The Second Sex discussion

I can't see de Beauvoir as a silly woman. She was hard for outsiders to relate to in her own time, and I still cannot empathise. I suppose monogamy is so hard-wired in me that relating to a life-style that rejects it is impossible.

I don't mean that as a criticism. Different life styles suit different people, and at least the Satre/Beauvoir relationship withstood the test of time.

The world needs more women who stand out from the crowd.

I think we have a proclivity to canonize the great feminists and forget that they were real people, too, with real needs and frustrations. I don't think she was silly or flighty. I think she was complicated. She had desires that couldn't be met with one person--she had someone who ignited a different kind of desire within her and she acknowledged it. That's not silly at all.

A woman can be a feminist and still want love and acceptance from a man. I'm happily married and would be devastated to lose my husband's love. But I am also wise enough to know that I deserve it, and deserve to be treated like an equal in that partnership. She could give a part of herself to him and simultaneously realize who she was. The ability to express lust and desire is, after all, very feminist, since women weren't allowed to express their desires, even within the bounds of a relationship in most cases.

This article says exactly what I suspected about her. That she may have been brilliant and under different circumstances maybe she could have been the kind of person I could look up to but she isnt.

She seems to me to have fallen for the same false idea of equality that I know I have suffered from in the past. That to be equal to men you must be just like them. That means equally bad and disrespectful and without self control and whatever else Satre was.

I find some of her ideas and writings very interesting but I dont admire her life in the least. I find her completely revolting.

Tomas wrote: "Valorie wrote: "This article says exactly what I suspected about her. That she may have been brilliant and under different circumstances maybe she could have been the kind of person I could look up..."

(Perhaps I should have responded to the one whom Tomas replied to)

While I am firmly in the Simone camp, my real question is... three-fold really, 1. Why must you look up to someone to gleam knowledge, information, even wisdom? And should not that propel you further even to dig deeper. I have read Nietzsche nearly two decades and most of it was to see if he was really the asshole I thought, and now I have a great affection for him. But that aside, his thoughts mean a lot to me--- whether or not I think he was a lunatic or not.

Same for Simone.

Ethically she has issues, but there are key points in this book and in her Ethics of Ambiguity, that are very, very important.

2. I have found the term "equality" to be problematic at best. It seems like, esp. when dealing with anyone associated with anyone like Satre or Heidegger for that matter, you have to learn what they mean by certain words. If we think of equal in the biblical sense, then we will run into problems. Or equal in the literal sense even. I guess you have to ask whether you think she and you are using the same definition with the same social-philosophic implications.

3. Question. Revolting seems to me to be a strong word, connotating repugnance and complete depravity of any merit. Poison. Is the Second Sex really that bad?

Well, I can certainly agree with some of what you say such as - no I dont have look up to someone to glean knowledge etc. Also I hope I know that there is something to be learned from everyone and everyone is my superior in one way or another.

However, for me to admire a person it depends on their actions not solely their thoughts. Her actions are not admirable to me. I like people whose example I can follow to improve myself and the world and whose example I wouldnt mind my children/ spouse/ friends following. Im sure I wouldnt want anyone to act as she did in her personal life.

It may not be entirely fair, but I would hold a person of such obvious intelligence to a higher standard of conduct not a lower one before bestowing my admiration.

To answer your last question - I find her revolting, not necissarily her work. I must admit I havent studied her works all that extensively. I was responding to the article in the original question. I have only read the Second Sex.

Valorie wrote: "Well, I can certainly agree with some of what you say such as - no I dont have look up to someone to glean knowledge etc. Also I hope I know that there is something to be learned from everyone and ..."

To respond to your comment in something of a backwards way, Valorie, I think that there is a bit of a sin that we commit against past feminists and other historical figures in that we tend to judge them based upon the ethics and perspectives of our modern era rather than perceiving them in context of their culture and their needs within that culture. I've seen so many feminist thinkers of the past derided for being married or connected to men while simultaneously bemoaning the patriarchy without any thought to the fact that a woman's existence almost unilaterally RELIED upon the support of a male.

My other pet peeve in regards to this form of judgment is when modern feminists slam past feminists for not being inclusive of lower classes and other races while simultaneously ignoring the fact that these women were not exposed to as wide a variety of information as we are. Many of these middle- and upper-class women didn't have the perspective of the lower classes and other races due to the significant stratification of the culture--a stratification that is in some ways almost inconceivable to us at this point in time with as interconnected as we are in this age (not to say that we don't have problems with this, too, but we have much less of an excuse than those in the past did for not noticing or accounting for these factors).

This isn't to say that deBeauvoir is beyond reproach, even with that consideration taken, but rather that this is something to think about when judging someone in the past for their perspectives, desires and actions. We tend to rush to judgment about people based upon the way they acted in the past without thinking about the whole picture that surrounded them at the time.

I think your observation are right on and I quite agree with you. I think it can be said that we rush judgment on far too many people past and present for lack of understanding.

As you observed however even when you take the times into consideration she is not above reproach.

Valorie wrote: "I think your observation are right on and I quite agree with you. I think it can be said that we rush judgment on far too many people past and present for lack of understanding.

As you observed however even when you take the times into consideration she is not above reproach. "

Very true. But who is? Sometimes I think our expectations of great thinkers is that they're not allowed to be flawed. My experience, having had the honor of being around some of our generation's great thinkers, is that their flaws, in some cases, are what inspire them to those great thoughts.

Just because we KNOW intellectually the right thing to do or the way things should be doesn't mean we're always the greatest at implementing those ideas. In fact, in many cases, the genius thinkers are the last to actually be adept at implementation of their philosophies. A thought proven by they royally screwed-over personal lives of many, perhaps even most, psychiatrists.

Again I think you are probably quite right. No body always does what they know they should, but plenty of us try. The fact that many people do wrong doesnt change my revolt at doing wrong. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I find her actions revolting instead of her.

Valorie wrote: "Again I think you are probably quite right. No body always does what they know they should, but plenty of us try. The fact that many people do wrong doesnt change my revolt at doing wrong. Perhaps ..."

Agreed. My problem lies the people that invalidate her thoughts because her personal actions were less than desirable. It feels like another shoddy excuse to invalidate these ideas and move the philosophy (and, as an extension, feminism) backwards, if that makes sense.

Yes, I see what you mean. I dont think that the good a person does should be discounted by the things they do wrong especially in regards to intelectual work. If we were all counted only on what we do wrong we would all be in a bad state indeed.

I wonder how many readers have not taken into consideration the differences in translation between the original French and English. The first translation was rushed and highly flawed--and it was translated by a male zoologist in the 1950s whose other translations were all scientific in nature. That text was also incomplete as entire segments had been omitted.

The second translation circa 2009 may be far better, but there are still enormous losses of nuanced meaning in the gap between languages, this time exacerbated by the passing of time. Do translators today fully comprehend what de Beauvoir meant 60 years earlier, a lifetime ago?

De Beauvoir was human who bravely blazed a trail, often in the shadow of the man and men around her. She may have been flawed, but again, she was human. What a pity we cannot fully obtain all of the meaning she laid down in her mother tongue.