Article de Bavour
Article de Bavour
Article de Bavour
Summary:Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, published in 1947, is today a feminist classic that
continues to be read. The article analyzes the history of this book; the intellectual context that inspired
it, the essential lines of her thought and its reception; the scandal that caused her appearance in France,
the echoes in Spain and the subsequent readings of the book. “You are not born a woman; it becomes
so”, the well-known phrase that feminism would make its own in the seventies, sums up well the
epistemological and political value of a book that, even today, serves as an inspiration to think about
the future of women.
I have explained how this book was conceived: almost haphazardly; Wanting to talk about myself, I
realized that it was necessary for me to describe the feminine condition; I began by considering the
myths that men had forged through cosmologies, religions, superstitions, ideologies or literature.
apparently incoherent picture that was offered to me... (Beauvoir, 1963, p. 258).
Simone de Beauvoir has recounted in her Memoirs how the idea of writing a book about women
had been gestated. The proposal that, according to her, had come from Jean Paul Sartre, became firm
due to the need to unravel the meaning of “being a woman” and in what way the feminine condition
would have marked her life; how he had influenced her actions and decisions and her work. The
author also recounts how the elaboration of the book, which would take three years, would bring her
many surprises and unexpected discoveries. Thus he writes "I began to look at women with a different
look and went from surprise to surprise. It is strange and stimulating to discover, suddenly, at the age
of forty, an aspect of the world that jumps out at the eyes and that we do not see" (Beauvoir, 1963, p.
159).
The publication of The Second Sex, in 1949, by the well-known Gallimard publishing house, must
have caused an unexpected scandal in French society at the time: well-known intellectuals and
politicians would then show their resistance to thinking things differently, abandoning the ideas about
sex and sexuality. The book, however, was to open a gap in knowledge about the condition and
situation of women, which, later, could serve for the renewal of the theory and political practice of
feminism that would re-emerge in the 1970s. .
In The Second Sex, Beauvoir would answer the sustained determinism, from biology or from
psychoanalysis, which interpreted sex as the bearer of a pre-established destiny:
Being does not exist and should not be confused with becoming, being, according to
existentialist philosophy, is always a subject as it manifests itself. For human beings, for men
as well as for women, being is not something, no definitive essence (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 371).
You are not born a woman; she becomesThe slogan, adopted by feminism, contained a message of
hope for women: if you are not born a woman or if being a woman could no longer be seen as a divine
punishment, nor as an inescapable destiny, nor did it entail a certain way of life , women would begin
to believe that their lives could be different. In The Second Sex, in effect, the door was opened to
think that being a woman, far from being an inescapable misfortune or being the expression of an
immutable essence, was the result of an accidental, historical event that could be transformed. The
book would also show the way in which contemporary society places women;
This article analyzes the history of The Second Sex; the intellectual context that inspired her
writing, the essential lines of Beauvoir's thought, the reception of the book, from the fifties, in France
and Spain and its influence on contemporary feminist thought
I have hesitated a long time before writing a book about women. It's an irritating subject, especially
for women, and it's nothing new. The controversy of feminism has made rivers of ink flow enough.
And yet we keep talking about it. And it does not seem that the voluminous nonsense uttered during
the last century has shed some light on the problem (Beauvoir, 2005,p. 47).
What is a woman? What does it mean to be a woman? Beauvoir wonders in the prologue to The
Second Sex. She acknowledges that the subject is not new, that much has been written, but that the
answers that have been given are unsatisfactory and the issue remains unresolved. In our society,
writes Beauvoir, man and woman are not represented as two symmetrical poles. Man represents the
positive and the neutral, to such an extent that the word "man" designates the "human race"; the
woman appears negatively, in such a way that all determination is imputed to her as a lack. The
woman's character would thus be naturally defective; the woman is a failed man; the woman is a
relative being; the woman's body appears helpless, and so on. The woman is what the man has
decided. The woman is determined and differentiated with respect to the man, and not the other way
around: “She is the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, the Absolute, she would
be the Otherness” (Beauvoir, 2005, p. fifty).
