused on bourgeois values, leaving working class women behind. In the anarchic phase of the revolution, women enjoyed some kind of freedom, but this ended when society was reorganized.

By contrast, the reform movement of the 19th century did seek justice in equality, though Proudhon proved an exception. These movements tended to recognize that women were most exploited by the capitalist system.

de Beauvoir also considers the dilemma of balancing reproductive work with productive work. Women’s fertility was variously controlled by the state over the course of history. Christian morals helped to make abortion a crime, which in turn forced women to focus more on reproduction than production in the labor force. In the 19th century, being able to work and having more freedom to control their reproduction helped change women’s condition. Nevertheless, the feminist movement advanced slowly because of the class divisions that split the women involved.

circumstances have prevented women from rising to their potential greatness, and reiterates that women need both abstract rights and concrete possibilities in order to have true freedom to create. The burdens of marriage are still heavier on women, since it is more difficult to balance work with domestic duties. However, marriage still represents the best way to advance a woman’s situation, which means women turn to marriage over advancing in their careers, thus perpetuating the cycle of less skilled women workers. Women thus have to exert greater “moral effort” to choose independence, since the path of independence is more difficult for them than it is for men.

Quotes

• Woman regains the economic importance lost since prehistoric times because she escapes the home and plays a new role in industrial production. (Location 2736)
• women’s entire history has been written by men. (Location 3047)
• Men always held woman’s lot in their hands; and they did not decide on it based on her interest; it is their own projects, fears, and needs that counted. (Location 3054)
• To change the face of the world, one has first to be firmly anchored to it; but women firmly rooted in society are those subjugated by it; (Location 3101)
• it is not women’s inferiority that has determined their historical insignificance: it is their historical insignificance that has doomed them to inferiority. (Location 3104)
• What determines women’s present situation is the stubborn survival of the most ancient traditions in the new emerging civilization. (Location 3169)

Part 4 - MYTHS

CHAPTER 1

Woman is perceived as nature. Nature that both takes and gives life. It is an inseparable part of what it means to be alive, but it is also the one thing we wish to surpass. This duality has shaped the relationship between men and women. Men cannot escape his destiny of life and death, but nevertheless he wishes to surpass it. He treats woman as something to be adored but also feared at the same time. Mother nature, Death itself, darkness, treacherous of the sea, all represented by women.

This also makes transcendence easier for man. Instead of working internally on rejecting and assimilating "being" at the same time Ethics of ambiguity (book) , he outsources his transcendence to women. By controlling, surpassing women, he believes he can transcend himself and nature. By being her educator, her benefactor, and even has her tyrant, he transcends himself through her, like parents who wishes to fulfill their own dreams using their children.

That is why on the one hand, when the men "owns" his woman, he wishes her to appear at her "best self", to highlight her "natural" features, mainly her body. The more "natural" she appears, the stronger his rule over nature. Similarly, that is why she is in charge of all the "natural" aspects of day to day living in the household, such as taking care of food, raising the children, basic chores. All these are a continuation of her as a representor of nature, while men is "out there" pursuing dreams and aspirations, fulfilling a higher calling, in his road to transcendence, while she remains in the low, natural state of living. But on the other hand, when she is not yet "yours" to conquer, she is a threat. Her sexuality has to be hidden, she is a devil, a force of temptation and corruption, i.e the negative aspects of nature and "earthly desires". Therefore she should be controlled, tamed, reduced to a mere servant, to be similar to man, a pure soul in servitude of his god, being guided by him.

