The Second Sex
Reviews
my brother's ex girlfriend bought this for me when they were still together. it said all you needed to know about that relationship. 10/10. gripping.
philosophy is a little abstract and quite a difficult read, but I also read it when I was 16, frankly I skimmed through most of those but still. gripping theory. except for what she said about women turning gay when traumatized/pissed off by men i'm not sure how accurate that is. but yeah. debunk freud's penis envy theory yeah fuck him
“this subject is irritating , especially to women; and it is now new” just a killer way to start your piece
Why is something written over 70 years still relevant today for women? Beautifully articulated thoughts. Impressed with her integrating intersectionality so early on. ....I'll probably read the original.
A book that I'm happy to have read in French. This book is complex to read and understand. So, to help me, like for most non-fiction, I listen to the audiobook simultaneously, as I knew that it was a difficult book due to the language used (polished), and I didn't want to miss anything. Even if it's a complex book, I found it very interesting. I like how it's constructed. You see in different domains how women are seen and understood. That way, you have a great idea of where this comes from and how all those various fields shape the way women should be in our societies. In French, the edition is divided into two, and I will read the second part. However, I will need to re-read this one as I'm sure that I miss some important points.
It took my 18 months to read it, not because it was dense or difficult, but because the subject matter is so frustrating. While I can’t wait to move on to another feminist classic, I will miss this book.
I read the 2011 translation by Borde and Malovany-Chevallier. This is a beast of a book to get through, but it is worth reading. I recommend reading it in parts, out of order, and not getting bogged down in the syntax.
The bad thing about this book is it won't be read by those who need it the most. I suppose that's true for most great books, but the subject of this one is of an importance and scale that it really begs the statement. That said, everyone should read it. Even if you're a die-hard equal rights proponent, you should read it. Simone gives us an essay detailing woman's role in society over the ages, and across multiple civilizations. How that role was determined by a mix of economics, biology and a huge influence from patriarchal power. Ultimately, we are shown how woman today - her achievements, success, role, behavior; who she is - is a result of this controlled evolution rather than an inherent genetic trait. We are shown also, by way of comparison but in less detail, that the same happens to man. Everyone should read this book because we tend to forget that no one had any say on who they are, and who they are determines who they can be. Even if we know this, intuitively or otherwise, it's much more convenient to play dumb and blame everyone for what they "choose" to be or are (in)capable of doing. We can say that it's their own decision, we have nothing to do with it, at the same time feeling good about ourselves for what we've achieved because it was surely 100% on us. The Second Sex gives us many mental tools to avoid this lazy thought pattern. It also gives us hope: however bad inequality is nowadays - in this particular case as it applies to gender - one can argue that it is much better than in Simone's time, not to mention the past ages she describes. However far we are from balance, we feel the momentum weighing in the right direction. All we have to do is keep it up.
Women. Understand them. This is the handbook. Amazing. Should be mandatory reading for all. Men and Women.
Highlights
The question is how, in her, nature has been taken on in the course of history; the question is what humanity has made of the human female.
For all those suffering from an inferiority complex, there is a miraculous liniment; no one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or more disdainful, then a man anxious about his own virility.
ROASSSSTTT
One of the benefits that oppression secures for the oppressor is that the humblest among them feels superior: the most mediocre of males believes himself a demigod next to women.
she’s spitting so many truths
As bourgeois women, they are in solidarity with bourgeois men and not with women proletarians; as white women, they are in solidarity with white men and not with black women…The tie that binds her to her oppressors is unlike any other.
no shared history or culture
Humanity is male, and man defines woman, not in herself, but in relation to himself; she is not considered an autonomous being.
A man never begins by positing himself as an individual of a certain sex.
The defiant position that American women occupy proves they are haunted by the sentiment of their own femininity.
embrace femininity, emotion etc, do not aspire to be manlike
And the burden of free love, Beauvoir would discover, was grossly unequal for a woman and for a man.
Like Woolf, and a striking number of other great women writers, Beauvoir was childless…she regarded motherhood as a threat to her integrity.
They live dispersed among the males, attached through resi- dence, housework, economic condition, and social standing to certain - fithers or husbands- more firmly than they are to other women. If they belong to the bourgeoisie, hey feel solidarity with men of that class, not with proletarian women; if they are white, their allegiance is to white men, not to Negro women.
It is always difficult to describe a myth; it does not lend itself to being grasped or defined; it haunts consciousnesses without ever being opposite them as a fixed object. The object fluctuates so much and is so contradictory that its unity is not at first discerned: Delilah and Judith, Aspasia and Lucretia, Pandora and Athena, woman is both Eve and rhe Virgin Mary. She is an idol, a servant, source of life, power of darkness; she is the elementary silence of truth, she is artifice, gossip and lies; she is the medicine woman and witch; she is man's prey; she is his downfall, she is everything he is not and wants to have, his negation and his raison d’être.