The concept of alterity, which is defined as a fundamental category of human thought, implies that
every group, when defined as such, enunciates the other front as well as an opposition. Thus, Beauvoir
writes that "the subject only affirms itself when it opposes the other" and that, by stating itself as
essential, it would make the other inessential, an object. The idea of otherness, which would be
applicable to foreigners, Jews, blacks or indigenous people, would always have a component of
strangeness and negativity, with respect to the other, which would translate into a fundamental
hostility with respect to any other consciousness. The relationship of alterity always involves the will
to dominate, but when this manages to assert itself, it contains in itself the germ of its dissolution, due
to the conflict of alterities. This would have happened, for example, in the case of the proletarians
they would have faced the capitalists, but the clash of women with men would not have occurred. The
question that arises then is: why the relations between the two sexes have not evolved in conflict or
towards greater reciprocity, as occurs when a subject becomes aware and aspires to be in the place of
the other? women would not have rebelled: “where does this submission come from?” ( "Where does
this submission come from?" ( "Where does this submission come from?" (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 52).
Beauvoir finds an explanation in the fact – which he believes is proven by the data he handles –
that the domination of women could not be dated at a given moment in history, nor based on a specific
fact, but rather because of their biological functions. Thus he writes that:
There have not always been proletarians, but there have always been women, they are
because of their physiological structure; No matter how far back we go in history, they have
always been subordinate to man: their dependence has not been the consequence of an event
of becoming, (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 53).
And he adds, "the woman is the one who gives birth." But at the same time, he warns that, although
we can suppose that domination is based on a biological fact and not an accident, that is, a historical
one, this would not justify the domination of one sex over another; nature, he writes, is not immutable
and otherness is not an invariable condition. But, at the same time, we are told that, throughout history,
women would have accepted the superiority and dominance of men. Women do not say we, as other
groups have done; the proletarians, like the Jews or the blacks, we say, and by affirming themselves
as subjects they transform the bourgeoisie or the whites into others. But in the women the same
inversion would not have taken place, rather "the men say the <women> and they take up these words
to assign themselves,Beauvoir, 2005, p. 52).
Beauvoir doubts that, even in the 20th century, women can generate conflict and opposition that
could serve to change things. However, she is interested in the future of women. From this
perspective, she analyzes the changes that are taking place in contemporary society and wonders if
the fact that many more women work and live an independent life would herald a new time in the
relations of the sexes. She thus she writes:
Where does it come from that the world has always belonged to men and that only now are
things beginning to change? Is this change a good? Will it lead to an equal division of the
world between men and women? (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 56).
These questions, writes Beauvoir, are not new, but the truth is that we still do not have a reliable
answer and that we do not know how to get out of the maze of confusion in which we are installed.
The author considers that this is not a casual fact, that the truth about women has been masked,
throughout the centuries, by men interested in defending their privileges. Thus he writes, taking as
reference the testimony and authority of a philosopher who, already in 1673, had denounced the
prejudice that moved the pen of the many who wrote about women: "Everything that men have written
about women must be be suspicious, since they are both judge and party, said Poulain de la Barre, a
little-known feminist, in the eighteenth century (sic)” (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 56). De la Barre, in fact, he
was the author of a significantly titled work De l'egalité des sexes, in which –following the Cartesian
method of analysis— he would refute the arguments that, against all reason, defended the superiority
of the male intellect, thus justifying the difference in education that it had to be given to both sexes.
And he adds that:
those who made and compiled the Laws were men, so they favored their sex, and the jurists
turned the laws into principles, says Poulain de la Barre. Legislators, priests, philosophers,
writers, scholars, strove to demonstrate that the subordinate status of women was pleasing
to heaven and beneficial on earth (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 56).
Most men, he warns, are satisfied with the privileged situation in which they have placed
themselves, although not all refuse to recognize their interests. As he writes, borrowing a phrase from
Montaigne, an author who is not very favorable to the female sex but who, nevertheless, does not
excuse telling the truth: that for men "it is easier to accuse one sex than to excuse the other". In the
history of thought it is possible to find the names of other men who sought to write with greater truth
and justice about women: Denis Diderot, Henri Beyle -Stendhal- or John Stuart Mill were some of
them.
