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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
Wow, that took me quite some time to finish.
I do not feel able to rate this book yet, I need to let it rest a bit more and I need to talk about it to make sure what I think about it. Most of the book is absolutely marvelous and I admire especially how complete De Beauvoir tries to be. This is such a comprehensive study.
But then there's the homophobia. De Beauvoir talks a lot about all the different neuroses women experience because of their shitty situation, and according to her one of the ways these neuroses show themselves is through "homosexual tendencies." Now, I'm not a psychologist and I can imagine there might be situation where a neurosis does express itself this way, but the way De Beauvoir talks about homosexuality makes it seem like it can only be an expression of neurosis. She keeps providing her reader with examples of homosexual behaviour being the consequense of trauma or other nasty stuff, presenting homosexuality only as something caused by these things, and not something that might just happen. And the very problematic thing about this view is of course that if homosexuality is caused by these things, you can fix it... I can imagine people claiming that she's not homophobic because she even dedicates a whole chapter to "The Lesbian" but I'm not convinced. That chapter does give some interesting insights in women who place themselves outside of patriarchic systems, but she keeps psychologizing everything and she's only presenting stereotypes there. Most of all, it really does not make up for her literally calling homosexuality "harmful" in the last chapter.
Oh Simone, I had such high hopes and I was enjoying the rest of your book so much! Why do you have to be like this?
I do not feel able to rate this book yet, I need to let it rest a bit more and I need to talk about it to make sure what I think about it. Most of the book is absolutely marvelous and I admire especially how complete De Beauvoir tries to be. This is such a comprehensive study.
But then there's the homophobia. De Beauvoir talks a lot about all the different neuroses women experience because of their shitty situation, and according to her one of the ways these neuroses show themselves is through "homosexual tendencies." Now, I'm not a psychologist and I can imagine there might be situation where a neurosis does express itself this way, but the way De Beauvoir talks about homosexuality makes it seem like it can only be an expression of neurosis. She keeps providing her reader with examples of homosexual behaviour being the consequense of trauma or other nasty stuff, presenting homosexuality only as something caused by these things, and not something that might just happen. And the very problematic thing about this view is of course that if homosexuality is caused by these things, you can fix it... I can imagine people claiming that she's not homophobic because she even dedicates a whole chapter to "The Lesbian" but I'm not convinced. That chapter does give some interesting insights in women who place themselves outside of patriarchic systems, but she keeps psychologizing everything and she's only presenting stereotypes there. Most of all, it really does not make up for her literally calling homosexuality "harmful" in the last chapter.
Oh Simone, I had such high hopes and I was enjoying the rest of your book so much! Why do you have to be like this?
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
First, an acknowledgement: this is an undeniably erudite and synoptic work. The weakest sections are those early in part one where de Beauvoir engages in speculative prehistory and anthropology - she adopts and repeats now quite out-of-date explanations of women's supposedly inherent physical disadvantages, without it ever seeming to occur to her that these would-be scientific truths might also be artifacts of the patriarchal structures she's critiquing. While these may be the weakest sections, this weakness doesn't matter much to the book's project, as de Beauvoir isn't actually staking her explanation of the gender system in physical difference or a particular view of prehistory.
Of a part with the book's scope and breathless pace is a tendency to briefly touch on counterexamples and then hurry on without stopping to consider whether these examples contradict one of the theses on offer. We are presented with a universal misogyny, spanning times and places without much essential variation, and then something is briefly mentioned which would seem to trouble this universal history of gender. The Abrahamic traditions are patriarchal through and through, yet suddenly here we have a suggestion that there are very different (if still misogynistic) patterns in 'Mediterranean' cultures, but no time is taken to ask if this casts doubt on the universal story de Beauvoir is telling. Were are told that the woman is not allowed to truly act, certainly not in affairs of state, and that this is essential part of what defines 'woman' - then it is mentioned that Hippolyta Fioramenti, while commanding the Duke of Milan’s troops during the siege of Pavia, led a company of noblewomen to the ramparts, and that three thousand female troops commanded by women were marshaled to defend Sienna. Again, de Beauvoir has no time to consider what this might say about the gender system, or whether it casts doubt on her universal history.
Still, these inconsistencies do not particularly affect her account of the past several centuries, in which, better supported by literature, the book is at its most convincing. The glaringly contradictory aside which really brings the book's thesis into question is found in Part Two, Chapter 10, where, after many hundreds of pages have been spent defining the woman, it is suddenly and casually mentioned that what defines the woman is also true of the middle-class man, who is “confined within the domain of the intermediary, of inessential means” and is “destined like the woman to the repetition of daily tasks, alienated in ready-made values, respecting public opinion, and only seeking vague comforts on earth.” The surprising conclusion that an entire modern class is actually female would seem to be important enough to treat at length—others would certainly spend an entire book to make that argument—but de Beauvoir once again moves along as if no claim had been made at all.
In the excerpt above, we get to what is not simply a weakness but the ultimate limitation of the book’s project. Throughout, woman is defined in opposition to man, and man is defined above all by having a project, of living life as a struggle to transform the world towards a single goal. De Beauvoir is quite successful in explicating the myth of ‘woman,’ but does not expend the same effort to ask whether ‘man’ might also be a myth. The image of man as the one who has a project is treated not as another myth, but as an unavoidable existential truth. Because of this, de Beauvoir misses the chance to begin sketching a picture of how gender might be actually be superseded, which would surely require not just the full admission of woman to the world of The Project, but also a revalorization and adoption by men of the reproductive work which still today might appear as ‘intermediary’, ‘inessential means’, of repetitive daily tasks and ‘vague comforts on earth’, which make up the fabric and texture of life just as much as any existential project.
