The Second Sex

“He is the Subject; he is the Absolute. She is the Other.”

This is perhaps the closest Beauvoir comes to giving a concise definition of the Other. As Beauvoir writes, women are not the only group that could be described as the Other. Jewish people, Black people, Indigenous people, and the working class have also been Othered in relation to other groups (6). As in those cases, men set the standard and women are defined according to that standard.

“The perspective we have adopted here is one of existentialist morality. Every subject posits itself as a transcendence concretely, through projects; it accomplishes its freedom only by perpetual surpassing toward other freedoms; there is no other justification for present existence than its expansion toward an indefinitely open future. Every time transcendence lapses into immanence, there is degradation of existence into ‘in-itself,’ of freedom into facticity; this fall is a moral fault if the subject consents to it; if this fall is inflicted on the subject, it takes the form of frustration and oppression; in both cases it is an absolute evil.”

Here, Beauvoir explains how her existentialist perspective influences her argument about women’s identity and oppression. Men have fewer obstacles than women preventing them from participating in transcendence, the act of gaining freedom by working toward definite goals. Instead, women often struggle with immanence, a situation where women are denied true freedom and their lives become stagnant.

“The male, by comparison, is infinitely more privileged: his genital life does not thwart his personal existence; it unfolds seamlessly, without crises and generally without accident. Women live, on average, as long as men, but also often sick and indisposed.”

This builds further on Beauvoir’s thesis that men have much greater access to freedom while women are forced to become passive and subordinate. As with many of her arguments in The Second Sex, the causes of women’s subordination lie in how men and women understand themselves and relate to each other and society.

“Nature does not define woman: it is she who defines herself by reclaiming nature for herself in her affectivity.”

Although Beauvoir sees biological factors, especially the facts of human reproduction, as important to understanding the history of women, biology is not the only important factor. As human beings, women can overcome nature. Beauvoir notes elsewhere that individuals do not define themselves according to their biology; they do so according to the “taboos and laws” (47) of the society they are born into.

“The paradox still being perpetuated today is established: the woman most fully integrated into society is the one with the fewest privileges in the society.”

This quote references how upper-class women in medieval Europe had fewer privileges than other women. Beauvoir will return to this basic point later when she argues that married middle-class women have more economic security but in some ways less freedom than unmarried and working-class women.

“The convergence of these two factors—participation in production and freedom from reproductive slavery—explains the evolution of woman’s condition.”

Here, Beauvoir presents the two ways for women to achieve emancipation. The first is greater access to birth control and abortion. The second is more women taking jobs and entering professional careers.

“No man would consent to being a woman, but all want there to be women.”

According to Beauvoir, a key disadvantage is that men desire women and even respect them. “Man seeks the Other in woman in Nature and as his peer” (163). However, men are also aware that women are in an unenviable position.

“What man thus cherishes and detests first in woman, lover as well as mother, is the fixed image of her animal destiny, the life essential to her existence, but that condemns her to finitude and death.”

This is an important part of why the myths and symbols of femininity are important to Beauvoir. Women are associated with Nature, which gives them a spiritual significance. However, women are associated with death as much as they are associated with birth.

“If woman wishes to overcome the original stain in herself, her only alternative is to bow before God, whose will subordinates her to man. And by this submission she can assume a new role in masculine mythology.”

Beauvoir views religion as another source of women’s subordination, with God taking the place of the husband as the master of a woman in some cases (713). In return, Beauvoir notes, Christianity gives women a redeemed position as a “good” woman.

“She is the wise mediator between auspicious Nature and man; and she is the temptation of Nature, untamed against all reason. She is the carnal embodiment of all moral values and their opposites, from good to bad; she is the stuff of action and its obstacle, man’s grasp on the world and his failure; as such she is the source of all man’s reflection on his existence and all expression he can give of it; however, she works to divert himself from himself, to make him sin into silence and death.”

Beauvoir argues that women are viewed as falling toward one of two extremes: the good woman and the fallen woman. Both the fallen and the good woman take on cosmic significance in the myths about womanhood that Beauvoir describes.

“Women, according to [Stendhal], is simply a human being: dreams could not invent anything more intoxicating.”

In her analysis of the views of women presented by different modern writers, the only one Beauvoir clearly praises is Stendhal. His main virtue is that he writes about women not as superior to men or even as equals, but without having them defined by their femininity or their status as the Other. This fits with Beauvoir’s own view that to achieve emancipation women have to be seen by men as individual beings.

