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Simone De Beauvoir - Essay Pd. 6/7
Throughout history, women have been portrayed as the passive, subdued creatures whose opinions, thoughts, and goals were never as equal as those of her male counterparts. Although women have ascended the ladder of equality to some degree, today it is evident that total equalization has not been achieved. Simone De Beauvoir, feminist and existential theorist, recognized and discussed the role of women in society today. To Beauvoir, women react and behave through the scrutiny of male opinion, not able to differentiate between their true character and that which is imposed upon them. In this dangerous cycle women continue to live up to the hackneyed images society has created, and in doing so women feel it is necessary to reshape their ideas to meet the expectations of men. Women are still compelled to please men in order to acquire a higher place in society - however, in doing this they fall further behind in the pursuit of equality.
All people are forced to see themselves as society has shaped them, both male and female. Although progress for gender impartiality has been made, it can still be said that societal maxims enforce the incorrect notion that women are inferior to men. In matters of economics, women are offered far fewer employment opportunities, and I believe that this can be validated by the fact that many women have been conditioned to "marry well and let him...
Throughout history, woman’s self has been Other in discourse, literature, and doctrine. She has been designated this position in the world by those who hold social power. This dichotomy is maintained under a hierarchy that serves to benefit men. I will be attempting to support Beauvoir’s idea of the self as Other under a patriarchal society by looking at statements from philosophers and myths, as well as identifying shortcomings she may have.
Society in general has a way of assigning men and women with individual roles that need to be complied with. To clarify, in the 1950s and 1960s, American women were required to maintain their homes while raising their children and making sure the husbands were happy. On the other hand, American men had to provide for the family and protect them. Displaying characteristics not parallel to one’s gender is rarely unobserved and almost always has negative consequences because society seeks to maintain order. In reality, the people cannot conform to society’s “norms” because people have the right to be independent of society, yet be a part of it without sacrifice. An example would be how American society views masculinity as a man who is strong,
Women have been an important role in society whether or not it is not remarked to the public eye. Oppression against women is never-ending along with violent acts constantly being pursued on them for over a century which is not only crucial but it is lessening their value worldwide. The suggestion of women’s emotions being a barrier for them to be equal to men is falsified, there is not one predicament that prevent a woman from being equal than a
Gender roles are a staple construct of human civilization, designating the behaviors and lifestyles that society expects out of its participants, with gender as the defining characteristic. Historically, females have been at the forefront of the conversation, with feminism regarded as the principal solution to the well-established issue of gender inequality. However, this is foolish. To truly mend the gender inequalities forged by thousands of years of human interaction, both genders have to be acknowledged. Both males and females are equally constrained by gender roles, however the effects of this constraint are in differing fields. There are studies showing that females are at a disadvantage economically, in the workplace, while other studies
Societal pressures and expectations affect the lives of individuals. Throughout history women, in particular, experience the oppression of societies which view them as inferior and born for primitive functions. In the Second World War, American women were not considered capable of fighting in the war, and had to stay home while men went overseas to fight. This inferior view of women has appeared for generations throughout history. Through constant exposure to discriminatory treatment, women eventually submit to societal oppression and this treatment negatively impacts their social and intellectual growth as individuals.
Since the beginning of recorded time, the basic human distinction in human social order has revolved around gender; our sex at birth determines the role we will play in our society, the status we will hold in our culture, and even the structure of our daily lives. The biological reality that women can give birth and men cannot has led to a habitual consciousness of two sex classes, and, in the past, these two classes coexisted with equality in co-operative communities; however, Marilyn French contends in The War on Women that as men began to build what would become patriarchy, or "male supremacy built by force," the female class became disempowered, marginalised, and subjugated to the will of the male class (9). Further, our Western creation myth not only celebrates male dominance over the natural world and those associated with nature, namely women, but also justifies "a male assault" against women by declaring that God *made* women subordinate to men by endowing men with reason, logic, and intellect while giving women traits that subvert proper order and rationality: chaotic emotionality, passion, and weakness (17). These arbitrary "gender principles," as French labels them, backed by religion and the state, have turned the dichotomy of the sexes into a battle between the two opposing spheres rather than a harmonisation of the masculine and feminine into an organic whole.