Beauvoir also distances himself from feminism. She considers that her texts in defense of women
would hardly have served to produce a new thought on the question of women; Written in a polemical
tone, feminist thought would have been bogged down in vague discussions of the superiority and
inferiority of women, without getting to the root of the problem. As she writes:
each argument immediately brings its opposite, and often both are based on false
foundations. If we want to see clearly, we must get out of this quagmire, we must reject the
vague notions of superiority, inferiority, equality that have perverted all discussions and start
from scratch (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 61).
And he adds that to start from scratch it is necessary to ask oneself: “how should we pose the
question? and who are we to raise it” (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 61). To this question, Beauvoir answers by
taking a detour: he considers, first of all, that the task cannot be entrusted to men because, in general,
they are not reliable. He acknowledges that women would be in a better situation because they know
the problem and experience it more closely, but he also warns that not all of them could do it in the
same way. She considers that women who feel uncomfortable or damaged by femininity would not
be trustworthy either, their situation could jeopardize the objectivity that would be necessary in an
issue that, as has been seen, is complex and causes many shocks and tensions between the sexes. Thus
she writes that:
good or bad faith is not dictated to men or women by a mysterious essence; it is their situation
that predisposes them more or less to seek the truth (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 62).
Beauvoir announces here a new time for knowledge about women and affirms that if this had begun
to be possible it was thanks to the fact that some of them, who would have been leaving the reduced
space that was granted to the majority, would have been incorporated into the world. of knowledge,
reserved for men until very recently. Beauvoir, there is no doubt, is talking about herself. In 1949, the
writer, who is already beginning to be known for her novels, feels that she is part of that genealogy
of women who, having "accumulated the advantages of both sexes and not having suffered for their
femininity, can write with complete serenity, about a subject on which all suspicions would weigh".
Writing with truth and authority is the first moral obligation that Beauvoir imposes on himself: the
commitment she assumes in a book that would seek to shed light on the condition of women and their
situation in society. And so she writes that "coming out of an era of disorderly polemics, this book is
one attempt among others to situate ourselves" (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 62).
1. 2. Nothing is natural
In the pages of The Second Sex, the naturalism and fixism that were inscribed in a dominant way
in the sciences of the moment were questioned. All of them coincide in pointing out the differential
features of the female anatomy:
The woman? It is very simple, say those who love simple formulas: she is a womb, she is an
ovary; she is a female and this word is enough to define her. In a negative way. The term
"female" is pejorative, not because it roots women in nature, but because it confines her
within the limits of her sex; And if this sex seems despicable and enemy to man, even among
the most innocent animals, it is evidently because of the hostility that women arouse in him,
despite which he wants to find a justification for this feeling in biology (Beauvoir, 2005, p.
67).
Beauvoir makes an effort to demonstrate the prejudice that is easily perceived in the texts of the
authors determined to affirm that the differences found in the character, sexual customs or morality
of women would be prefixed in the anatomy of females. Discover here the confusion created in the
texts of the authors who, with a poetic vein, insist on the mystery of the female sex, creating the
paradox that is shown in these cases in which it is possible to defend, at the same time, the fixity of
identity feminine and that the woman is a mystery that would escape any definition, or could open up
to all definitions. Beauvoir, in fact, strives to show that biology is always an interpretation and that,
in the studies she knows, the tendency to affirm otherness is highlighted.
It would be audacity to deduce from this evidence [of the anatomical difference] that the
place of the woman is the home; but there are very daring people. In his book Temperament
and Character, Alfred Fouillé tried to define the woman in its entirety from the ovum and the
man from the spermatozoon; many apparently profound theories rest on this game of dubious
analogies (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 77).
His analysis also extends to psychoanalytic theories. In Freud, he values the advance in the
understanding of human subjectivity, as well as the consideration of the body as a body lived by the
subjects, instead of the body as an object of science, but he contests his theory on female sexuality.
He considers that it is the product of a previously established valuation of virility and, in this sense,
he maintains that the theory of penis envy enshrines, without actually demonstrating, the pre-
established idea of virile potency; In the same way, he points out that the Electra complex would not
be, as Freud claims, the expression of a female sexual desire but rather "a profound abdication of the
subject who consents to become an object in adoration and submission" (Chaperone, 2000, p. 154)
.Psychoanalysis, he insists, would not pay enough attention to the social causes that, in his opinion,
play a fundamental role in the construction of women's sexuality. And he concludes that if men and
women are not involved in the same way in sexual relations, it is not due to any natural or innate
inclination, but to the way in which tradition and society define sexuality and love in men and in
women. the woman. Thus, he writes that “it is the difference in their situation that is reflected in the
conception that men and women have of love. If the woman feels passive in the act of love, it is her
because she thinks of herself as such ”(Chaperone, 2000, p. 155).
