Woman and the Other-A Summary of the Introduction of The Second Sex

Woman and the Other

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

"What is a woman?" (Beauvoir, 1949:p. 305) this is a question raised by the French existentialist, writer, and social essayist Simone de Beauvoir in an article under the title: Woman and the Other, which is originally an extract from the introduction of her book The Second Sex, a work of feminist philosophy which can be considered the starting point of second-wave feminism. The extract is published within a collection of critical articles and documents under the title of Literature in the Modern World edited by Dennis Walder and published by Open University. In this article, De Beauvoir sheds light on the deep rooted concept of femininity in the mentality and unconsciousness of humanity and the way this contributes to complicating women's problems of gender inequality and discrimination. She also questions women's position in the world at the time of writing her book and the future awaiting them.

 De Beauvoir questions the word woman; she argues that femininity is a concept holding within it certain qualities that society prescribes to women; the presence or lack of these qualities in a woman decide the degree of her femininity. If a woman has these qualities then she is what De Beauvoir defines as "the eternal feminine" (305) while if these qualities are missing, that woman is not considered feminine or she is not a real woman, as she argues:

All agree in recognizing the fact that females exist in the human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. (305)

From the beginning of the article, De Beauvoir expresses her disappointment at the feminist movements of the nineteenth century; she believes that a lot of time and energy had been wasted on the subject of feminism without being able to approach the subject properly, as she states "the voluminous nonsense uttered during the last century seems to have done little to illuminate the problem" (305).

De Beauvoir observes that although science had proven that the qualities ascribed to being feminine are not biologically inherent in women, in the unconsciousness of mankind the word woman still holds some conceptual meanings within it. De Beauvoir observes that it is a denial of reality when some feminist activists refuse to be called women because in De Beauvoir’s opinion, this kind of attitude is not going to make the conceptual meanings the word holds disappear. In some cases, this attitude only reveals those feminists’ sense of lacking and fragility as she suggests "the attitude of defiance of many American women proves that they are haunted by a sense of their femininity" (306), to support the previous statement, De Beauvoir provides an example about a "well-known" woman writer, whose name she does not provide, who refused to allow her portrait to be published among a series of photographs specified for women writers; however, this woman writer used her husband's authority to enable her to have her picture published among the pictures of the men writers. (306)

De Beauvoir discusses the situation and position of women in the world; as an example, she refers to language pointing out how in language the word man can represent all humanity while the word woman cannot do that. She claims that women are not regarded as independent beings with an identity of their own but they are rather defined in accordance with the rules of men. To support this claim, she quotes from Michelet who wrote "Woman, the relative being" (307). As De Beauvoir suggests, in the world man comes first and woman comes last; man represents all the good and acceptable values of humanity while woman is the representative of all that is evil, fragile, corrupt and incomplete; therefore, men and women are not regarded as equals; man is the origin of humanity while woman comes as an accessory or as some entity subordinate to him:

the relation of the two sexes is not quite like that of two electrical poles, for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity.  (306-307)

De Beauvoir observes that it is very familiar to find women viewed with prejudice by men only because the male dominant society holds strong beliefs that to be a female is to be lacking a number of very significant qualities. De Beauvoir also refers to different cultures, beliefs and philosophies that define women as evil creatures or incomplete beings with numerous flaws, such as Aristotle whom she quotes from: "a female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities" (307) she also quotes from St Thomas who defined woman as "an imperfect man", "an incidental being" (307).  Thus, De Beauvoir argues that a woman's mere function in this world is considered to be satisfying the man's sexual needs as De Beauvoir says, "And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is called ‘the sex’, by which is meant that she appears essentially to the male as a sexual being" (307)

The author then moves to the subject of the other; she states that women willingly fill the role of the other in the male-female relationship. She observes that naturally in all conflicts that occur between people of different nationalities, beliefs and so on each side considers themselves the right side or the one while they consider the opposite side to be the other, i.e., no side is willing to play the role of the other, still, as De Beauvoir suggests, women seem to have accepted to play this role willingly and here she questions the reasons and factors that led to this obedience and submissiveness. She brings forth a number of factors that can lead to this; however, she excludes each one of them providing explanations for that. For instance, the Jews or American Negros have been abused and exploited within the white or Western communities for many years because they were a minority and did not have the power to stand up for their rights, but this factor cannot be applied to women because they have never been a minority in this world, in fact, women have always formed half of the world's population. De Beauvoir concludes this argument by stating that it might appear to one that submissiveness is inherent in women, yet, she adds that nothing is permanent in this world and change is possible because an abused fraction of humanity such as the proletarians managed to start a revolution in Russia and fight against class differences, yet, women remain submissive and thus they are abused only because they are not taking serious action to change their situation. Regarding the rights women had gained at the time of writing her book, De Beauvoir claims: "but the women’s effort has never been anything more than a symbolic agitation. They have gained only what men have been willing to grant; they have taken nothing, they have only received." (309) this statement suggests that the rights gained by women are not the outcome of serious struggle and hardship but rather they were obtained because men were willing to give them away.

De Beauvoir draws a comparison between the situation of the Negroes in North America and that of women in the world in terms of how similar both cases are. She observes that both are enslaved and discriminated based on some false assumptions whether it be the "black soul" or "the eternal feminine" (310). She notes that the social class in power is the one that fabricates some terms and excuses in order to justify its exploitation of the other; it is striving to guarantee that the excuses it fabricates are convincing enough to abort the other's attempts to obtain their basic human rights. A good example of these excuses includes considering a woman who is relatively rebellious and disobedient as a woman lacking femininity.

De Beauvoir concludes that women cannot achieve change in their situation like the rest of the abused fractions of humanity such as the Negros or the Jews because they lack the required unity to help them work together for their cause. The reason for this is that they are scattered among the men of the specific social class or group they belong to as subordinate beings. De Beauvoir argues that it is an undeniable fact that at present women are inferior to men; however, the article leaves the readers with an open question through which De Beauvoir suggests that this situation needs to end some day in the future:

Yes, women on the whole are today inferior to men; that is, their situation affords them fewer possibilities. The question is: should this state of affairs continue? (310)

References:

De Beauvoir, S. (1990), "Woman and the Other" in Walder , D., (ed), Literature in the Modern World, Oxford: Open University, pp. 305-310.