You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I was drawn to this book by a single sentence:
De Beauvoir claims that society defines normal as masculine. That was certainly true when she wrote this book in the 1940's, and I think it is largely true today. Strength, power, rationality are all defined by society as masculine and good, while weakness, emotion, and intuition are defined as feminine and bad. I was uncomfortable at first with labeling the first set of attributes masculine and the second feminine, but I realized that De Beauvoir is considering societal archetypes that (annoyingly) still hold. It is still considered odd for a woman to desire power or a man to be emotional.
The book discusses how these ideals are embedded in society. De Beauvoir's fundamental argument is that traits such as rationality can and should be shared by all humans, but the structure of society has withheld them from women. I agree with her general argument, but I sometimes was annoyed with De Beauvoir's presentation. Her justification consists mostly of examples strung together to paint the worst picture of femininity. The examples are too specific to be generally convincing. She seems to largely draw her case from psychological literature that discusses particularly neurotic women; it is relatively rare that she discusses the case of the average woman.
De Beauvoir also seems to hate women and idealize the world of men. She wants women to acquire masculine traits and lose feminine traits. She seems to imply men have the perfect life. For example, she discusses the limitations of the home in providing a fulfilling career for women and makes the assumption that most men are fulfilled by their jobs. In general, she writes as if men have no problems. Yet I am sure there are enough cases in the psychological literature that a book can be written that makes just as sorry a case for the sad plight of men as De Beauvoir makes for women.
Going off topic a bit, I am always annoyed at those strains of feminism that assume the feminine is less valuable than the masculine. We have gotten to a point where it is generally acceptable for a woman to have so called masculine traits, but it is still unacceptable for men to have feminine traits. Focusing on the feminine plight was a logical place to start; the masculine traits are the ones associated with the power to repress and abuse others, and women needed to escape from that. However, the problems facing women now, from home/work balancing to wanting to wear skirts and still be taken seriously, are largely related to balancing of feminine and masculine. Men and women need to come to respect feminine qualities and recognize them in everyone. In short, all of these masculine and feminine qualities about need to lose their gender and be recognized as human.
One day I wanted to explain myself to myself... And it struck me with a sort of surprise that the first thing I had to say was 'I am a woman.'De Beauvoir presents the idea that women have been set up over the centuries as the ultimate "Other". Otherness is the idea that people need to define something or someone as not the self to be able to define the self. On an individual level, everyone outside your own head is Other, but, De Beauvoir claims, the ideal of femininity has been set up as a societal Other.
De Beauvoir claims that society defines normal as masculine. That was certainly true when she wrote this book in the 1940's, and I think it is largely true today. Strength, power, rationality are all defined by society as masculine and good, while weakness, emotion, and intuition are defined as feminine and bad. I was uncomfortable at first with labeling the first set of attributes masculine and the second feminine, but I realized that De Beauvoir is considering societal archetypes that (annoyingly) still hold. It is still considered odd for a woman to desire power or a man to be emotional.
The book discusses how these ideals are embedded in society. De Beauvoir's fundamental argument is that traits such as rationality can and should be shared by all humans, but the structure of society has withheld them from women. I agree with her general argument, but I sometimes was annoyed with De Beauvoir's presentation. Her justification consists mostly of examples strung together to paint the worst picture of femininity. The examples are too specific to be generally convincing. She seems to largely draw her case from psychological literature that discusses particularly neurotic women; it is relatively rare that she discusses the case of the average woman.
De Beauvoir also seems to hate women and idealize the world of men. She wants women to acquire masculine traits and lose feminine traits. She seems to imply men have the perfect life. For example, she discusses the limitations of the home in providing a fulfilling career for women and makes the assumption that most men are fulfilled by their jobs. In general, she writes as if men have no problems. Yet I am sure there are enough cases in the psychological literature that a book can be written that makes just as sorry a case for the sad plight of men as De Beauvoir makes for women.
