The Woman in Love by Simone de Beauvoir

The Woman in Love

Simone de Beauvoir, the author of the novel The Second Sex, was a writer and a philosopher as well as a political activist and feminist. She was born in 1908 in Paris, France to an upper-middle class family. Although as a child Beauvoir was extremely religious, mostly due to training from her mother as well as from her education, at the age of fourteen she decided that there was no God, and remained an atheist until she died. While attending her postgraduate school she met Jean Paul Sartre who encouraged her to write a book. In 1949 she wrote her most popular book, The Second Sex. This book would become a powerful guide for modern feminism. Before writing this book de Beauvoir did not believe herself to be a feminist. Originally she believed that “women were largely responsible for much of their own situation”. Eventually her views changed and she began to believe that people were in fact products of their upbringing. Simone de Beauvoir died in Paris in 1986 at the age of 78.

The Woman in Love, a section taken from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, describes her theories on men and women in love and the vast differences and purposes they think love is for. This book was published in 1949, and with this in mind we can understand the way she describes women as the weaker sex and how dependent women are on men. In the beginning of the text she states that “The word ‘love’ has not all the same meaning for both sexes, and this is a source of the grave misunderstandings that separate them...love is merely an occupation in the life of the man, while it is life itself for the woman(683).” This first quote from this chapter is important because it really outlines what she is about to get at throughout the entire...

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...depend on a man to live and be happy and successful. I think those that are in love can have their relationship and both value love just as much as the other does, without dedicating their entire existence to it. I think that it is also possible that a man can value love just as much as a woman does, maybe not in every case but in some cases. So I do believe that Simone de Beauvoir makes some excellent points, but I do not believe that most of her points are valuable in today’s society.

Works Cited

de Beauvoir, Simone. "The Woman in Love." The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. . Print.

"Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Beauvoir, Simone de []. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014. .

"Simone de Beauvoir." Simone de Beauvoir. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014. .