1. 3. The story
This world has always belonged to men: none of the reasons that have been advanced to explain it
has seemed sufficient to us. Only by reviewing the data from prehistory and ethnography in the
light of existentialist philosophy can we understand how the hierarchy of the sexes was established
(Beauvoir, 2005, p. 125).
In her account of the history of male domination, Beauvoir goes back to the origins of humanity.
Confronted with the theories that defended the existence of a matriarchy, she denies that at some point
in history women had a greater role and power over men. On the contrary, she considers that, since
the beginning of time, women had been dominated by them. Forced or subjected by "blind
procreation", the female sex would have been occupied and exhausted in the conservation of the life
of the species, while the men, detached from the tasks of procreation, would have been able to deal
with the production of food and to invent the necessary technique for a better survival of the human
group. And he adds that the tasks of men would have been perceived as acts superior to procreation;
thus he writes that:
the supreme value for man is not life, but that it should serve more important purposes than
life itself. The worst curse that weighs on women is to be excluded from war expeditions; if
man rises above the animal he is not giving his life, but risking it; For this reason, in
humanity, superiority is accorded not to the sex that it engenders, but to the one that kills
(Beauvoir, 2005, p. 128; underlining is my own).
Beauvoir's story was based on a certain vision of "progress" based on the mastery of nature, which
would have been carried out by men Thus, while women busy giving birth and ensuring the survival
of the newborn would have remained close to nature, men would separate from it to create culture.
The female, says Beauvoir, is prey to the species more than the male, her maternity keeps her tied to
her body, while the male perceives the superiority of her task. As Beauvoir writes, masculine activity,
by creating values, has constituted existence as value itself; he has overcome the confusing forces of
life; has subjected nature and woman (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 130).
From here on, the history of women is represented as an almost immobile time, as a continuum
marked by permanence in domination: "The entire history of women has been made by men and they
never disputed their dominance" (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 211). Women are what men have wanted and
they have decided to expel them from the space of production and creativity, consequently women
would never have played a relevant role in history.
But Beauvoir does not ignore the presence and role of women in certain cultural or political spaces,
although he affirms that the actions of the female sex and even the signs of power that could be
glimpsed in those who reigned in medieval courts or who were especially active in wars of the Fronde,
does not eliminate the situation of domination that would condition its actions; She considers that
these women always acted as members of a family, a clan or a political party ruled by men. And she
adds that, in most cases, it was men who judged their actions, who encouraged them, tolerated them,
and could also repress them. However, she is interested in highlighting, when possible, the freedom
of speech and action of some women who, protected by religion or scripture, they managed to
circumvent the margins imposed on the female sex. Teresa de Ávila is the figure that stands out in
the text. But she adds that it was, as dominated, that these women had produced her thought.
The second part of the book begins by stating that being a woman is not due to any essence or to
any divine curse, but to the way in which women have been "mediated" and turned into alterity. From
this perspective, the author undertakes the task of systematically explaining the situation of women
in contemporary societies; the rules imposed on them; the possibilities that are offered to them and
those that are denied to them, their limits, their opportunities and the lack of them, their evasions,
their achievements.
Thus, in the chapters dedicated to "Formation", it refers to the treatment they receive in childhood
and adolescence. His critical gaze focuses on the formation of sexuality, the negative meaning and
sexual fear, and points out how conflicts are experienced differently by adolescents and young people.
As he points out: in a society that prohibits and hides birth control, contraceptives or abortion,
women's sexual freedom simply does not exist or is greatly diminished. He also highlights the
problems caused by the sentimental education of women, trained in sensitivity and sentimentality,
which would place love at the center of their lives. He considers that these women make an existential
mistake, ignoring that the men, to whom they would give themselves, do not experience love in the
same way.
