Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by lilith89ibz
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
5.0
This book was an experience. Above all, I appreciate it as a reflection of the place and time in which it was written and the sharp spotlight it shines on issues we are still working on today.
There is an intrinsic irony to this book. Simone de Beauvoir tried to extract herself as a subject from the study of women so as to be as objective as she could, when trying to be objective in sociology and psychology is inherently impossible and likely counterproductive.
The first part of the book is focused on biology. It was the most superfluous since our understanding of human biology and how it intersects with gender identity and sexuality have thankfully evolved since then (well... let's say one can educate oneself on the subject if one chooses to). It was still quite astounding to see de Beauvoir contradict herself regularly throughout the text, maintaining that femininity is a social construct and also something biologically determined.
She also managed to poke holes into Freudian psychoanalysis and state some of its tenets as fact. This happened continuously. It's almost as if gender identity and sexuality cannot be neatly divided into little boxes for our comfort and convenience. Brave attempt, though.
What I found most interesting was the cognitive dissonance between describing the social expectations of an artificially created frame for performing gender and the compulsion to pathologize any and all coping mechanisms, regardless of degree, as narcissism in various flavours. You put a bunch of test subjects in a Situation and then act surprised they're behaving oddly.
There is an intrinsic irony to this book. Simone de Beauvoir tried to extract herself as a subject from the study of women so as to be as objective as she could, when trying to be objective in sociology and psychology is inherently impossible and likely counterproductive.
The first part of the book is focused on biology. It was the most superfluous since our understanding of human biology and how it intersects with gender identity and sexuality have thankfully evolved since then (well... let's say one can educate oneself on the subject if one chooses to). It was still quite astounding to see de Beauvoir contradict herself regularly throughout the text, maintaining that femininity is a social construct and also something biologically determined.
She also managed to poke holes into Freudian psychoanalysis and state some of its tenets as fact. This happened continuously. It's almost as if gender identity and sexuality cannot be neatly divided into little boxes for our comfort and convenience. Brave attempt, though.
What I found most interesting was the cognitive dissonance between describing the social expectations of an artificially created frame for performing gender and the compulsion to pathologize any and all coping mechanisms, regardless of degree, as narcissism in various flavours. You put a bunch of test subjects in a Situation and then act surprised they're behaving oddly.