Going off topic a bit, I am always annoyed at those strains of feminism that assume the feminine is less valuable than the masculine. We have gotten to a point where it is generally acceptable for a woman to have so called masculine traits, but it is still unacceptable for men to have feminine traits. Focusing on the feminine plight was a logical place to start; the masculine traits are the ones associated with the power to repress and abuse others, and women needed to escape from that. However, the problems facing women now, from home/work balancing to wanting to wear skirts and still be taken seriously, are largely related to balancing of feminine and masculine. Men and women need to come to respect feminine qualities and recognize them in everyone. In short, all of these masculine and feminine qualities about need to lose their gender and be recognized as human.
"I hesitated a long time before writing a book on woman. The subject is irritating, especially for women; and it is not new."
It's hard to rate a book like this, so long and lengthy and incredibly complex, dealing with pressing issues and sensitive topics which have haunted our society as far back as can be traced. But I think these 4 stars really encapsulate my feelings here.
This is truly a momentous work, which is all I'll really say — there's been enough scholarship on de Beauvoir over the decades to back me up on that point. It is clearly very well conceptualized and researched, and she really does hold nothing back. There were passages here that truly did speak to me, made me realize feelings I had that I'd never consciously thought about and articulated those that up to now I thought were unique to my experience — but no, even in the twenty-first century, it still sucks to be a woman.
I wasn't really wild about the psychoanalytic bent this takes, but I don't have enough of a psychological or philosophical background to really unpick all of that in detail. One thing I really felt was missing, however, at least with my twenty-first century lens, was the intersectionality that has become so crucial to feminist scholarship in recent years. I wasn't naive enough to expect de Beauvoir, a white woman in France in the 1940s, to truly speak to or even consider the experiences of women of color, but I at least thought that she would factor class more into her argument. However, most of her analysis really seemed focused on middle- and upper-class women, apart from the chapter on prostitution, which with its singular focus really just lumped women with lower-income backgrounds or circumstances in with prostitutes. Unimpressive.
But overall, you have to have a huge amount of respect for this work, just based on its size if nothing else. I certainly do, and I'm so glad I gave it the time and patience it truly deserves.
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Un libro publicado en 1949 en Francia el cuál impactó el movimiento feminista contemporáneo; esta obra relata el rol histórico de la mujer desde la época primitiva hasta la modernidad, analizando aspectos biológicos y sociales con el propósito de encontrar los argumentos de la desdicha femenina en un mundo patriarcal.
Leer esta obra provocó una cantidad de emociones que jamás creí que sentiría. Asco, decepción, sorpresa, impotencia. Este libro logró que me percatara de una cosa: lo traumada que estoy como mujer. Me encontré con capítulos que me desgarraron el corazón por sucesos que he vivido en carne propia, y tener que leer dichas experiencias entre páginas me dejó en lágrimas. No saben lo importante que se convirtió este libro para mí.
¿Lo recomiendo? Absolutamente. Creo que toda PERSONA debería leerlo, no sólo mujeres. A pesar de que es un libro publicado en 1949, muchísimos aspectos explicados siguen ocurriendo, y creo que leer “El segundo sexo” es importante para caer en cuenta de la desgracia femenina y cómo es vivir siendo mujer.
Leer esta obra provocó una cantidad de emociones que jamás creí que sentiría. Asco, decepción, sorpresa, impotencia. Este libro logró que me percatara de una cosa: lo traumada que estoy como mujer. Me encontré con capítulos que me desgarraron el corazón por sucesos que he vivido en carne propia, y tener que leer dichas experiencias entre páginas me dejó en lágrimas. No saben lo importante que se convirtió este libro para mí.
¿Lo recomiendo? Absolutamente. Creo que toda PERSONA debería leerlo, no sólo mujeres. A pesar de que es un libro publicado en 1949, muchísimos aspectos explicados siguen ocurriendo, y creo que leer “El segundo sexo” es importante para caer en cuenta de la desgracia femenina y cómo es vivir siendo mujer.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
While reading this, a lot of things crossed my mind: things that were in the news, like the latest red-state abortion ban or the way Justin Trudeau says the word "feminist;" things that were happening around me, like any interaction with my boss or the men I overheard in a Chinese restaurant discussing how to keep a woman from leaving you (their conclusion was quite Beauvoirian in a way, as they determined it is not violence but rather the threat of violence that keeps her in line). But the one thing I kept returning to more than anything was my mother.
