Eternal Feminine De Beauvoir

The Virgin of Jeanne d’Evreux was commissioned by Queen Jeanne d’Evreux, wife of King Charles IV, sometime between 1324 and 1339, and donated to the royal abbey church of Saint-Denis in 1339 according to the inscription on the pedestal (Barbier). French royals in the 13th and 14th centuries often had luxury works of metal and enamel commissioned for churches, palaces, or their private homes (Kleiner).

She states that `to pose woman is to pose then absolute Other' (821). `The other' is referred to women who are classified as being different to men even though both share a human body. Women are also not seen as `a subject, a fellow human being.'(821). This is caused by men who believe a myth of females through experiences of which Beauvoir states as feelings and thoughts, rather then the reality of women themselves. Men see women as what they think they see because of the way they feel about women. Men have opinions in ways of physical or knowledge of women. These opinions created are myths which men believe to be the true women. These men usually belong in the western patriarchal society. Men hold myths against women and "placed women beneath men and held them to be the property of men" (Guerrero). Being "placed beneath men" can show that women are treated unequally in a patriarchal society where they are not respected. This is the woman in a patriarch world.

In a psychological study with five year-old children, Erwin Straus observes that boys and girls throw differently. He concludes that the reason girls throw the way they do is because they are “feminine” and thus throw with a “feminine attitude” in relation to the world and to the space surrounding them. He posits this to be a natural, biologically based “feminine essence.” Simone de Beauvoir rejects this notion and, instead, claims human existence is to be defined by the individual’s situation. Beauvoir places great focus on physiology when talking about the woman’s bodily being and her physical

The Feminine Mystique is a first person narrative about the struggles of feminism. It highlights the problems of women in the 1950s to the 1960s and challenges gender roles. The book includes several first person interviews and discusses the Second Wave of feminism. It introduces the idea of the sexulization of women being used in consumerism and the lack of sexual education in school during the time. The Feminine Mystique is a useful resource because it is considered the groundbreaking book about feminism and lists issues that women have had to deal with from the 1960s until now. The book could be used to argue the struggles that women have faced and continue to face.

Simone De Beauvoir sees religion as oppressive to women and used by men to control women. She argues that religion compensates women for their second class status and they get a false belief that they will be rewarded in heaven and gain equality there. All these explanations show how religion promotes social conflict and oppression in society.

In her book she challenges the government of France and their ideas that women should not be exposed to the same education as men. She gives warning that women will not forever be satisfied with only domestic concerns, and she demands justice for the female race.

The basis of De Beauvoir’s principle argument can be found in the first section of part three (The Aesthetic Attitude) when she writes, “every man has to do with other men”. The meaning of human existence cannot simply be

Throughout history, women have constantly been objectified and forced into submission by the male dominated society. Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical work, The Second Sex, echoes the intense oppression of women and reflects the first wave feminist movement. Her existentialist decoding of genders resulted in the idea of the Other, which explores the phenomenon of women forced into the role of an object, while men are the subject. In the second chapter, “The Girl”, Beauvoir further studies the idea of this oppression during one’s transition from a girl into a woman. Beauvoir states that no matter how much freedom and sense of self a girl holds, she is always forced into the role of the Other in society. Beauvoir 's idea of the Other held

In her essay, One is Not Born a Woman, Monique Wittig explains, “‘Women’ is not each one of us, but the political and ideological formation which negates ‘women’ (the product of a relation of exploitation). ‘Women’ is there to confuse us, to hide the reality ‘women’ . . . For what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man, a relation that we call servitude.” Monique Wittig attacks the concept of naturalizing biology and the ‘woman’ category. She believes that the form of a woman’s identity is a product of normal and intrinsic human facts. Thus, her main point is that one is not born a woman but becomes a woman based upon the social constructs of gender and

The following text comes from Simone de Beauvoir called “The Second Sex,” which discusses the ideas of the feminist

653. This is the same mindset that Sartre applies to the anti-Semite- the refusal to consider the complexity of the world in favor of a system that provides easy answers to all life’s questions. Only, unlike the anti-Semite, the woman is turning her hatred inward; does she hate herself because she fears freedom or because she feels she is not worthy of it? De Beauvoir seems to believe that fear is the primary cause for this willing dependency. She cites the psychoanalytic view that women’s obsession with love does not comes from a desire for men at all, but from a desire to return to the secure dependency of childhood. This explains the lifelong refuge some women take in infantile (“cute”) behavior and appearance, but psychoanalytic explanations for human behavior have proven to be far less than perfect, and a woman’s self-worth (or, in this case, lack thereof) has far more complex roots than a Freudian theorem.

In this essay I discuss that "doing gender means creating differences between girls and boys and women and men...." (West & Zimmerman 2002:13) I am concentrating on the female perspective, how societyputs forth expectations of what is 'natural' or biological even though, in some cases, it can be quite demeaning and degrading. I am using some examples from the local media and also a few childhoodexperiences that have helped me to now strongly suspect that the quote from Simone Beauvoir (1972) "One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one" most likely has quite a bit of truth to it.

De Beauvoir’s “Woman as Other” lays out an elaborate argument on gender inequality; using the term “other” to establish woman’s alternate, lesser important role throughout her work, the author dissects and examines from its origin the female’s secondary position in society in contrast to man. Indeed, from the beginning of recorded history, the duality of man, by definition, positions woman at the opposing end of the spectrum in relation to her male counterpart. Even by today’s modern and accepting standards, the female suffers under the brand of being the sub-standard half of the duality equation; compared to her male opponent, women are paid lower wages, have fewer and limited expression of rights, achieve lower

Simone de Beauvoir, in her 1949 text The Second Sex, examines the problems faced by women in Western society. She argues that women are subjugated, oppressed, and made to be inferior to males – simply by virtue of the fact that they are women. She notes that men define their own world, and women are merely meant to live in it. She sees women as unable to change the world like men can, unable to live their lives freely as men can, and, tragically, mostly unaware of their own oppression. In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir describes the subjugation of woman, defines a method for her liberation, and recommends strategies for this liberation that still have not been implemented today.

Drawing heavily on de Beauvoir (1953) she highlights the constraints placed upon women by their reproductive biology; that menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth are not only detrimental to her physical strength and health but also confine her to the ‘mere reproduction of life’. This stands in contrast to man, who is free to assert his