Quotes

• this is the tragedy of the unhappy consciousness; each consciousness seeks to posit itself alone as sovereign subject. Each one tries to accomplish itself by reducing the other to slavery. (Location 3257)
• man attains an authentically moral attitude when he renounces being in order to assume his existence; (Location 3262)
• She is nature raised to the transparency of consciousness; she is a naturally submissive consciousness. And therein lies the marvelous hope that man has often placed in woman: he hopes to accomplish himself as being through carnally possessing a being while making confirmed in his freedom by a docile freedom. (Location 3282)
• The representation of the world as the world itself is the work of men; they describe it from a point of view that is their own and that they confound with the absolute truth. (Location 3309)
• Woman who condemns man to finitude also enables him to surpass his own limits: that is where the equivocal magic surrounding her comes from. (Location 3399)
• woman is not just an object of pleasure but a means of reaching this hubris in which the individual surpasses himself. (Location 3477)
• Man expects more from possessing woman than the satisfaction of an instinct; she is the special object through which he subjugates Nature. (Location 3564)
• In the embellished woman, Nature was present but captive, shaped by a human will in accordance with man’s desire. Woman was even more desirable when nature was shown off to full advantage and more rigorously subjugated: the sophisticated woman has always been the ideal erotic object. And the taste for a more natural beauty is often a specious form of sophistication. (Location 3598)
• Deprived of her magic weapons by nuptial rites, economically and socially dependent on her husband, the “good wife” is man’s most precious treasure. (Location 3890)
• the husband “forms” his wife not only erotically but also spiritually and intellectually; he educates her, impresses her, puts his imprint on her. (Location 3902)
• Clearly man wants woman’s enslavement when fantasizing himself as a benefactor, liberator, or redeemer; (Location 4052)
• Man succeeded in enslaving woman, but in doing so, he robbed her of what made possession desirable. Integrated into the family and society, woman’s magic fades rather than transfigures itself; reduced to a servant’s condition, she is no longer the wild prey incarnating all of nature’s treasures. (Location 4118)
• Here, then, is why woman has a double and deceptive image: she is everything he craves and everything he does not attain. She is the wise mediator between auspicious Nature and man; and she is the temptation of Nature, untamed against all reason. She is the carnal embodiment of all moral values and their opposites, from good to bad; (Location 4283)

CHAPTER 2

Quotes

• woman is akin to nature, she embodies it: animal, little vale of blood, rose in bloom, siren, curve of a hill, she gives humus, sap, tangible beauty, and the world’s soul to man; she can hold the keys to poetry; she can be mediator between this world and the beyond: (Location 5335)
• she appears as the privileged Other through whom the subject accomplishes himself: one of the measures of man, his balance, his salvation, his adventure, and his happiness. (Location 5339)

CHAPTER 3

Quotes

• Men do not have to care about alleviating the suffering and burdens that are physiologically women’s lot since they are “intended by Nature”; they take this as a pretext to increase the misery of the woman’s condition—for (Location 5524)
• Of all these myths, none is more anchored in masculine hearts than the feminine “mystery.” It has numerous advantages. And first it allows an easy explanation for anything that is inexplicable; the man who does not “understand” a woman is happy to replace his subjective deficiency with an objective resistance; instead of admitting his ignorance, he recognizes the presence of a mystery exterior to himself: here is an excuse that flatters his laziness and vanity at the same time. (Location 5527)
• To say that woman is mystery is to say not that she is silent but that her language is not heard; (Location 5547)
• to reject myths is not to destroy all dramatic relations between the sexes, it is not to deny the significations authentically revealed to man through feminine reality; it is not to eliminate poetry, love, adventure, happiness, and dreams: it is only to ask that behavior, feelings, and passion be grounded in truth. (Location 5618)
• Then will she fully be a human being, “when woman’s infinite servitude is broken, when she lives for herself and by herself, man—abominable until now—giving her her freedom.” (Location 5646)

Part 5 - Formative Years

Childhood

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. Social Construct Nothing in our biology suggests that female should be grown up to be women. Children from both sexes act similarly during their early years.

It is when we, parents, family, society, start to treat those two differently, that we educate them to be "man" and "woman". When we stop "pampering" the boys, telling them to be strong, to be independent. When we let girls play only with dolls, showing them that their job is to take care, to put others first.

adults value and praise a boy’s sexuality in compensation for his earlier weaning; this teaches him to identify his sexuality with his independence and transcendence. On the other hand, girls’ sexuality is neither praised nor acknowledged, which leaves them more confused and often leads them to wish they were boys. While boys have an "inherent" device that symbolizes their transcendence (their penis), girls don't have that, so they are forced to seek transcendence through others, whether by playing with dolls (being a care taker) or seeking the attention of adults, both cases they are becoming an object.

As they enter puberty, women are given responsibilities in the house earlier on than boys. However, they learn that women are limited to these kinds of chores. Thus, although they might mature faster, they are also stuck in this state for the rest of their lives, while boys get to explore and grow over time. At the same time, they are taught to approach love by submitting to the will of men. sex and puberty are associated with shame and pain.

