Jump to content

The Second Sex

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SusanLesch (talk | contribs) at 18:48, 10 September 2011 (→Volume One, Facts and Myths: more). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Second Sex
Cover
Second translation (2009)
AuthorSimone de Beauvoir
Original titleLe Deuxième Sexe
TranslatorConstance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier
LanguageFrench
GenrePhilosophy
Feminism
Publication date
1949
Publication placeFrance
Media typeHardback
Softback
Pages800
ISBN0-679-72451-6
OCLC20905133

The Second Sex (French: Le Deuxième Sexe, June 1949) is one of the best-known works of the French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. It is a work on the treatment of women throughout history and often regarded as a major work of feminist literature.

Synopsis

The book was originally published in two volumes.[1]

Volume One, Facts and Myths

The first volume firstly considers "Destiny", looking at the biological, psychoanalytical and historical perspectives. The historical perspective is then expanded, looking at woman's role in the evolution from nomadic hunters and gatherers, through the advent of farming, classical antiquity, the middle ages and then to the French Revolution. The idea of the "Myth of Woman" is then explored.

Part One "Destiny" has three chapters. The first, "Biological Data", describes the relationship of ovum to sperm in all kinds of creatures (fish, insects, mammals). Then Beauvoir proceeds to the human being, comparing the physiology of men and women, and saying that women are weaker than men (for example, in muscular strength, with fewer red blood cells, and a lesser respiratory capacity).[2] In chapter 2 "The Psychoanalytical Point of View", Beauvoir first expounds the theories of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. She then rejects them both, for example finding that a study of eroticism in the context of perception goes beyond the capabilities of the psychoanalytic framework.[3] In chapter 3 "The Point of View of Historical Materialism", Beauvoir relates The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State by Friedrich Engels but ultimately finds it lacking any basis or reasons for its claims to assign "the great historical defeat of the female sex" to the invention of bronze and the emergence of private property. She quotes Engels, "for now we know nothing about it" and rejects him because he "dodges" the answers.[4]

Part Two "History" has five chapters which are unnamed in the unabridged, second translation. According to Beauvoir, two factors explain the evolution of women's condition: participation in production and freedom from reproductive slavery.[5] In chapter 1, Beauvoir states the problem that motherhood left woman "riveted to her body" like an animal and made it possible for men to dominate her and Nature.[6] In chapter 2, she describes man's gradual domination of women, starting with the statue of a female Great Goddess found in Susa, and eventually the opinion of ancient Greeks like Pythagorus who wrote, "There is a good principle that created order, light and man and a bad principle that created chaos, darkness and woman." Men succeed in the world by transcendence, but immanence is the lot of women.[7] In chapter 3, explaining inheritance historically, Beauvoir says men oppress women when they seek to perpetuate the family and keep patrimony intact. A comparison follows of women's situation in ancient Greece with Rome. In Greece, with exceptions like Sparta where there were no restraints on women's freedom, women are treated almost like slaves. Menander writes, "Woman is a pain that never goes away." In Rome because men were still the masters, women enjoyed more rights but, still discriminated against on the basis of their gender, had only empty freedom.[8] In chapter 4, Beauvoir says that with the exception of German tradition, Christianity and its clergy served to subordinate women, quoting Paul the Apostle, Ambrose, and John Chrysostom (who wrote, "Of all the wild animals, none can be found as harmful as women.")[9] She also describes prostitution and the changes in dynamics brought about by courtly love that occurred about the twelfth century.[10] Beauvoir then describes from the early fifteenth century "great Italian ladies and courtesans" and singles out the Spaniard Teresa of Ávila as successfully raising "herself as high as a man". Through the nineteenth century women's legal status remained unchanged but individuals (like Marguerite de Navarre) excelled by writing and acting. Some men like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Molière, the Marquis de Condorcet and François Poullain de la Barre helped women's status through their works.[11] In chapter 5, Beauvoir finds fault with the Napoleonic Code and criticizes Auguste Comte and Honoré de Balzac.[12] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is described as an antifeminist who valued a woman at 8/27th the value of a man.[13] The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century gave women an escape from their homes but they were paid little for their work.[14] Beauvoir then traces the growth of trade unions and participation by women. She then examines the spread of birth control methods from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century, and then touches on the history of abortion.[15] She then relates the history of women's suffrage in France, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany and the U.S.S.R..[16] Beauvoir writes that women who have finally begun to feel at home on the earth like Rosa Luxemburg and Marie Curie "brilliantly demonstrate that it is not women's inferiority that has determined their historical insignificance: it is their historical insignificance that has doomed them to inferiority".[17]

Woman and the Other

In it Beauvoir argues that women throughout history have been defined as the "other" sex, an aberration from the "normal" male.[18] Men have objectified women in a case of Hegel's master-slave dialectic. Beauvoir's solution is for men and women to see themselves as both subjects and objects. Beauvoir wrote the book after attempting to write about herself. The first thing she wrote was that she was a woman, but she realized that she needed to define what a woman was, which became the intent of the book.

