ISR Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
From International Socialist Review, Vol.23 No.2, Spring 1962, pp.58-59.
Transcribed by Daniel Gaido.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Second Sex
By Simone de Beauvoir
Translated from the French and edited by H.M. Parshley
705 pp. New York: Bantam Book, 1961. $0.95
Although there are no segregationist laws in the State of New York, few people would deny that the Negro is subjected to unequal treatment; and that out of those inequalities in education, employment, housing, social status, etc., the Negro emerges less educated, in menial jobs and with less social status.
Though much subtler and ambivalent too, woman’s struggle does take similar lines to the Negro struggle, except that women have not organized. They have identified instead with the various struggles of “their men.” Thus the Negro woman must first battle white men and white women to attain her racial equality, before she can join with her white sisters to battle for her sex equality. Yet Simone de Beauvoir says,
“... there are deep similarities between the situation of woman and that of the Negro. Both are being emancipated from a like paternalism and the former master class wishes to ‘keep them in their place’ ...”
There are many people who would deny that in 1962, women are still the second sex. It is easy for Americans to see the crushing antifeminist laws and traditions of “backward countries” but in countries where women have the vote and the automobile, it is harder to see the subtle indignities that corrode and change even the basic character of women.
This is a task that Simone de Beauvoir pursues with great intensity in The Second Sex. It stands out as a brilliant pioneering effort among books written on the subject of women. There are available many earnest and scholarly works in specialized fields, i.e., women in history; biology of women; anthropology; feminist struggles, etc. There are also many books which attempt to mutilate any feeble effort on the part of women to become “at par” with the first sex. Usually written by men, often with the assistance of women (there are Uncle Toms in the second sex too), they urge the undefeated woman back to her kitchen, implore her to once again “be womanly” (like telling a Negro to keep his place and be a “good darky”). Even the author of America’s Sixty Families, Ferdinand Lundberg, wrote one of the most vicious pieces on the subject of women, Modern Woman, the Lost Sex, in which he proposes laws prohibiting single women from working, thus forcing them into marriage!
The works of feminists are sincere, but often limited by a misunderstanding of the causes or nature of the dilemma. They often waste their energies insisting that women have been, and always were equal to men and trying vainly to document their claim. It is true that Bebel wrote a stirring protest against the treatment of women; Virginia Wolff also penned a moving plea to women writers to leave their parlors and write in broader arenas. But neither she nor he could tell them how they got into the parlor in the first place or how to get out of there.
But Simone de Beauvoir examines the problem from every conceivable aspect. The reader emerges with a knowledge of the nature of the problem, in a position to understand even the most despicable and backward aspects of womanhood. Mme. de Beauvoir does not either apologize for or champion women, but describes them as they are and reveals the historic origins of their predicament. Her basic viewpoint is that women, in all societies, and continuing into the present, have been the “other” rather than “another.” Even when women have had prestige, it has often been in the negative sense, as symbols, as idols, as heroic mothers. The devastating effect this has had on women still has not caused them to consistently and concretely struggle against their invisible bondage.
Not content merely to do a complete study of the subject, this brilliant author attempts to analyze and criticize almost every major theory pertaining to women; Freud and his theories of women’s basic longing to be men are refuted; Engels’ theory of the matriarchy is partially disputed. Her challenge is not made in terms of ridiculing or total rejection, but rather from the point of view of a rigorous critique of these thinkers.
A careful study of the laws, myths, literature and economic reasons relating to woman’s lot is presented in the first volume. The second volume covers women today; both serving to back up the author’s portrayal of that subtle form of discrimination that creates a creature without projects of her own; a creature that has been and still largely is the mirror of men and the mirror of their ideas. A man’s fondest projects are but a woman’s hobbies; love and marriage and children become her projects, supported by the myths of maternal instinct and womanly role.
The independent woman, who instinctively or consciously shuns this role of “other” faces a terrible struggle. Often she turns to lesbianism, or woman-of-the-worldism, both negative approaches that defeat her entirely. Mme. de Beauvoir demonstrates this in careful chapters devoted to women in marriage, in love, in childhood, i.e., in her many relationships; coming up with a total portrait that is hard to dispute.
It is true that the basic philosophy and much of the language of the book is existential. But existentialism is in flux; the terminology, easily translatable into ordinary words, seems uncontradictory to Marxist thinking; her concept of the “existent” easily translated to the concept of the total person who can only develop to full potential under democratic socialism. One may dispute Simone de Beauvoir’s analysis of the original causes of woman’s situation, but her description of the dilemma and her solution seem beyond genuine argumentation.
The author’s perspective for the future, her assurances to the male world that real women with their own projects will make better friends, better lovers; her declaration of the need for an end to capitalism as the only permanent solution to the problem, and yet her insistence that the struggle must start now – all are in tune with revolutionary socialist thinking. But it is in the factual and careful presentation of many things that have been unclear to both men and women, that The Second Sex can be called a significant contribution that belongs in the realm of “must” knowledge of every serious thinker.
ISR Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 21 May 2009