Quotes

• One is not born, but rather becomes, woman. (Location 5675)
• No “maternal instinct,” innate and mysterious, lies therein either. The little girl observes that child care falls to the mother, that is what she is taught; stories told, books read, all her little experience confirms it; (Location 5932)
• She learns that to be happy, she has to be loved; to be loved, she has to await love. (Location 6087)
• she is twelve years old, and her story is already written in the heavens; she will discover it day after day without shaping it; she is curious but frightened when she thinks about this life whose every step is planned in advance and toward which each day irrevocably moves her. (Location 6220)
• to become a grown-up, the girl must confine herself within the limits that her femininity imposes on her. (Location 6535)
• Her metamorphosis into a woman takes place not only in shame but in remorse for suffering that shame. (Location 6664)

The Girl

While women are for men only one factor in a complete life, for women, men and marriage are the only goal they can aspire to. Just as boys start to develop more aggressive games in adolescence, girls are encouraged to become more passive. de Beauvoir claims that their awareness of their physical weakness leads them to lose confidence in everything else about themselves.

They also begin to think of themselves as objects and become obsessed with their own appearance, because this is the only thing men care about when they approach women. They grow up to be confused because they are divided between accepting their feminine destiny to be passive, and rebelling against it.

Quotes

• this male prestige is not a childish mirage; it has economic and social foundations; men are, without any question, the masters of the world; everything convinces the adolescent girl that it is in her interest to be their vassal; (Location 6843)
• To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in one’s self. (Location 6902)

Sexual Experiences

Girls sexual awakening is a violent act. While men transition smoothly and remain at the center of their sexuality, women must accept domination. Women are always expected to be passive and submissive, while men are encouraged to be active. Women also approach sex from a more difficult position because they are conflicted about giving in to their desires. Their sexuality is less by physical touch, in the way a man’s is, and more by the situation as a whole.

Quotes

• when they refer to their most civilized love relationships, they talk of conquest, attack, assault, siege and defense, defeat, and capitulation, clearly copying the idea of love from that of war. (Location 7714)
• Woman does not have the option of transforming her flesh into will: when she stops hiding it, she gives it up without defenses; even if she longs for caresses, she recoils from the idea of being seen and felt; (Location 7825)
• she cannot have arrogant pride in her body as long as male approval has not confirmed her young vanity. And this is just what frightens her; the lover is even more terrifying than a gaze: he is a judge; (Location 7830)
• Many think that “making a woman come” is a question of time and technique, therefore of violence; they disregard the extent to which woman’s sexuality is conditioned by the situation as a whole. Sexual pleasure for her, we have said, is a kind of spell; it demands total abandon; (Location 8165)

Homosexuality

women are not lesbians because of their anatomical “destiny” but because of their social context

Part 6 - Situations

Introduction

Quotes

• the adolescent girl does not consider herself responsible for her future; she judges it useless to demand much of herself since her lot in the end will not depend on her. Far from destining herself to man because she thinks she is inferior to him, it is because she is destined for him that, in accepting the idea of her inferiority, she constitutes it. (Location 6954)
• this morbid daydreaming was essentially to satiate the girl’s narcissism, as she feels that her life was inadequate and is afraid to confront the reality of her existence. (Location 7097)
• With puberty she learned shame: and shame is mixed with her coquetry and vanity, men’s gazes flatter and hurt her at the same time; she would only like to be seen to the extent that she shows herself: eyes are always too penetrating. (Location 7269)
• Sadomasochistic crazes imply a fundamental bad faith: if the girl indulges in them, it means she accepts, through her rejections, her future as woman; she would not mutilate her flesh with hatred if first she did not recognize herself as flesh. (Location 7335)
• As long as perfect economic equality is not realized in society and as long as customs allow the woman to profit as wife and mistress from the privileges held by certain men, the dream of passive success will be maintained in her and will hold back her own accomplishments. (Location 7619)

The Married Woman

marriage remains unequal for women because it represents the only way for a girl to enter into society and be economically secure, while boys do not face the same pressure because they can work and live independently. Wives are expected to serve their husbands and take care of the house and children, instead of having their own interests or lives outside of the home. The wife can only interact with society through her husband, and has no sense of independence or future

women are often very conflicted about marriage because it is both beneficial and harmful to them. They often marry because they think they should, and end up in situations they did not expect. Because no one talks to them about what to expect, either from married life or from losing their virginity, many women feel violated by their first sexual experience with their husbands, and continue to feel miserable in their sexual relations. Most men are not in love with their wives, but rather think of them as property. Love and marriage generally do not go together for either gender because marriage is an oppressive and unequal institution.

