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THE SECOND SEX
SIMONE DE
BEAUVOIR
1949
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feminism
Feminism is both anintellectual commitment
and a political movement that seeks justice for
women and the end of sexism in all forms.
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Feminism has 3 waves
1st wave: focused mainly onoverturning legal obstacles to
equality (i.e. voting rights, property
rights). It also tried and failed toadd the Equal Rights
Amendment to the United States
Constitution.
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second wave
2nd wave : period of feminist activity
which began during the early 1960s and
lasted through the early 1990s. second-
wave feminism addressed a wide rangeof issues: de facto inequalities, official
legal inequalities, sexuality, family, the
workplace, and, perhaps mostcontroversially, reproductive rights.
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The Second Sex
– The Second Sex, Simone deBeauvoir examined the notion of women being perceived as
"other" in the patriarchal society.She went on to conclude thatmale-centered ideology was
being accepted as a norm andenforced by the ongoingdevelopment of myths.
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what is a
woman?
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“we are told that femininity is in
danger; we are exhorted to bewomen, remain women, becomewomen. It would appear, then,
that every female human being isnot necessarily a woman; to be
so considered she must share in
that mysterious and threatenedreality known as femininity.”
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Dorothy Parker has
written: „I cannot be just to books which treat of
woman as woman ... Myidea is that all of us,
men as well as women,should be regarded as
human beings.‟
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Surely woman is,
like man, a human
being; but such adeclaration is
abstract.
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The fact is that every concrete
human being is always a singular,
separate individual.
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To decline to accept such notions
as the eternal feminine, the blacksoul, the Jewish character, is not
to deny that Jews, Negroes,women exist today – this denial
does not represent a liberation forthose concerned, but rather a
flight from reality.
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… to go for a walk with one‟s
eyes open is enough to
demonstrate that humanity is
divided into two classes ofindividuals whose clothes, faces,
bodies, smiles, gaits, interests,and occupations are manifestly
different.
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they are different
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Perhaps thesedifferences aresuperficial, perhapsthey are destined todisappear. What iscertain is that they do
most obviously exist
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So - if women exist,
-but it not their femininity
that makes them women,- then we must face the
question again –
- “what is a woman”?
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It is significant
that this question
itself is asked.
No man would ask“what is a man?”
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The word „Man‟ represents both
the positive and the neutral, as is
indicated by the common useof man to designate humanbeings in general; whereaswoman represents only thenegative, defined by limiting
criteria, without reciprocity. Thefact of being a man is no
peculiarity
this difference of man and
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this difference of man andwoman is supported by
religion and philosophy
„The female is a female by virtue of a
certain lack of qualities,‟ said Aristotle;„we should regard the female nature as
afflicted with a natural defectiveness.‟
St Thomas pronounced woman to be an„imperfect man‟, an „incidental‟ being.
This is symbolised in Genesis where Eveis depicted as made from a bone of
Adam.
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Thus humanity is male
and man defines womannot in herself but as
relative to him.Man is the Self and
woman is the Other.
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He is the Subject/
Self,
he is the Absolute –
-she is the Other.
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man and manly
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woman and womanly
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Lévi-Strauss: Passage from the state of
Nature to the state of Culture is marked
by man‟s ability to view biological
relations as a series of contrasts; duality,
alternation, opposition, and symmetryThese phenomena would be
incomprehensible if in fact human
society were simply a Mitsein or
fellowship based on solidarity and
friendliness
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Hegel: we find in
consciousness itself a
fundamental hostility towards
every other consciousness;
the subject can be posed onlyin being opposed – he sets
himself up as the essential, as
opposed to the other, the
inessential, the object.
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But the other consciousness, the
other ego, sets up a reciprocal claim.
How is it, then, that this reciprocity
has not been recognised between the
sexes, that one of the contrasting
terms is set up as the sole essential,
denying any relativity in regard to its
correlative and defining the latter as
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Why is it that women do not
dispute male sovereignty? Nosubject will readily volunteer
to become the object, theinessential; it is not the Other
who, in defining himself asthe Other, establishes the
Wh d / i d
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Why do women/men remainedwithin the stereotype?
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Diff t f th
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Different from otheroppressed groups
Never formed a minority or a separate
collective unit of mankind.
The otherness in this case seems to be
an absolute partly because this othering
lacks the contingent or incidental natureof historical facts
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The reason for this is that women lack
concrete means for organising
themselves into a unit – They have no past, no history, no
religion of their own; and they have no
such solidarity of work and interest as
that of the proletariat.
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Nobody will ever win theBattle of the Sexes.
There's just too muchfraternizing with the
enemy.
- Henry Kissinger
h f il t l
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why woman may fail to layclaim to the status of subject
• because she lacks definiteresources,
• because she feels the necessarybond that ties her to man
regardless of reciprocity, or• because she is often very well
pleased with her role as the Other.
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French feminist de laBarre: „All that has been
written about women bymen should be suspect, for
the men are at once judgeand party to the lawsuit.‟
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An attempt to grant „equality in
difference‟ to the other sex. Like
the „equal but separate‟ formula
of the laws aimed at the North
American Negroes. These so-
called equalitarian segregation has
resulted only in the most extremediscrimination
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t e att e or t e equa ty o sexes s
often opposed with confusing
questions of happiness/peacebut the justification for
present existence is itsexpansion into an
indefinitely open future:greater opportunities, greater
Th d f ll i t th
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The downfall into thebrutish life of subjection togiven conditions – and of liberty into constraint and
contingence, represents amoral fault if the subject
consents to it; and if it isinflicted upon him, it brings
frustration and oppression
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simone de beauvoir
“when we abolish the slavery
of half of humanity,
together with the whole
system of hypocrisy
that it implies,
then the „division‟ of humanity
will reveal its genuine significance
and the human couple will find its true form”
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I Ideological
Hannah Arendt has observed that
government is upheld by power supported
either through consent or imposed through
violence. Conditioning to an ideology
amounts to the former. Sexual politics
obtains consent through the "socialisation"
of both sexes to basic patriarchal politieswith regard to temperament, role, and
status.