Gender and sex

Judith Butler says that Beauvoir's formulation that "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman",[19] distinguishes the terms 'sex' and 'gender'. Butler says that the book suggests that 'gender' is an aspect of identity which is "gradually acquired". Butler sees The Second Sex as potentially providing a radical understanding of gender.[20]

Translations

File:Second sex.jpg
Cover of a reissue of the Parshley translation of The Second Sex

Many commentators have pointed out that the 1953 English translation of The Second Sex by H. M. Parshley, frequently reissued, is poor.[21] The delicate vocabulary of philosophical concepts is frequently mistranslated, and great swaths of the text have been excised.[22] The English publication rights to the book are owned by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc and although the publishers had been made aware of the problems with the English text, they long insisted that there was really no need for a new translation,[21] even though Simone de Beauvoir herself explicitly requested one in a 1985 interview: "I would like very much for another translation of The Second Sex to be done, one that is much more faithful; more complete and more faithful."[23]

The publishers gave in to those requests, and commissioned a new translation to Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier.[24] The result, published in November 2009,[25] has met with generally positive reviews from literary critics, who credit Borde and Malovany-Chevalier with having diligently restored the sections of the text missing from the Parshley edition, as well as correcting many of its mistakes. [26][27][28][29] Other reviewers, however, including Toril Moi, one of the most vociferous critics of the original 1953 translation, are critical of the new edition, voicing concerns with its style, syntax and philosophical and syntactic integrity.[30] [31] [32] In tamil, Sujatha Rangarajan was impressed by this book, and wrote Eppothum penn based on the same book.

Notes

  1. ^ Beauvoir, Copyright page
  2. ^ Beauvoir, p. 46.
  3. ^ Beauvoir, p. 59.
  4. ^ Beauvoir, pp. 63–64.
  5. ^ Beauvoir, p. 139
  6. ^ Beauvoir, p. 75.
  7. ^ Beauvoir, pp. 79, 89, 84.
  8. ^ Beauvoir, pp. 96, 100, 101, 103.
  9. ^ Beauvoir, pp. 104–106, 117.
  10. ^ Beauvoir, pp. 108, 112–114.
  11. ^ Beauvoir, pp. 118, 122, 123.
  12. ^ Beauvoir, pp. 127–129.
  13. ^ Beauvoir, p. 131
  14. ^ Beauvoir, p. 132
  15. ^ Beauvoir, pp. 133–135, 137–139.
  16. ^ Beauvoir, pp. 140–148.
  17. ^ Beauvoir, p. 151.
  18. ^ de Beauvoir, Simone, Force of Circumstances translated by Richard Howard (Penguin, 1968)
  19. ^ de Beauvoir, Simone The Second Sex(Vintage Books, 1973), p. 301
  20. ^ Butler, Judith, 'Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex' in Yale French Studies, No. 72 (1986), pp. 35-49.
  21. ^ a b Moi, Toril, 'While we wait: The English translation of The Second Sex' in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol. 27, no 4 (2002), pp. 1005–1035
  22. ^ Simons, Margaret, 'The Silencing of Simone de Beauvoir: Guess What's Missing from The Second Sex' in Beauvoir and The Second Sex (1999), pp. 61-71
  23. ^ Simons, Margaret, 'Beauvoir Interview (1985)' in Beauvoir and The Second Sex (1999), pp. 93-94
  24. ^ Moi, Toril. It changed my life! The Guardian, January 12, 2008.
  25. ^ London, Cape, 2009. ISBN 978 0 224 07859 7
  26. ^ di Giovanni, Janine, 'The Second Sex', in The Times (London)
  27. ^ Cusk, Rachel, 'Shakespeare's Daughters,' in The Guardian
  28. ^ Crowe, Catriona, 'Second can be the best', in The Irish Times
  29. ^ Smith, Joan, 'The Second Sex', in The Independent (London)
  30. ^ Moi, Toril, 'The Adulteress Wife', in London Review of Books vol. 32, no 3 (2010), pp. 3–6.
  31. ^ Du Plessix Gray, Francine, 'Dispatches from the Other', in The New York Times
  32. ^ Goldberg, Michelle 'The Second Sex', in Barnes and Noble Review

2. de Beauvoir, Simone The Second Sex(Svensk upplaga, 2002), p. 325

References

Beauvoir, Simone de (1949 (translated 2009)). The Second Sex. Trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. Random House: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-26556-2. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Second_Sex&oldid=449577170"