To compensate for their lack of freedom outside the house, women often become domineering within the space of the home and fixate completely on housework. However, this work is largely meaningless because it does not create anything new or contribute to society, leaving women unhappy and unfulfilled overall.

Quotes

• Marriage has always been presented in radically different ways for men and for women. The two sexes are necessary for each other, but this necessity has never fostered reciprocity; (Location 8715)
• The male’s vocation is action; he needs to produce, fight, create, progress, go beyond himself toward the totality of the universe and the infinity of the future; but traditional marriage does not invite woman to transcend herself with him; it confines her in immanence. She has no choice but to build a stable life where the present, prolonging the past, escapes the threats of tomorrow, (Location 9260)
• The housewife wears herself out running on the spot; she does nothing; she only perpetuates the present; she never gains the sense that she is conquering a positive Good, but struggles indefinitely against Evil. It is a struggle that begins again every day. (Location 9371)
• the product of housework has to be consumed; constant renunciation is demanded of the wife whose work is finished only with its destruction. For her to consent to it without regret, these small holocausts must spark some joy or pleasure somewhere. But as housework is spent in maintaining the status quo, the husband—when he comes home—notices disorder and negligence but takes order and neatness for granted. (Location 9541)
• The wife is not allowed to do any positive work and consequently to have herself known as a complete person. Regardless of how well she is respected, she is subjugated, secondary, parasitic. The heavy curse weighing on her is that the very meaning of her existence is not in her hands. This is the reason the successes and failures of her conjugal life have much more importance for her than for the man: he is a citizen, a producer, before being a husband; she is above all, and often exclusively, a wife; (Location 9569)
• In a struggle where her intellectual shortcomings condemn her to losing every time, the young wife has no defense other than silence, or tears, or violence: (Location 9823)
• it is often not enough for the husband to be supported and admired, to give counsel and guidance; he gives orders, he plays the sovereign; (Location 9843)
• the woman wants to “hold on to” her husband as well as to refuse his domination. She struggles against him to defend her autonomy, and she fights against the rest of the world to conserve the “situation” that dooms her to dependence. (Location 9933)
• the union of two human beings is doomed to failure if it requires an effort for each of them to complete each other, which supposes a primal mutilation; marriage must combine two autonomous existences, not be a withdrawal, an annexation, an escape, a remedy. (Location 10235)
• The big difference is that for the wife, dependence is interiorized; she is a slave even when she conducts herself with apparent freedom, while the husband is essentially autonomous and enchained from the outside. (Location 10280)

The Mother

for women, becoming a mother means fulfilling their natural duty, but it is not true transcendence since it is according to nature, and not from surpassing what is “natural.”

women feel ambivalent about childbirth because it represents new life, but also the eventuality of their own death. Pregnancy can be fulfilling for certain women in all the wrong ways: they might feel like they finally have a purpose in life, but this is a dangerous mindset because, of course, pregnancy cannot last forever and thus cannot always provide women with a purpose. Often, women can be disappointed when the child is finally born and is not everything they expected it to be.

Some women can think of children as their double, or their reason for existing. This can become complicated as children get older because they develop their individuality and often disappoint their mothers. Motherhood can be positive if women approach it in a healthy way and do not expect their love to be reciprocated in the same way they offer it.

Mothers are likely to try to control and limit their sons, while thinking of their daughters as their doubles and relating to them more closely. However, when either a son or daughter attempts to be independent of their mother, women can react negatively and try to stop this process. Thus, the oppression of women is negative both for women and for their children.

Quotes

• Forced motherhood results in bringing miserable children into the world, children whose parents cannot feed them, who become victims of public assistance or “martyr children.” (Location 10416)
• The mother can have her reasons for wanting a child, but she cannot give to this other—who tomorrow is going to be—his own raisons d’être; she engenders him in the generality of his body, not in the specificity of his existence. (Location 10693)
• A whole set of economic and sentimental considerations define the infant as a burden, a shackle, or a liberation, a jewel, a form of security. (Location 10923)
• Like the “passage” into puberty, sexual initiation, and marriage, motherhood generates morose disappointment for subjects who are waiting for an external event to renew and justify their lives. (Location 10930)
• there is no such thing as maternal “instinct”: the word does not in any case apply to the human species. The mother’s attitude is defined by her total situation and by the way she accepts it. It is, as we have seen, extremely variable. (Location 10963)
• The first is that motherhood is enough in all cases to fulfill a woman: this is not at all true. (Location 11184)
• It is a criminal paradox to deny women all public activity, to close masculine careers to them, to proclaim them incapable in all domains, and to nonetheless entrust to them the most delicate and most serious of all undertakings: the formation of a human being. (Location 11229)
• it is a sophism to justify it by pretending that a law was written in heaven or in the bowels of the earth that requires that the mother and child belong to each other exclusively; this mutual belonging in reality only constitutes a double and harmful oppression. (Location 11259)

