30/07/2016
THE SECOND S*X: A GENERAL OVERVIEW
(‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’)
The Second S*x is divided into two volumes: the first is entitled Facts and Myths; the second, Woman’s Life Today, although a philosophically correct translation of the latter would be Lived Experience, reflecting Beauvoir’s phenomenological approach. Overall, it focuses on how femininity has been conceptualized and how women ‘become’ relative beings in a patriarchal society. Its main argument is that, throughout history, ‘woman’ has been constructed as man’s Other and denied access to an autonomous existence. Men have positioned themselves as uniquely responsible for all aspects of public life and correspondingly women have been confined to a marginalized position in society according to which they are made to support male interests. Beauvoir argues that man has assumed the position of universal subject, and woman is positioned as relative ‘Other’, or object of male consciousness. Society is consequently structured to perpetuate patriarchal ideology and women are maintained in an inferior position. This persistence of patriarchal ideology throughout history has enabled men to assume that they have a right to maintain women in a subordinate state and women have internalised and adapted to this oppressed state. Beauvoir argues that both men and women perpetuate patriarchy, which is why it is able to continue.
S*xual oppression continues because, according to Beauvoir, gender roles are learned from the very earliest age and reinforced perpetually. The famous phrase that opens the second volume of The Second S*x, ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’, means that there is no pre-established female nature or essence. Here, Beauvoir adapts existentialism’s notion of ‘existence precedes essence’ to the ways in which gender identity is experienced. There only appear to be distinct and determining male or female identities because society has traditionally organized itself according to a sexual apartheid or segregation, rooted in men’s and women’s different biological make-up and reproductive
roles. For example, the fact that, to a lesser or greater degree in the world, patriarchal societies traditionally value women’s reproductive capacity more than her intellectual development or autonomy, means that laws, institutions and belief systems reflect this view of women’s role in society. Beauvoir accepts that there are certain minor physiological and
biological differences between women and men. A common misreading of The Second S*x is that she does not recognise sexual difference and thinks that women should become like men in their quest for freedom. In fact, Beauvoir recognises sexual difference, but does not accept that the valuing of these differences between women and men should justify the oppression of women and their traditional status as second-class citizens in patriarchal society. For Beauvoir, society is organised in such a way as to favour male projects and aspirations. The obvious question which arises is: How did such a system come into being? In The Second S*x, Beauvoir provides a thorough survey of the origins and perpetuation of the patriarchal oppression of women. She explains that, since the beginning of social organisation, men, as physically stronger beings, were better adapted to heavy manual work involved in hunting, fishing and defending the tribe. Women were involved in domestic work and raising children. Men consequently had more freedom to invent systems of thought and social and political organisation because they did not bear children. These conceptual, social and political systems then developed to favour male interests rather than society’s interests as a whole. Women have been obliged to adapt to this patriarchal system, which maintains them in a subordinate position. Beauvoir argues that women have been assimilated to their body and sexed identity and traditionally confined to the roles of wife and mother. Marriage and motherhood have consequently been artificially promoted as the most important roles for women in society and this has been inscribed in the laws, customs, beliefs and culture of society. As a result, women have been traditionally prevented from working outside the home and, hence, have been obliged to attach themselves to a male breadwinner to ensure their survival and that of their children. Women have adapted to this state of affairs in a variety of ways which encourage ‘inauthenticity’ to a lesser or greater extent. Beauvoir argues that the way forward for women is to pursue economic independence through independent work and through a socialist organisation of society, which would favour women’s emancipation and autonomy.
