Jorge Segura
What does it mean to be a woman? This analysis will define a woman based on the writings by three different authors, Simone De Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, and Judith Butler. This analysis will also highlight different ideas proposed by the authors about the position of women in society, their morphology, and their intellect.
In her book The Second Sex Simone De Beauvoir defines woman to be the Other. The Other that is always measured against man who is the positive and in essence humanity itself, thus, the Other is the negative. She states, “Man represents both the positive and the neuter to such an extent that in French hommes designates human beings.” (5) With this line Beauvoir makes note that women have never and might
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Beauvoir states, “No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or more disdainful, than a man anxious about his own virility” (13). In contrast to this statement Beauvoir also mentions men who apply the concept of abstract equality. These men recognize a companionship and benevolence towards women and therefore apply what Beauvoir calls a quasi-good faith that women are equal to men, and that they have no demands to make for equality because they have achieved the same freedoms as man. Beauvoir’s critique on females as it relates to freedom, can be found when she writes about immanence and transcendence. She uses immanence to describe the historic definition that has been assigned to woman: immersed in themselves, and static. While transcendence is used to describe what has come to be the definition of man: productive, active, creative, reaching outwards. Qualities that are not used to describe women, but in some instances used to attacks its character. Although Beauvoir recognizes that all human beings should be allowed to practice and live both in immanence and transcendence, man has denied women from living and practicing a transcendent role in society. Men have ambitions and projects while woman historically only has
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.
Today, women and men have equal rights, however, not long ago men believed women were lower than them. During the late eighteenth century, men expected women to stay at home and raise children. Women were given very few opportunities to expand their education past high school because colleges and universities would not accept females. This was a loss for women everywhere because it took away positions of power for them. It was even frowned upon if a woman showed interest in medicine or law because that was a man’s place, not a woman’s, just like it was a man’s duty to vote and not a woman’s.
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.
Throughout history, the role of women in society has caused arguments which resulted in the discretization of women’s intelligence, imagination, reason, and judgment (Murray 740). Women were forced to feel inferior because of men’s “natural rights,” resulting in the mental superiority of men. With the confinements of society ever on a woman’s threshold, came the inability to express thoughts and emotions without suffering ridicule from their male counterparts. Some critics suggest that the “inalienable rights… [such as] life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were not simply taken away from women without consent, but they were rights never achievable for women at all (Deceleration of Independence). One critic, Judith Sargent Murray, a feminist of her day, advocates the rights of women on the grounds of social, political, and economic equality to men in her essay “On the Equality of Sexes.”
Her chief arguing points and evidence relate to the constriction of female sexuality in comparison to male sexuality; women’s economic and political roles; women’s access to power, agency, and land; the cultural roles of women in shaping their society; and, finally, contemporary ideology about women. For her, the change in privacy and public life in the Renaissance escalated the modern division of the sexes, thus firmly making the woman into a beautiful
In “The Great Lawsuit”, Margaret Fuller tries to stop the great inequalities between men and women by describing great marriages where the husband and wife are equal, by stating how society constricts the women’s true inner genius, and by recording admirable women who stand up in an effort for equality. In her article, Fuller explains how the current society constricts women’s rights in an effort to show the inequalities between the men and women. For instance, she feels that “such woman as these, rich in genius, of most tender sympathies, and capable of high virtue, and a chastened harmony, ought not find themselves in a place so narrow” (Fuller 741). Margaret Fuller explains that all women, even those with “rich genius,” find themselves at a disadvantage because of the society’s inequality. She also feels that the women are just as “capable of high virtue” as the men, and do not deserve to be in “a place so narrow.”
The Disjunction Between the Women and the Individual Throughout history an idea that has been used to combat the fight for women’s rights is the idea of universalism. This idea, as Joan Scott presents in her work Universalism and the History of Feminism, was based on the concept that being an individual was celebrated and everyone was allowed to be their own valued individual in society. Many people would say that feminism is engulfed in universalism just on the definition of the word, Scott would disagree. Scott redefines what the “individual” is and how women’s attempt to become an “individual” creates the paradox of feminist speech.
The construction of gender is based on the division of humanity to man and woman. This is impossible ontologically speaking; because the humans are not divided, thus gender is merely an imaginary realm. It only exist in the language exercises, and the way that cultural products are conceived in them. This essay is a preliminary attempt to offer an analysis of ‘One Is Not Born a Woman’ by Wittig and ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone De Beauvoir holds on the language usage contribution to the creation of genders and the imagined femininity.
In the excerpt “I am a Woman” by Mary Abigail Dodge in”My Garden,” she exemplifies that even though she is a woman she characterizes herself as being more than one, that she is worth more that what she is expected to be just like other woman in her society. The author expresses her emotions in this text that even though women that are thought as or looked upon as inferior in her society they could do more than what is expected from them. In the text, Dodge conveys her message, in the most passionate way possible. Dodge creates meaning into her writing, in order for her readers to understand where she is soming from.
This proposal will identify the social construction of gender roles for women as the “other” in the primary source writings of Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and Arrogant Beggar by Anzia Yezierska. Beauvoir’s Second Sex provides a primary source evaluation of the historical distortion of women’s role in society as the “other” through patriarchal traditions that have no basis in genetics or science. Yezierska’s experiences as a Jewish woman in New York “workhouses” define the subjective gender roles assigned to women as being submissive and “invisible” in patriarchal American culture. These two primary sources define the subjective and non-scientific distortion of women‘s roles as the “other” in patriarchal European culture as a historical
“Each ought to maintain her proper place in society and, along with this, her particular lifestyle,” writes Christine de Pizan. Described by many as a protofeminist, de Pizan holds true to the modern feminist standing that women deserve more than they are given. In her writing, The Book of the City of the Ladies, she describes six different types of women in society. It is important to look at the time in which she wrote the piece, in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century— a time when women had no voice. Through extraneous methods, de Pizan forges her own voice and ultimately brings women to be viewed as more than just things. Though de Pizan never argues that women are equal to men in any way, she gives women a place that they belong.
Luce Irigaray,’ article, “This Sex Which is Not One,” can be succinctly summarized by the following key points. First, the author mentions the way women are seen in the western philosophical discourse and in psychoanalytic theory. She also talks about the women’s sexuality in many ways. ” Female sexuality has always been conceived on the basis of masculine parameters.” Women are seen qualitatively rather than quantitatively.
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 as freely as men can, and, tragically, mostly unaware of their own oppression.
The traditional of universal humanist thought had further defined the difference between men and women as natural fact, grounded in a biological foundation that is prior to social and cultural influence. Simone de Beauvoir had discredited this view with the assertion that ‘One is not born a women,one became a women’.
Women have always been essential to society. Fifty to seventy years ago, a woman was no more than a house wife, caregiver, and at their husbands beck and call. Women had no personal opinion, no voice, and no freedom. They were suppressed by the sociable beliefs of man. A woman’s respectable place was always behind the masculine frame of a man. In the past a woman’s inferiority was not voluntary but instilled by elder women, and/or force. Many, would like to know why? Why was a woman such a threat to a man? Was it just about man’s ability to control, and overpower a woman, or was there a serious threat? Well, everyone has there own opinion about the cause of the past oppression of woman, it is currently still a popular argument today.