“The girl is required to stay home; her outside activities are watched over: she is never encouraged to organize her own fun and pleasure”

One of Beauvoir’s central arguments is that women become subordinate to men because of a process that begins in early childhood. This happens in a variety of ways—for example, parents dote on daughters more than sons (285-86)—but her upbringing also sees her oppressed and her options limited.

“Patriarchal civilization condemned woman to chastity; the right of man to relieve his sexual desires is more or less recognized, whereas woman is confined within marriage: for her the act of the flesh, if not sanctified by the code, by a sacrament, is a fault, a fall, a defeat, a weakness; she is obliged to defend her virtue, her honor; if she ‘gives in’ or if she ‘falls’, she arouses disdain, whereas even the blame inflicted on her vanquisher brings him admiration.”

One of the imbalances between men and women relates to sexual morality. Women are expected to be chaste and only sexually active within marriage. Meanwhile, men are allowed, if not encouraged, to take whatever sexual partners they want.

“…she is married, given in marriage by her parents. Boys marry; they take a wife.”

Beauvoir demonstrates how ingrained attitudes toward both genders and marriage are by examining common language used among people discussing marriage. When their marriages are described, the language of possession is used with regard to women.

“But the principle of marriage is obscene because it transforms an exchange that should be founded on a spontaneous impulse into rights and duties; it gives bodies an instrumental, thus degrading side by dooming them to grasp themselves in their generality; the husband is often frozen by the idea that he is accomplishing a duty, and the wife is ashamed to feel delivered to someone who exercises a right over her.”

Beauvoir presents marriage as fundamentally flawed, no matter how prepared both partners are for it. Marriage is, as she phrases it elsewhere, “perverted at its base” (521).

“The drama of marriage is not that it does not guarantee the wife the promised happiness—there is no guarantee of happiness—it is that it mutilates her; it dooms her to repetition and routine.”

Beauvoir sees value in women engaging in work. However, the work must be outside the household, allowing women to be active participants in society. In contrast, housework keeps women in a state of stagnation, according to Beauvoir.

“The relation of parents to children, like that of spouses, must be freely chosen.”

This passage is key to understanding Beauvoir’s attitudes to relationships both inside and outside the family. Whatever the nature of the relationship, it must be entered into with full consent and without the purpose of achieving ulterior goals, such as satisfying social pressures.

“Through envious or admiring approbation, woman seeks an absolute affirmation of her beauty, her elegance, her taste: of herself. She dresses to display herself; she displays herself to make herself be.”

For Beauvoir, dressing up is an example of immanence. It represents a woman’s attempt to validate herself simply through social expectations and her husband’s approval.

“Unfortunately, every woman’s history repeats the fact we have observed throughout the history of woman: she discovers this freedom when she can find nothing more to do with it. This repetition has nothing coincidental about it: patriarchal society has made all feminine functions servile; woman escapes slavery only when she loses all productivity.”

Productivity is an important aspect of how Beauvoir views women and female liberation. Being economically productive in the wider society is one of the most important ways to achieve an authentic female liberation. Likewise, stifling women’s economic potential and closing off professional opportunities is one way men dominate women.

“But after all, seeing clearly is not her business: she was taught to accept masculine authority; she thus forgoes criticizing, examining, and judging for herself. She leaves it to the superior caste. This is why the masculine world seems to be a transcendent reality, an absolute to her.”

A recurring point in The Second Sex is that female oppression is not simply a conscious effort by men. It is both pervasive and internalized by women themselves. For Beauvoir, it is important to help give women the tools to control their reproductive and economic activities, and to see positive changes in culture, society, and education.

“Women must have religion; there must be women, ‘real women’, to perpetuate religion.”

In Beauvoir’s view, religion provides a release valve and even a substitute for women who do not have a male lover or husband. At the same time, religion is maintained by women who are traditionally feminine.

“Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms; each lover would then experience himself as himself and as the other; neither would abdicate his transcendence, they would not mutilate themselves; together they would both reveal values and ends in the world.”

True to her existentialist philosophy, a successful relationship depends on both partners having true knowledge of each other, unhindered by any “myths.” Also, both partners must be interacting with the world toward their own goals.

“Thus the independent woman today is divided between her professional interests and the concerns of her sexual vocation; she has trouble finding her balance; if she does, it is at the price of concessions, sacrifices, and juggling that keep her in constant tension.”

Beauvoir argues that in her own time the emancipation of women is becoming possible, though this potential has not been truly realized anywhere. This is just one reason why Beauvoir believes it is important that women be allowed to control their reproduction as well as have greater economic opportunities outside the home or marriage.