Specifically, since I finished this during the holiday season, I've been thinking about the gift I'm giving her for Christmas. Every year, this is the most important part of the holidays for me, and I've often wondered why. Her gift is always much more valuable, both financially and emotionally, than the one I give my father. And I know it's not just me; culturally, we understand that the gifts we give our dads are fairly generic: a tie, a watch, power tools, something masculine and utilitarian, whereas our moms get something they, you know, actually want. Why is that?
The easy answer is that we are raised by our mothers. This is something Beauvoir points out as a problem, and things haven't changed much since 1949. Women today are still responsible for nearly all childcare responsibilities, even when they work as many hours as their husbands. We spend more time with our mothers as children, and the impact of that is hard to overstate.
But a gift is not a reward for time spent with us as children. It's an expression of gratitude and connection, and our relationships with our mothers are colored by the fact that we spent so much time with them. We know she's nurturing, tender, and affectionate; but she's also vindictive, over-protective, quick to anger, unforgiving, and neglectful. She held power over us at a delicate time in our lives, and all too often she weaponized that power to get us to behave. She was short-sighted in administering discipline, preferring an immediate solution to the problem we were causing over the development of our consciences in the long run. It is she who is responsible for the way we turned out. Everything, from the fact that we eat too much ice cream to the terrible people we date, is all her fault.
Our fathers were much easier to understand. He was the fun one, the one who arrived back home wanting to play outside, the one whose punishments were swift and carried the air of officialdom. He never worried about a scraped knee, about us wandering off too far; he grew up in a world that was far less dangerous than the one his wife did. Men, we learn from this, are far less complicated than women.
And yet we celebrate Mother's Day with noticeably more enthusiasm than we do Father's Day. We remember Mom's birthday whereas she has to remind us of Dad's, and her Christmas gift is always better than his. Why is that?
Well, because we understand that she tried her best. She herself was raised by her mother, and she had to cope with the fact of being the weaker sex, an object in every sense of the word. Her opinion was not asked often enough. Her relationship with our father, even in the most loving and equitable context, was built around the assumption that she would bear his children, that she would help him carry on his family name. Even if she had career aspirations, as most of our mothers did, it was evident that these were of secondary importance. She was allowed to be a teacher or a nurse or even the CEO of a Fortune 500 company only after she had been a woman to the sufficient fulfillment of society's expectations.
And then she had us, and she was permitted to feel that she had control over something. Don't get it wrong, we were still our fathers' children, but she had custody of us. For once, she had responsibilities. She vowed to make us the smartest boys, the prettiest girls anyone had ever seen. We would behave ourselves, get good grades, and charm her friends with our precocity.
But, of course, every mother aspires to have the perfect children. Wanting something and knowing how to get it are two different things. When we started crying, pitching fits, drawing on walls, she was surprised; were these her kids? But she remembered that she had authority, and like any authoritarian unfamiliar with the instruments of power, she misused them. She shouted, hit us, made threats, but even worse, she cried and told us she was at her wit's end. She didn't know where she'd gone wrong, she said; she wondered what she was going to do, whether she had been fit to be a mother after all. Looking back, we realize she was somewhere between play-acting and confessing.
But we grew up. We turned out fine, just as she'd turned out fine, just as everyone always turns out fine. And every year, to prove to her and to ourselves how fine we turned out, we spend a great deal of money ensuring that our mothers get the very best Christmas gift.
Specifically, since I finished this during the holiday season, I've been thinking about the gift I'm giving her for Christmas. Every year, this is the most important part of the holidays for me, and I've often wondered why. Her gift is always much more valuable, both financially and emotionally, than the one I give my father. And I know it's not just me; culturally, we understand that the gifts we give our dads are fairly generic: a tie, a watch, power tools, something masculine and utilitarian, whereas our moms get something they, you know, actually want. Why is that?