In other words, while the book’s final paragraph may be from Marx, De Beauvoir’s failure, such as it is, is one of being insufficiently dialectical.
Of a part with the book's scope and breathless pace is a tendency to briefly touch on counterexamples and then hurry on without stopping to consider whether these examples contradict one of the theses on offer. We are presented with a universal misogyny, spanning times and places without much essential variation, and then something is briefly mentioned which would seem to trouble this universal history of gender. The Abrahamic traditions are patriarchal through and through, yet suddenly here we have a suggestion that there are very different (if still misogynistic) patterns in 'Mediterranean' cultures, but no time is taken to ask if this casts doubt on the universal story de Beauvoir is telling. Were are told that the woman is not allowed to truly act, certainly not in affairs of state, and that this is essential part of what defines 'woman' - then it is mentioned that Hippolyta Fioramenti, while commanding the Duke of Milan’s troops during the siege of Pavia, led a company of noblewomen to the ramparts, and that three thousand female troops commanded by women were marshaled to defend Sienna. Again, de Beauvoir has no time to consider what this might say about the gender system, or whether it casts doubt on her universal history.
Still, these inconsistencies do not particularly affect her account of the past several centuries, in which, better supported by literature, the book is at its most convincing. The glaringly contradictory aside which really brings the book's thesis into question is found in Part Two, Chapter 10, where, after many hundreds of pages have been spent defining the woman, it is suddenly and casually mentioned that what defines the woman is also true of the middle-class man, who is “confined within the domain of the intermediary, of inessential means” and is “destined like the woman to the repetition of daily tasks, alienated in ready-made values, respecting public opinion, and only seeking vague comforts on earth.” The surprising conclusion that an entire modern class is actually female would seem to be important enough to treat at length—others would certainly spend an entire book to make that argument—but de Beauvoir once again moves along as if no claim had been made at all.
In the excerpt above, we get to what is not simply a weakness but the ultimate limitation of the book’s project. Throughout, woman is defined in opposition to man, and man is defined above all by having a project, of living life as a struggle to transform the world towards a single goal. De Beauvoir is quite successful in explicating the myth of ‘woman,’ but does not expend the same effort to ask whether ‘man’ might also be a myth. The image of man as the one who has a project is treated not as another myth, but as an unavoidable existential truth. Because of this, de Beauvoir misses the chance to begin sketching a picture of how gender might be actually be superseded, which would surely require not just the full admission of woman to the world of The Project, but also a revalorization and adoption by men of the reproductive work which still today might appear as ‘intermediary’, ‘inessential means’, of repetitive daily tasks and ‘vague comforts on earth’, which make up the fabric and texture of life just as much as any existential project.
In other words, while the book’s final paragraph may be from Marx, De Beauvoir’s failure, such as it is, is one of being insufficiently dialectical.
The Second Sex is a book whose reputation precedes it. Whether or not you are interested in sociology or discussions about gender, sexuality, sexism, and beyond The Second Sex has likely come up in conversation, on your computer screen, in a podcast, or in a video you have watched.
It's considered by some to be the essential feminist book -- a must-read for those who are interested in feminism and sociology. And while I would concur that this is an excellent book to start with, if you are interested in getting into feminist literature, I also would say that's it's even more interesting through an existential lens.
Beauvoir was an existentialist, along with her husband, Sartre, and its through this lens she filters a lot of her feminism: mainly when it comes to discussions of choice and identity (or lack thereof). This perspective helps make her points that much stronger.
While I prefer the second half of the book to the first, I think, as a whole, this is an impressive and essential piece of literature that everyone should read.
It's considered by some to be the essential feminist book -- a must-read for those who are interested in feminism and sociology. And while I would concur that this is an excellent book to start with, if you are interested in getting into feminist literature, I also would say that's it's even more interesting through an existential lens.
Beauvoir was an existentialist, along with her husband, Sartre, and its through this lens she filters a lot of her feminism: mainly when it comes to discussions of choice and identity (or lack thereof). This perspective helps make her points that much stronger.
While I prefer the second half of the book to the first, I think, as a whole, this is an impressive and essential piece of literature that everyone should read.
But is it enough to change laws, institutions, customs, public opinion and the whole social context for men and women to really become peers? ‘Women will always be women,’ say the sceptics; other seers prophesy that in shedding their femininity, they will not succeed in changing into men and will become monsters. This would mean that today’s woman is nature's creation; it must be repeated again that within the human collectivity nothing is natural, and woman, among others, is a product developed by civilisation; the intervention of others in her destiny is originary: if this process were driven in another way, it would produce a very different result. Woman is defined neither by her hormones nor by mysterious instincts but by the way she grasps, through foreign consciousnesses, her body and her relation to the world; the abyss that separates adolescent girls from adolescent boys was purposely dug out from early infancy; later, it would be impossible to keep woman from being what she was made, and she will always trail this past behind her; if the weight of this past is accurately measured, it is obvious that her destiny is not fixed in eternity. [...] if we suppose, by contrast, a society where sexual equality is concretely realised, this equality would newly assert itself in each individual.
too damn long, too many sexologists and psychoanalysts. so fundamentally foundational to (western, white) feminism that some sections feel positively elementary, evidence of society's remarkable progress; others are so depressingly prescient, it's hard to reconcile the fact that this book is almost 80 years old. a very rigorously sourced, detailed piece of scholarship that—dare i say—could have done with way less sources and details. finishing this felt like climbing mount everest.
i thought I'd find it interesting, and it kinda is, but it can take me up to 4 mins to finish a single page and sucks all my joy out of reading recently
challenging
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced