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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
tense
slow-paced
I'm just not in the right frame of mind to read a carefully dissected, 800+ page treatise on woman's place in society. Maybe Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography will be a condensed version of this? Sorry feminists, this one has to bow out. :/
The reason I did not finish this book is that it needs to go back to the library and there is a whole waiting list before I can borrow it again (and I am not even sure if I am still at the University at that point). But de Beauvoir is very thorough with her work, the explanations she gives is not based on a loose sentence, she can go on and on and on for hours. This sometimes makes me hop, skip, jump a paragraph and continue to read. It is not a bad thing, it is a bad thing when you do not have all the time to read it.
But I am glad I made a start at the book, I read (with the skipping in mind) the first section completely and it was very interesting and I definitely liked it. Even if sometimes I thought she went on for a long time. The thing what upsets me, which happens basically all the time, is when a book this old writes about issues that still are not solved. How much longer will it take before there is equal payment to mention something of the smallest things that should be able to be fixed with a flick of the wrist. Why does the world still not work that way?
Even if de Beauvoir writes a lot, what might have been able to put in shorter paragraphs, it wasn't that it was bothering. I like her writing style and to me it actually came over as easy, stating facts, (or her facts, considering some translator notes) and just going strong, making it a wholesome story and not just parts that cut off one after another and you forever wondering what the point of that piece was. It is build up very nicely (and thus I assumed translated very well) to keep it going.
But I am glad I made a start at the book, I read (with the skipping in mind) the first section completely and it was very interesting and I definitely liked it. Even if sometimes I thought she went on for a long time. The thing what upsets me, which happens basically all the time, is when a book this old writes about issues that still are not solved. How much longer will it take before there is equal payment to mention something of the smallest things that should be able to be fixed with a flick of the wrist. Why does the world still not work that way?
Even if de Beauvoir writes a lot, what might have been able to put in shorter paragraphs, it wasn't that it was bothering. I like her writing style and to me it actually came over as easy, stating facts, (or her facts, considering some translator notes) and just going strong, making it a wholesome story and not just parts that cut off one after another and you forever wondering what the point of that piece was. It is build up very nicely (and thus I assumed translated very well) to keep it going.
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
slow-paced
One of the stars was for me because this the longest book I've read so far and the Wuthering Heights references.
Read for a class. Tried to finish the whole thing. Just too much.
Reading this in 2023, it's difficult to imagine just how groundbreaking this work must have been for its time. Though there were women who came before Simone de Beauvoir, such as Aphra Behn or Mary Wollstonecraft, de Beauvoir was a woman who said the quiet part out loud...and thoroughly.
While there is a lot to tackle in the unabridged version of The Second Sex, the parts that I found most interesting were those related to female typecasting throughout all forms of art (maiden, mother, crone, temptress, witch), her in-depth trek through the history of women as the inferior sex, and the critical look at the rearing and raising of girls versus boys and how this sets up the foundation of inequality for the female sex.
Reading this in a historical lens was also very rewarding. Luckily, we have come a far way from 1949, when this was written, and therefore much of the information, especially in psychology and sociology is outdated and no longer applicable. But there is still much that is the same, battles women have been fighting for these 70+ years and longer, and still, we have come up short. It is a good reminded of how much can be done in a relatively "short" amount of time when one looks at it through the scope of human history, but it is also a reminder that so much recently has stagnated in the drive to equality (equal wages, the right to abortion, relationship dynamics, etc).
I can see why people might be drawn to the abridged version. de Beauvoir is undoubtably verbose and often focuses on the same arguments in multiple places in her essays. Also, the long chapters debating Freud, the authors and philosophers of her time, and the very problematic chapters focusing lesbianism, all make a case for her writing to be packaged into a more digestible form.
I'm very much looking forward to reading Betty Friedan later this year to see how feminism evolved through the 1900s and how the thinking, research, and social backdrop changes. Either way, I think de Beauvoir is a must read to understand the foundations of feminism, the truly stifling history of women, and why it's so important that even now we don't take our foot off the gas pedal in striving for equality and fraternity with men.
While there is a lot to tackle in the unabridged version of The Second Sex, the parts that I found most interesting were those related to female typecasting throughout all forms of art (maiden, mother, crone, temptress, witch), her in-depth trek through the history of women as the inferior sex, and the critical look at the rearing and raising of girls versus boys and how this sets up the foundation of inequality for the female sex.
Reading this in a historical lens was also very rewarding. Luckily, we have come a far way from 1949, when this was written, and therefore much of the information, especially in psychology and sociology is outdated and no longer applicable. But there is still much that is the same, battles women have been fighting for these 70+ years and longer, and still, we have come up short. It is a good reminded of how much can be done in a relatively "short" amount of time when one looks at it through the scope of human history, but it is also a reminder that so much recently has stagnated in the drive to equality (equal wages, the right to abortion, relationship dynamics, etc).
I can see why people might be drawn to the abridged version. de Beauvoir is undoubtably verbose and often focuses on the same arguments in multiple places in her essays. Also, the long chapters debating Freud, the authors and philosophers of her time, and the very problematic chapters focusing lesbianism, all make a case for her writing to be packaged into a more digestible form.
I'm very much looking forward to reading Betty Friedan later this year to see how feminism evolved through the 1900s and how the thinking, research, and social backdrop changes. Either way, I think de Beauvoir is a must read to understand the foundations of feminism, the truly stifling history of women, and why it's so important that even now we don't take our foot off the gas pedal in striving for equality and fraternity with men.
Listen I’ll be honest, I’ve actually been trying to get through this for a year. It is SO DENSE. and yes, a lot of it is outdated. However, take it for what it was worth when it was written. It’s a foundational feminist text for a reason.
But yes very dense, not always the most entertaining. But worth at least a skim.
But yes very dense, not always the most entertaining. But worth at least a skim.
the biggest fucking book i’ve read but a feminist classic