The easy answer is that we are raised by our mothers. This is something Beauvoir points out as a problem, and things haven't changed much since 1949. Women today are still responsible for nearly all childcare responsibilities, even when they work as many hours as their husbands. We spend more time with our mothers as children, and the impact of that is hard to overstate.
But a gift is not a reward for time spent with us as children. It's an expression of gratitude and connection, and our relationships with our mothers are colored by the fact that we spent so much time with them. We know she's nurturing, tender, and affectionate; but she's also vindictive, over-protective, quick to anger, unforgiving, and neglectful. She held power over us at a delicate time in our lives, and all too often she weaponized that power to get us to behave. She was short-sighted in administering discipline, preferring an immediate solution to the problem we were causing over the development of our consciences in the long run. It is she who is responsible for the way we turned out. Everything, from the fact that we eat too much ice cream to the terrible people we date, is all her fault.
Our fathers were much easier to understand. He was the fun one, the one who arrived back home wanting to play outside, the one whose punishments were swift and carried the air of officialdom. He never worried about a scraped knee, about us wandering off too far; he grew up in a world that was far less dangerous than the one his wife did. Men, we learn from this, are far less complicated than women.
And yet we celebrate Mother's Day with noticeably more enthusiasm than we do Father's Day. We remember Mom's birthday whereas she has to remind us of Dad's, and her Christmas gift is always better than his. Why is that?
Well, because we understand that she tried her best. She herself was raised by her mother, and she had to cope with the fact of being the weaker sex, an object in every sense of the word. Her opinion was not asked often enough. Her relationship with our father, even in the most loving and equitable context, was built around the assumption that she would bear his children, that she would help him carry on his family name. Even if she had career aspirations, as most of our mothers did, it was evident that these were of secondary importance. She was allowed to be a teacher or a nurse or even the CEO of a Fortune 500 company only after she had been a woman to the sufficient fulfillment of society's expectations.
And then she had us, and she was permitted to feel that she had control over something. Don't get it wrong, we were still our fathers' children, but she had custody of us. For once, she had responsibilities. She vowed to make us the smartest boys, the prettiest girls anyone had ever seen. We would behave ourselves, get good grades, and charm her friends with our precocity.
But, of course, every mother aspires to have the perfect children. Wanting something and knowing how to get it are two different things. When we started crying, pitching fits, drawing on walls, she was surprised; were these her kids? But she remembered that she had authority, and like any authoritarian unfamiliar with the instruments of power, she misused them. She shouted, hit us, made threats, but even worse, she cried and told us she was at her wit's end. She didn't know where she'd gone wrong, she said; she wondered what she was going to do, whether she had been fit to be a mother after all. Looking back, we realize she was somewhere between play-acting and confessing.
But we grew up. We turned out fine, just as she'd turned out fine, just as everyone always turns out fine. And every year, to prove to her and to ourselves how fine we turned out, we spend a great deal of money ensuring that our mothers get the very best Christmas gift.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
A must-read for any feminist. Although some of the information is a bit outdated/overgeneralized/not always based in science, I appreciate the overall scope of the text. This book still holds a kind of power -- women of all ages will make amazing discoveries here.
But hasn't this woman ever heard of a paragraph break? Whew!
But hasn't this woman ever heard of a paragraph break? Whew!
I have meant to read this book for a long time, I kept putting it off because somewhat naively I thought a book written in 1949 would be very much out of date with modern feminism. Unsurprisingly I was wrong. This book is composed of two volumes: Facts and Myths in Volume I and Lived Experience in Volume II. While some of the scientific and psychological claims throughout have been debunked, a lot of it is still just as true as it was in 1949. I was also startled by the chapters which looked at abortion, this book was written in 1949 and not only has the discourse and rationale not changed since then but in many cases and countries around the world, the issue has become even more intensely embittered and farther from being a universal right. Looking at the Myths and how women are portrayed in classic literature is still entirely accurate. What struck me by this accuracy is that the place of woman in society has been held in place by thousands of years of history and culture and that despite the leaps and bounds since this was published, cultural expectations are so deeply engrained it takes constant work to challenge them. It's a book I should have read a long time ago, and if it's been languishing on your to-read list, I recommend you read it too.