2. Historical Context
• Second Sex written in 1949
• By Simone de Beauvoir a French intellectual, writer and existentialist
thinker
• Did not consider herself a philosopher; additionally wrote novels, essays,
and autobiographies
• Also known for lifelong relationship with Jean Paul Sartre
• Earned a BA in mathematics and philosophy in 1925, continued to study
mathematics at Institut Catholique de Paris as well as literature/languages
at the Institut Sainte-Marie
• She then studied philosophy at Sorbonne, where she was the ninth woman
to receive a degree from Sorbonne
3. Le Deuxiéme Sexe
• First published in 1949
• Existential work translating “existence precedes essence” into the
feminist phrase: “One is not born but becomes a woman”
• Read as the first articulation of the sex-gender distinction
• Distinction between biological sex and the social and historical construction of
gender
• Establishes the fundamental source of woman’s oppression as
femininities historical and social construction as the quintessential
“Other”
4. Duality of the sexes
• Within the history of philosophy:
• Male is the rational being, the female deviates from the male
• Thomas Aquinas: “The female is an imperfect male”
Traditional Understanding:
Male:
Rationality
Culture
Mind, soul, psyche
Role: govern family,
social, and political
realms
Female:
Body
Nature
Emotions
Role: bear and rear
children
5. Essentialism of Traditional Duality of the
Sexes
• “Essence precedes Existence”
• Where does the essence of “Woman” come from?
• Two perspectives
• Female embodiment/anatomy
• “The Eternal Feminine”
• Anatomy predestines women and men to fulfill certain roles
• Women are thus “essentially” different from men
• Women’s essence = women have certain attributes, all women
everywhere and at everytime
6. Female Embodiment
• Traditional Dualistic theories of sexual difference
• Biological Essentialism
• Ex. Woman are essentially different from men due to their hormones
• Biological basis that makes them cognitively and morally different
from men
• Examples include: less rational, less morally accountable, less mature, more
emotional
8. Where does ”woman” come from?
• Concept of ”woman” is real, but not due to essence
• To deny the reality is an “inauthentic flight” (4)
• Femininity as Historical/Social Situation
• What did Sartre say about existential situations? What is one’s
situation?
9. Sex and Gender
• Distinction avoids essentialism
• Sex is one’s biological or anatomical sex
• Gender has to do with the social and historical determinates of the
difference between men and women
• This distinction is based on the idea of social construction of the
differences between men and women
• Beauvoir: “One is not born, but becomes a woman”
10. Sexual difference
• Different roots to sexual identity:
• Cultural (determined by culture)
• Social (produced by society)
• Discursive (produced by discourse)
• Volitional (free choice)
• Bodily
• Beauvoir’s thesis: being a man or a woman determines the life of us all
11. What aspects of life are determined by sexual
identity?
• Men have better chances by having a better position of power
• Women have less power in politics and society
• Women have less access to financial independence and resources
• Women are not as “free,” are more likely to live in bad faith, or have
more obstacles from authenticity
12. Women as “Other”
• “He is Subject; he is absolute. She is the Other” (6).
• Category of ”other” or “alterity” originates with consciousness itself.
• “…a fundamental hostility to any other consciousness is found in
consciousness itself as the essential and sets up the other as
inessential, as the object” (7).
• Self and Other
• We and Other
• Problem:
• Women never/recently became a “we” to set up as the essential
13. First and Second Sex
• To be the second sex implies that woman is seen as ”the sex” or the
”essentially sexed being”(6)
• Emphasis on woman’s body and sexuality
• The male is seen as the one, as “man”, and through cognitive
capacities
• The female is other and lesser
14. Positive, Neuter, and Negative
• Man is the positive: gains qualities for being man
• Man is neuter: to be man is to human
• Woman is the negative
• Defined by a lack of qualities
15. Review
• Essentialism vs. existentialism with relation to femininity vs.
masculinity
• Sex vs. gender
• Category of “Other”
• The “Second Sex”
• Positive, neutral, and negative
16. Questions:
• How does one become a woman according to de Beauvoir? What is the
role of biological or anatomical destiny in this process?
• Have women become a “we” today? What obstacles exist to women
organizing themselves into a political group for the purpose of resisting
subordination? Do the obstacles originate in women's own thinking, or are
they imposed on women from the outside? What's de Beauvoir¹s position
on this? What's yours?
• De Beauvoir writes: "To decline to be the Other, to refuse to be a party to
the deal, this would be for women to renounce all the advantages
conferred upon them... Indeed, along with the ethical urge of each
individual to affirm his subjective existence, there is also the temptation to
forego liberty and become a thing" (p. 9). What does this mean? Do you
agree/disagree?
• In what sense can we understand this text as still relevant and in what
sense is this text outdated?
