Simone de Beauvoir
One is not born a woman but made into one by society – and real freedom means taking responsibility for an open, uncertain existence.
Placement
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”: “The Second Sex” became a founding text of second-wave feminism.
Key ideas
- The Other
- Ethics of ambiguity
Influence
Influenced by 6
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
influenced by
Beauvoir used Hegel’s master–slave dialectic in The Second Sex (1949), having set a line attributed to Hegel as the motto of She Came to Stay (1943). S. de Beauvoir, L’Invitée (1943); Le Deuxième Sexe (1949); SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Søren Kierkegaard
influenced by
In The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) Beauvoir drew on Kierkegaard’s defence of the existing individual against Hegel’s system, while holding that freedom must will the freedom of others. S. de Beauvoir, Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté (1947); SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Søren Kierkegaard › 1813–1855
Karl Marx
influenced by
Beauvoir ended Le Deuxième Sexe (1949) with Marx’s sentence that the relation of man to woman is the immediate, natural, necessary relation of human to human (1844 Manuscripts). S. de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe II (1949), conclusion; K. Marx, Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte (1844)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Edmund Husserl
influenced by
S. Heinämaa reads The Second Sex (1949) as a phenomenological work in Husserl’s sense, describing woman’s lived body and experience rather than explaining them causally. S. Heinämaa, Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir (2003); S. de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Edmund Husserl › 1859–1938
Jean-Paul Sartre influenced
influenced by ✓
In The Second Sex (1949) Beauvoir used Sartre’s ontology of the Other, transcendence and bad faith to describe how woman is constituted as man’s Other. S. de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949); J.-P. Sartre, L’Être et le néant (1943); SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
influenced disputed
Whether Beauvoir shaped Sartre’s ontology is disputed; K. and E. Fullbrook argue that She Came to Stay (1943) anticipated the conflict of consciousnesses in Being and Nothingness. K. Fullbrook and E. Fullbrook, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre: The Remaking of a Twentieth-Century Legend (1993); S. de Beauvoir, L’Invitée (1943); SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Jean-Paul Sartre › 1905–1980
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
influenced by
Beauvoir reviewed Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception in Les Temps modernes (1945) and in The Second Sex (1949) took up his view of the body as situation. S. de Beauvoir, review of La Phénoménologie de la perception, Les Temps modernes (1945); Le Deuxième Sexe (1949); SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: AI draft
Maurice Merleau-Ponty › 1908–1961
Influenced 2
Iris Marion Young
influenced ✓
Young started from Beauvoir’s account of woman as both subject and object to describe the inhibited bodily comportment of girls (‘Throwing Like a Girl’, 1980). I. M. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl”, Human Studies 3 (1980); S. de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Iris Marion Young › 1949–2006
Sally Haslanger
influenced
Haslanger developed Beauvoir’s claim that one becomes a woman into a social ontology of gender as a position in social relations, not a biological fact (Resisting Reality, 2012). S. Haslanger, Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique (2012); “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them to Be?”, Noûs 34 (2000); S. de Beauvoir, Le deuxième sexe (1949); SEP “Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender”
Evidence: AI draft
Sally Haslanger › b. 1955
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Luce Irigaray
criticised by
Irigaray objected that Beauvoir’s demand for equality measures women by a male standard, whereas sexual difference must be recognised (‘Equal or Different?’, 1986, in Je, tu, nous, 1990). L. Irigaray, “Égales ou différentes?” (1986), in Je, tu, nous. Pour une culture de la différence (1990)
Evidence: AI draft
Luce Irigaray › b. 1930
Judith Butler influenced
influenced
Butler read Beauvoir’s ‘one becomes a woman’ as gender being an ongoing act of becoming (‘Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex’, 1986). J. Butler, “Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex”, Yale French Studies 72 (1986); Gender Trouble (1990); SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
criticised by
Butler objected that Beauvoir’s ‘one becomes a woman’ still keeps a natural sex beneath gender and a Cartesian dualism of mind and body (Gender Trouble, 1990, ch. 1). J. Butler, “Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex”, Yale French Studies 72 (1986); Gender Trouble (1990), ch. 1
Evidence: AI draft
Judith Butler › b. 1956
Criticizes 2
Friedrich Engels
criticised
Beauvoir objected that Engels never explains why private property should have meant women’s subjugation, reducing an existential situation to economics (The Second Sex, 1949). S. de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949), vol. I, Part I, ch. 3; F. Engels, Der Ursprung der Familie (1884); SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: AI draft
Friedrich Engels › 1820–1895
Sigmund Freud
criticised
Beauvoir objected that Freud modelled female sexuality on the male and that penis envy reflects men’s social privilege, not anatomy (The Second Sex, 1949). S. de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949), vol. I, Part I, ch. 2; SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: AI draft
Sigmund Freud › 1856–1939
Works
Existentialist ethics: to will oneself free is also to will others free.
- 1949The Second Sex
Woman as the Other – one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.
Position
Beauvoir developed an existentialist ethics in which freedom is always situated and ambiguous: we are both free subjects and bodily, dependent beings, and to will oneself free also means willing others to be free. In The Second Sex she applied this to the situation of women. Throughout history man has defined himself as the subject and the norm, woman as “the Other”, the deviation. Femininity is not a natural fate but a social construction: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Through myths, upbringing, economics and marriage, women are kept from realising their freedom. The book became a founding text of modern feminism.
Life & context
Beauvoir studied philosophy at the Sorbonne; in 1929, aged 21, she passed the agrégation in philosophy, ranked second behind Jean-Paul Sartre, who became her lifelong partner. She taught at lycées before living as a writer, co-edited Les Temps modernes and won the Prix Goncourt in 1954 for The Mandarins. Her novels, memoirs and essays made her one of the best-known public intellectuals of her time. In 1943 the education authorities withdrew her teaching licence after the mother of a former pupil accused her of inciting a minor to debauchery; the criminal investigation was dropped and the licence was restored in 1945. Her sexual relationships with former pupils, in which Sartre was also involved, became known mainly through later letters and memoirs and are now widely criticised.
Further main works
- Pyrrhus and Cineas (1944)
- The Mandarins (1954)
- Old Age (1970)
Appears in
- Journey ‘Feminist Philosophy’ · Stop 6 of 11
- Debate ‘What Is Gender?’
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