When Simone de Beauvoir died in Paris in 1986, the wreath of obituaries almost universally spoke of her as the 'mother' of contemporary feminism and its major twentieth century theoretician. De Beauvoir, it was implied as much as stated, was the mother-figure to generations of women, a symbol of all that they could be, and a powerful demonstration of a life of freedom and autonomy (Evans 1).
It is easy to say that these choices are easily made but the blame is to be placed on the institutions that reinforce patriarchy instead of solely on the individual women. It is important to remember that women wouldn’t even be in the position to make these bargains were it not for our socially constructed world. We need to critically examine the culture and institutions that celebrates these patriarchal bargains in order to reconstruct our society rather than expect women to do all the legwork of dismantling patriarchy at their own personal expense. Bibliography Bauer, Nancy, translator. “Simone De Beauvoir: The Second Sex.”
Simone de Beauvoir, a leader in feminism in the twentieth century, believed that “women must define themselves, articulate their own social constructs of what it means to be a woman, and reject being labeled as the Other” (Bressler 150). Because of this negative and repressing view on women, advocates have begun to fight for women's rights to be just as equal as men's rights. Women were oppressed by men, and it wasn’t until radical feminism showed this through their model of class oppression (Brannon, 2011). Once females were able to get a little bit of rights, cultural feminists showed their opinions on how women would make the world a better place with their more caring and compassionate natures, unlike men (Brannon, 2011). Works such as The Yellow Wallpaper started a backbone for feminist studies, which led to feminist literary criticism.
There has been a long and on going discourse on the battle of the sexes, and Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex reconfigures the social relation that defines man and women, and how far women has evolved from the second position given to them. In order for us to define what a woman is, we first need to clarify what a man is, for this is said to be the point of derivation (De Beauvoir). And this notion presents to us the concept of duality, which states that women will always be treated as the second sex, the dominated and lacking one. Woman as the sexed being that differs from men, in which they are simply placed in the others category. As men treat their bodies as a concrete connection to the world that they inhabit; women are simply treated as bodies to be objectified and used for pleasure, pleasure that arise from the beauty that the bodies behold. This draws us to form the statement that beauty is a powerful means of objectification that every woman aims to attain in order to consequently attain acceptance and approval from the patriarchal society. The society that set up the vague standard of beauty based on satisfaction of sexual drives. Here, women constantly seek to be the center of attention and inevitably the medium of erection.
Simone de Beauvoir continues with her analysis of the position of women by distinguishing the “feminine woman” from the “emancipated woman.” She writes: “The ‘feminine’ woman in making herself prey tries to reduce man, also, to her carnal passivity; she occupies herself in catching him in her trap, in enchaining him by means of the desire she arouses in him in submissively making herself a thing. The emancipated woman, on the contrary, wants to be active, a taker, and refuses the passivity man means to impose on her (De Beauvoir, 1994).” In other words, the “feminine woman’s” position in society is one of object and desire and she uses this to entice men.
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.
One of my favorite facets regarding philosophy is that, as time passes, all of these pressing matters remain relevant to no less than ponder over. In my social work classes, I’m recommended to be reluctant toward using older articles as resources because social norms progress more quickly in the modern world. In the introduction of Simone de Beauvoir’s novel The Second Sex, titled “Woman as Other,” de Beauvoir addresses feminism in an atypical manner for being written in 1952. Previously, the main goal of the women’s revolution was to obtain the right to vote. Following de Beauvoir’s novel, these goals advanced into workplace equality, sexual orientation and women’s roles in the home.
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had been so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives.
Society has females and males alike typecasted into roles which have basic characteristics that are the reverse of each other. Although this has begun to change over the past thirty years, typically the man was seen as superior to the female. This superior image is one that today, is slowly on its way to being reduced to one of complete equality between the two genders.