The situation of domination of women would later be affirmed through institutions, particularly in
marriage. In this way, she explains that marriage, perceived in society as a natural and necessary
institution for the social order and the happiness of individuals, produces contradictory effects on
women, who perceive the burden of family obligations. No reciprocity. And so he concludes that, in
the balance of benefits, misfortunes or happiness that marriage provides to both sexes, women would
be harmed. Motherhood wouldn't fare well either. Thus, she maintains that being a mother is not a
natural desire or an inescapable inclination of women, but rather a fact mediated by society; In this
way, she questions the romantic overtones that accompany the birth of children and the silence that
opposes the problems suffered by women in relation to pregnancies, lactation, etc. She exhaustively
defends that being a mother must always be a choice and that only free motherhood can ensure love
and good care for children. Love, she argues, is not imposed and not even maternal love can be
imposed. Faced with the ideology that considers motherhood as a natural inclination and a primordial
and inescapable desire in women, he warns against the error of "thinking that a woman can achieve
through her child a fullness, a warmth, a value that she has not been able to create by herself" ( that
being a mother must always be a choice and that only free motherhood can ensure love and good care
for children. Love, she argues, is not imposed and not even maternal love can be imposed. Faced with
the ideology that considers motherhood as a natural inclination and a primordial and inescapable
desire in women, he warns against the error of "thinking that a woman can achieve through her child
a fullness, a warmth, a value that she has not been able to create by herself" ( that being a mother
must always be a choice and that only free motherhood can ensure love and good care for children.
Love, she argues, is not imposed and not even maternal love can be imposed. Faced with the ideology
that considers motherhood as a natural inclination and a primordial and inescapable desire in women,
he warns against the error of "thinking that a woman can achieve through her child a fullness, a
warmth, a value that she has not been able to create by herself" (Beauvoir, 2005, p. 678).
The situation of women is darkened in the treatment of old age: with the loss of fertility and beauty,
the traditional woman would be deprived of the attractions that society would value in the female sex
and would lose her power; if she ever had it. The pain suffered by the woman who abandons herself
in the hands of others, her husband in this case, and that she is abandoned in her old age is the subject
of La mujer rota. The novel, published in January '68, is heartbreaking.
The lines that habitually characterize the behavior of women refer to a bleak panorama. Women,
doomed to a destiny imposed from the outside, would not challenge their dominance. He observes
that the majority of women are satisfied with their "situation" and that very few consider their lives
to be despicable, quite the contrary, they think that their lives are good, even better than those of the
men with whom they live. that live together. But Beauvoir stops short what he considers an existential
misunderstanding of women who, convinced by the poetics that worshiped the attractions of
femininity, would prefer to hide their domination. These women, he writes, don't seem to appreciate
the interests behind the kind words and compliments they receive from men. Likewise,Beauvoir,
2005, p. 366).
The situation described would be similar to that of "voluntary servitude", of which the philosopher
and moralist Éttiene de La Boétie speaks, to refer to the compliance and conformity that the subjects
-or the weakest- would give to the absolute king in societies of the Old Regime. But Beauvoir does
not put flowers in the mausoleum of men, she does not believe that men, who for centuries have put
their interests first, are now going to give up their privileges, although at the same time, she doubts
that women face their situation.
The woman is not represented as an always clairvoyant and all-powerful subject, but in a situation.
The freedom that for existentialism would be placed as a supreme value is always combined with the
social situation that imposes its rules. No woman could be thought starting from nothing, with full
capacity to build her freedom, but rather as a subject who lives in a social situation, which contains
her in a way of being. Women are not free, domination slows down their development, but it does not
close all doors; freedom is always an inclination and a possibility of the subjects in society. What
Beauvoir offered women was an ethic based on freedom and responsibility.
Women, she writes, are "half victims, half accomplices, like everyone else." The phrase, taken
from Sartre, appears, not by chance, in the title page that opens the second part (Beauvoir, 2005, p.
365).
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Grades
1This work has been developed within the framework of the HAR2014 Research Project, financed
by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
2I cannot stop here to analyze the paths traveled in the construction of a historiography influenced by
the work of Beauvoir, I limit myself, therefore, to pointing out some significant bibliography: Perrot
and Farge, 1992; Morant, 2005 and 2006; Fraisse, 1992 and 2006.
Reception:04 February 2018