The Second Sex

The Second Sex

by Simone De Beauvior

During my travels to Australia and service on the faculty of GHTI, I was able to finish the last RA Favorite book for the 2018-19 RA staff.  The longest read for this year (and known as a ‘hallmark’ book for the beginning of the ‘second’ feminist movement), I finished Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir.  The book is a historical and sociological review of the experience of women throughout the ages and the stages of being a woman (child, youth, teenager, sexual initiation, getting married, being a mother, social life, maturity, and old age).  Published in 1964, De Beauvoir captures the European (mostly French) and American female experience of the day. Her introductory question is ‘what makes a woman’? as compared to man, woman is considered the devalued gender and she supports her claim with data and rich experiences taken from her research, novels surrounding the plight of women, and her own experiences. She shares how reproduction has hindered the view and strength of women and reaches back to the Goddesses succumbing to the Gods as the beginning of the plight of women. She provides historical perspectives to the role women play in family, in sex, in marriage, and in parenthood.  She shares perspectives and data on women joining the work force and experiencing “second-rate” pay, opportunity, and respect.  She uses works from D.H. Lawrence, Breton, Stendhal, Ibsen, Poe, Shakespeare and Goethe to illustrate her examples of women as the ‘other’.  She goes into depth on the social life of the rich married women and the other end of the spectrum, prostitutes.  She ends her book reviewing the independent woman, leading to the idea of women moving towards liberation, a goal she hopes is attained, where women and men will be completely equal.  It is one of the most detailed books on a dearth of issues surrounding the female experience.  This is a great book for any sociology students looking to do in-depth analysis as to where females sit in our society, from early civilization through the 1960s.  Important read!