Reviews

O Segundo Sexo by Simone de Beauvoir

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jg12389's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

3.5

It only took me two and a half years to finish it, but finish it I did! Finally. The first half is a ton of theory and is extremely dense and because it was written so long ago, a lot of it went over my head. And while there were a lot of generalities made in this book on all sides, and some of the ideas and language used would frankly be considered wrong, immoral, and/or disparaging these days, a lot of the core ideas she is arguing remain the same today, which is both enlightening and depressing. But seriously, skip the first half or just read a summary of this book, it's not for the faint of heart. Glad I finished it though!

pageslover's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

materialgorlnt's review against another edition

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4.0

Simone would be incredibly depressed to see how little has changed. And she would be so embarrassed by the tradtokers.

tdaak's review against another edition

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3.0

2 1/2 years later and I have finished this book. I really enjoyed the parts of this book that were Simone’s thoughts on men and women but didn’t really understand the section of literary analysis having no real reference for the novels or writers she was largely responding to. I think I’ll return to this book again and again.

pnwtinap's review against another edition

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5.0

This is my feminist bible as they say. I studied philosophy and this was the one book that drew me in and kept me studying throughout the years. My copy is stained with hot chocolate, highlighted beyond recognition with notes and post-its from many readings and many paper written.

applesodaperson's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced

2.75

So this book is clearly an epic feat of literature, especially for the time period. And it really did have some good commentary. I liked the sections towards to beginning about how the basic biology of men and women isn't all that different. But unfortunately, the majority of this book was outdated and actually just reinforced archaic gender roles instead of breaking them down. And disclaimer, yes I know this book was written a very long time ago, but that doesn't mean I can't criticize it. There is only so much grace I can give it under the excuse of it being old. Now onto those criticisms. My first and biggest is that this book was entirely comprised of broad generalizations. It was just so many examples and stories of one specific woman's experience with things like marriage and motherhood, and then it being talked about like it is something every woman agrees on. And this doesn't even get the excuse of it being an old book, because never in history has every women had the same life and feelings. In addition to this, this book has countless outdated ideas about men, marriage, LGBTQ+ women, and motherhood, which as someone who knows a lot about these topics, I did not appreciate. I hated the chapter where she compared men to god and jesus, and said that all women perceive them in that way. I did not like how she said there are no women geniuses, which definitely wasn't true even in 1949. I don't like how she said that no women create great works of art. I didn't like her commentary on child-rape, because she said that most children consent out of ignorance, which is not true because children literally cannot consent at all. I didn't like how many obscure literature references there were, although that is more of a me problem, but it still led to me being confused and missing a lot of the points. I also didn't like the lack of intersectional feminism. But this can also kind of be excused, because this book was made when feminism only really applied to upper class white women.
Overall, very disappointment by this book.
Listened to on Libby.

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