The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir Essay -- Essays on The Second Sex

Simone de Beauvoir, in her 1949 text The Second Sex, examines the problems faced by women in Western society. She argues that women are subjugated, oppressed, and made to be inferior to males alone by virtue of the item that they are women. She notes that men define their let humankind, and women are merely meant to live in it. She sees women as unable to vary the world like men can, unable to live their lives freely as men can, and, tragically, mostly unaware of their own oppression. In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir describes the oppressiveness of woman, defines a method for her liberation, and recommends strategies for this liberation that still have not been employ today.De Beauvoir, in attempting to define the subjugation experienced by woman, notes that women lag foundation other oppressed groups of her epoch, like Jews and blacks. She argues that women are behind in price of civil rights mainly because they have not identified that they are and so being oppressed, despite their lack of social and professional status. De Beauvoir writes that the epithet of egg-producing(prenominal) has the sound of an insult, (1) meaning that women experience discrimination and social inequity. Further, she asserts that man is creditworthy for the construction of a world based upon his values, his norms, and his capabilities. She is unsurprised by the fact that woman has achieved comparatively less in a male-oriented culture, how could anyone possibly deliver woman to accomplish as much as man? This social commentary transcends legal status. The acquisition of civil rights will not be enough to right the wrongs perpetrated upon woman as a whole, according to de Beauvoir. Liberalism, wherefore, is overly insufficient to address the problems wom... ...ated socialism as a method of societal structure based on reciprocity, but our current system of capitalism fosters aggression and competition instead. The quest for material possessions and wealth a s signs of top executive and success leads to endless competition. This runs counter to the induction of reciprocity into our society and therefore means that reciprocal relationships, defined by de Beauvoir as requisite to the liberty of woman, are not the culturally accepted norm. To truly state that de Beauvoirs vision has been realized, Western society would need to entirely scrap its capitalistic system and redefine itself in terms of community, reciprocity, and sharing. This has definitely not happened yet, and until it does the world will continue to be defined on male terms. whole works CitedBeauvoir, Simone De. The Second Sex. New York Knopf, 1953. Print.