Social Life

marriage also limits women’s abilities to function in society. She claims that women can only try to show off and represent themselves to others in society, instead of having genuine connections with others. They express themselves through their wardrobes, which are often restrictive of movement and are designed only to make women appear attractive and limited. Women’s clothes are so important because women are essentially thought of as decorative objects. form vs essence.

women often feel a rivalry with other women, since they are all competing for men’s attention, and this destroys women’s ability to remain true friends with one another. Adultery and women’s relationships with lovers are also shaped by their lack of freedom within their marriages; women often have lovers in order to take revenge on their husbands.

Quotes

• As woman is an object, it is obvious that how she is adorned and dressed affects her intrinsic value. (Location 11422)
• Clothes can be an instrument of conquest but not a weapon of defense; their art is to create mirages, they offer the viewer an imaginary object: (Location 11487)
• the woman kept confined, isolated, does not have the joys of a comradeship that involves pursuing aims together; her work does not occupy her mind, her education did not give her either the taste or the habit of independence, and yet she spends her days in solitude; (Location 11561)
• Repressed women make shrewish wives, sadistic mothers, fanatical housekeepers, unhappy and dangerous creatures; (Location 11805)

Prostitutes and Hetaeras

prostitution is also a response to the problems that exist in marriage; by sleeping with prostitutes, men are looking for more fulfilling sexual encounters outside of their boring marriages. Many prostitutes, who are forced to turn to this profession because they have no other options. Life for a hetaera is all a performance, and is therefore still unfulfilling and unequal to a man’s situation.

Quotes

• the prostitute does not have the rights of a person; she is the sum of all types of feminine slavery at once. (Location 11872)
• The prostitute who only gives her body is perhaps less of a slave than the woman whose occupation it is to entertain. (Location 12149)

From Maturity to Old Age

most women fear aging because they depend on their appearance to get by in society. Old women are often faced with regrets, as well; they reflect back on a youth in which they were not able to accomplish anything beyond marriage and are generally frustrated with their situation. However, in some ways old age allows women greater freedom. They do not associate themselves as much with their physical bodies, and live more in their imaginations. Nevertheless, their situation remains tragic because they only gain these freedoms once they are too old to make use of them.

at this age, women place all of their hopes on their children and expect to live vicariously through them. This can be a negative situation for both the older mother and her child, as it is frustrating for both of them when the child wants to be more independent.

Quotes

• While the male grows older continuously, the woman is brusquely stripped of her femininity; still young, she loses sexual attraction and fertility, from which, in society’s and her own eyes, she derives the justification of her existence and her chances of happiness: (Location 12240)
• One of the most salient characteristics in the aging woman is the feeling of depersonalization that makes her lose all objective landmarks. (Location 12325)
• The problems of menopause will last—sometimes until death—if the woman does not decide to let herself grow old; (Location 12359)
• When she has given up the fight against the inevitability of time, another combat opens: she has to keep a place on earth. (Location 12385)
• The mother’s behavior depends on whether she grasps her child’s healthy development as a promise of ruin or of resurrection. (Location 12466)
• the old woman’s wisdom still remains completely negative: it is contestation, accusation, refusal; it is sterile. In her thoughts as in her acts, the highest form of freedom a woman-parasite can have is stoic defiance or skeptical irony. At no time in her life does she succeed in being both effective and independent. (Location 12593)

Woman’s Situation and Character

woman’s situation has remained largely the same throughout history, leaving her oppressed and unequal when compared to men. This means that her character has also remained mostly the same throughout history, since a woman’s character is shaped by her social situation. Woman’s character is described as: argumentative, petty, weak, immoral, selfish, and deceptive. However, women are like this because they must accept masculine authority, and this leads to many contradictions in their personalities and outlooks on life. Most of their faults are related to the fact that their opportunities are very limited. For this reason, much of feminine behavior should be interpreted as a protest against the masculine order.

