A review by petrauusimaa
Toinen sukupuoli 1 - Tosiasiat ja myytit by Simone de Beauvoir

4.0

The Second Sex was published in 1949 in two parts and my Finnish editions follow that format even though the feminist classic is usually thought as one, complete work. In the first part of The Second Sex de Beauvoir states the facts of the difference between the sexes, both biologically, scientifically and historically. She discusses the way psychoanalysis and biology has been used to make women less than men even though when you look at the facts, there is no statement that says that women are somehow under the men. Simone de Beauvoir thinks that it is the past of human kind that has made the difference between the sexes so deep. Even though I did feel that the parts where de Beauvoir goes through the history of discrimination could be more cohesive, I think she discusses very well how these differences have formed and why it is so hard to start changing the clash between the sexes. The second part of the edition delves deeply into myths surrounding womanhood and how certain male authors have used these myths to create female characters. To me, this section is the weakest part of the book because I feel that de Beauvoir is mostly just quoting, not commenting or explaining the examples she has found from her sources. All in all, I think it is surprisingly engagingly written and I enjoyed the book as a whole very much. I can't wait to continue to the second part next month!