Essay for Simon de Beavouir's Second Sex

 

Second Sex

                                                -Simon de Beauvoir

Simon de Beauvoir’s Second Sex was published in the year 1949. She was a French critic and had a relation with Jean Paul Sartre. In Second Sex Beauvoir gives the definition for woman. She is defined as a womb, “Tota Mulier in Utero”.

Man, the supreme being treats women as an inferior being. “Feminity is in danger”. We are urged to be women, stay women and become women. Beauvoir claims the fact of becoming women affects our life. So, every human being is not woman. “One is not born a woman”

Social science no longer believes in immutably determined entities that define given characteristics like those of the woman, the Jew or the Black.

Every human being is born free and it is the situation which makes them woman, Jew, Negro or white. Society shapes you and not science. There is no term called feminity. Women are human being. Feminist women and upper-class American women claims that there is no such thing called woman. She has to come forward claiming her rights.

A man never begins by positing himself as an individual of a certain sex. He does not define himself as a male. Example: Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer, Police, Teacher, Politician. But a woman has to define that she is a woman. Example: Female writer, female doctor etc.

The word Masculine and Feminine appears similar but the relation between the two are not equal. Man represents positive and women represents negative role. If a woman has established or discovered to convey something she is imputed to her limitation without mutual agreement. A man replies “you think such because you are a woman”. As she is a woman, she is treated negative. A man is right by virtue of being a man.

A man is the perfect creation in this world. He relates himself with this world. But a woman relates herself with her ovaries, uterus. She considers her body an obstacle and burden. Aristotle claims “The female is female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities”. Humanity is man. He defines woman as a relative being. Michelet says “Woman the relative being”.

A man can lead his life without a woman. But a woman seems devoid of meaning without reference to the male. Women feels tough to live without a male and thus she is called the sex. She is treated by male as a sexual being. She is an inessential being for the essential being (man). He is the subject and she is the object.

Women are not ready to fight against man. They are not willing to organize themselves and go in opposition. They feared to work solitarily. She depends a man and she does not want to destroy them. Woman has to come forward to liberate herself. Mutual understanding between men and women facilitated her liberation. Women is not ready to liberate herself. So, it’s the utmost duty of a woman to bring changes in the male dominated society. At present things are changing.