Quotes

• the housewife lives at the level of utility, and she takes credit for herself only when she is useful to her family. But no existent is able to satisfy itself with an inessential role: (Location 12731)
• it is for her to shoulder all of males’ immorality: (Location 12897)
• Rejecting logical principles and moral imperatives, skeptical about the laws of nature, woman lacks a sense of the universal; the world seems to her a confused collection of individual cases; (Location 12928)
• because of the fact that in woman this freedom remains abstract and empty, it cannot authentically assume itself except in revolt: this is the only way open to those who have no chance to build anything; they must refuse the limits of their situation and seek to open paths to the future; resignation is only a surrender and an evasion; for woman there is no other way out than to work for her liberation. This liberation can only be collective, and it demands above all that the economic evolution of the feminine condition be accomplished. (Location 13114)

Part 7 - Justifications

The Narcissist

narcissism is an attitude that emerges from women’s oppressive social situation. Narcissism is a process of alienation, in which women view themselves as an object and place supreme value on their physical being. Since women cannot exist as subjects themselves, so they seek transcendence by losing themselves in something else. For some women, this “something else” is the object that they represent in society.

They want to be recognized as important by those around them because they have no important skills or products to offer the world, besides the bare fact of their existence. These kinds of women never build genuine connections with others because they insist on being the center of everyone’s existence and do not truly know themselves or the reality around them. Although narcissists may appear strong and self-absorbed, they are actually weak because their entire self-worth depends on how important they are to others.

Quotes

• All love demands the duality of a subject and an object. (Location 13151)
• it is because of her inability to express herself in daily action that woman believes an inexpressible mystery inhabits her: (Location 13286)
• It would be a grave error to believe that in choosing herself as the supreme end, she escapes dependence: on the contrary, she dooms herself to the most severe slavery; she does not make the most of her freedom, she makes herself an endangered object in the world and in foreign consciousnesses. (Location 13417)

Woman in Love

omen in love can also lose themselves fully in their love affairs without being truly understood. Love is all-consuming for women; they devote themselves entirely to pleasing the man they love. However, for men, love is just another piece of their lives, as opposed to their entire existence. Women will inevitably be disappointed by their lovers because they expect too much of them. By putting the beloved man on a pedestal, a woman sets herself up to be devastated when that man acts human and appears flawed. At the same time, there is another contradiction inherent in women’s love for men: they want men to be godlike but they also want to possess them entirely. Similarly, women want to give themselves up entirely to men but also want men to fully appreciate this sacrifice and give them access to the world through their love. de Beauvoir believes that many women find self-worth only through the fact that a man loves them.

When a love affair is broken off, a woman often finds herself completely ruined. She not only loses economic benefits, but also feels like she has lost her entire purpose for living. On the other hand, men can usually recover more easily from the end of an affair because their affairs do not give them purpose in life.

Quotes

• love is merely an occupation in the life of the man, while it is life itself for the woman. (Location 13444)
• she only wants to be this loved woman, and nothing else has value in her eyes. For her to exist, then, her lover must be by her side, taken care of by her; she awaits his return, his desire, his waking; and as soon as he leaves her, she starts again to wait for him. (Location 13809)
• One of the misfortunes of the woman in love is that her love itself disfigures her, demolishes her; she is no more than this slave, this servant, this too-docile mirror, this too-faithful echo. When she realizes it, her distress reduces her worth even more; (Location 13861)

The Mystic

Religion and mysticism can be similar to the process of being in love or being consumed by narcissism. Women turn to worshipping God if they do not have a man to worship. Women want to feel special and needed, as though some kind of important gaze is fixated on them; this can be achieved either through narcissism, romance, or mysticism

Quotes

• either the woman establishes a relation with an unreal: her double or God; or she creates an unreal relation with a real being; in any case, she has no grasp on the world; she does not escape her subjectivity; her freedom remains mystified; there is only one way of accomplishing it authentically: it is to project it by a positive action into human society. (Location 14106)

Part 8 - Towards Liberation

Chapter 14 - Independent Woman

women have more rights and are allowed to work and claim independence; however, these civic liberties are only abstract if economic autonomy is not also in place. Women still face a greater burden when they try to work outside of the home, because they remain economically disadvantaged, dependent on husbands, or limited by the extra work required of them at home. Women can only achieve total freedom while working if she is in a socialist society. Overall, women have only come “halfway” in terms of achieving true equality and independence because they still face extra challenges. For example, their femininity often contradicts their work. The more productive a woman is in society, the less “feminine” she is considered to be, and vice versa. For example, a woman who is considered dominant or intelligent can seem threatening or undesirable as a romantic prospect for men. For women who want to remain feminine while still pursuing their independent work, this presents a difficult dilemma.

Sex presents a contradiction for women who want to be independent, because the dynamics involved often subordinate women to men. For example, men are typically more dominant and initiate the encounter. This can seem like a threat to an independent woman’s sense of autonomy, however. Therefore, relations with men can complicate a woman’s ability to be productive and feel positive about her position in society. Overall, an independent woman in de Beauvoir’s day was torn between her profession and her sexual life.

Quotes

• It is through work that woman has been able, to a large extent, to close the gap separating her from the male; work alone can guarantee her concrete freedom. (Location 14119)
• For the married woman, her salary usually only means extra income; for the “woman who is helped,” it is the man’s protection that seems inessential; but neither woman buys total independence through her own efforts. (Location 14148)
• Man is a sexed human being; woman is a complete individual, and equal to the male, only if she too is a sexed human being. Renouncing her femininity means renouncing part of her humanity. (Location 14164)
• the individual is not free to shape the idea of femininity at will. By not conforming, a woman devalues herself sexually and consequently socially because society has incorporated sexual values. (Location 14169)
• If the woman proposes herself too boldly, the man flees: he insists on conquering. The woman can thus take only when she is prey: she must become a passive thing, a promise of submission. (Location 14281)
• when serious competitive exams are in question, the female student will become aware of her weaknesses; she will attribute them to the unjust curse of femaleness and not to the mediocrity of her education; resigning herself to this inequality, she exacerbates it; (Location 14449)
• for one to become a creator, it is not enough to be cultivated, that is, to make going to shows and meeting people part of one’s life; culture must be apprehended through the free movement of a transcendence; the spirit with all its riches must project itself in an empty sky that is its to fill; (Location 14656)
• What is beyond doubt is that until now women’s possibilities have been stifled and lost to humanity, and in her and everyone’s interest it is high time she be left to take her own chances. (Location 14706)

Conclusion

The oppression of women is not only negative for all women, but also creates a conflict that involves and negatively impacts men, as well. Ending such conflict will bring stability and peace to all of society.

I women can exist for themselves, they can continue to exist for men as well and both men and women can find greater satisfaction in love. Romantic relations are the basis for interactions between the two genders, in all spheres of life. The most exalted of human emotions, love, might become even more important and fulfilling if women were better treated throughout society.

Quotes

• neither men nor women are satisfied with each other today. But the question is whether it is an original curse that condemns them to tear each other apart or whether the conflicts that pit them against each other express a transitory moment in human history. (Location 14728)
• humanity is something other than a species: it is a historical becoming; it is defined by the way it assumes natural facticity. (Location 14732)
• sexuality, moreover, has never seemed to us to define a destiny or to provide in itself the key to human behavior, but to express the totality of a situation it helps define. (Location 14740)
• The conflict will last as long as men and women do not recognize each other as peers, that is, as long as femininity is perpetuated as such; (Location 14774)
• this is how the woman is raised, without ever being taught the necessity of assuming her own existence; she readily lets herself count on the protection, love, help, and guidance of others; she lets herself be fascinated by the hope of being able to realize her being without doing anything. She is wrong to yield to this temptation; (Location 14816)
• One must certainly not think that modifying her economic situation is enough to transform woman: this factor has been and remains the primordial factor of her development, but until it brings about the moral, social, and cultural consequences it heralds and requires, the new woman cannot appear; (Location 14882)
• Woman is the victim of no mysterious fate; the singularities that make her different derive their importance from the meaning applied to them; they can be overcome as soon as they are grasped from new perspectives; (Location 14914)
• women need only pursue their rise, and the success they obtain encourages them; it seems most certain that they will sooner or later attain perfect economic and social equality, which will bring about an inner metamorphosis. (Location 14938)
• Let us beware lest our lack of imagination impoverish the future; (Location 14962)
• while she posits herself for herself, she will nonetheless continue to exist for him as well: recognizing each other as subject, each will remain an other for the other; (Location 14976)
• it is up to man to make the reign of freedom triumph; to carry off this supreme victory, men and women must, among other things and beyond their natural differentiations, unequivocally affirm their brotherhood. (Location 14987)