The Second Sex  (English, Paperback, de Beauvoir Simone)

Today, feminism is more than just a historical or political aspect of society. It is more about a woman’s body and soul. The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir provides a better understanding about the contradictory rules that women had to face in a man’s world.

Summary Of The Book

Since time immemorial, society has been less cooperative towards women. Till today, feminists all over the world struggle to obtain equality between the genders. The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir is not a personal examination of the image of women in the western world, but a social critique on the hypocritical institutions in society.

With the help of psychoanalysis, anthropology, biology, and sociology, she examines different reasons for the isolation of women in the society.

The entire book is divided into two main volumes namely Volume One: Facts and Myths and Volume Two: Lived Experience. Volume one of the book deals with how women came to hold a secondary position in society as compared to men. Through biology, psychoanalysis and historical materialism, the author reveals the essential difference between men and women and how women take their inferior status for granted.

Through the course of history, she finds that women have been subjugated without any kind of justification. The next section consists of the mythical representation of women through the portrayal of five modern writers. Volume two of The Second Sex deals with realities of the present world by tracing the journey of women from birth to old age. It generally deals with various situations in a woman's life and how at every stage they are forced to live a life depending on society rather than their own free will.

Highly controversial while dealing with aspects such as marital life, menstruation, and motherhood, the author’s views are very different from the opinions that exist in society today.

When the book was published in France in 1949 and in the US in 1953, it aroused a lot of controversy and the Vatican placed it in the Index of Forbidden Books.

About Simone De Beauvoir

Simone Beauvoir was a philosopher, political activist and, above all, a feminist.

She has also authored L'Invitée, Who Shall Die?, Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté, Must We Burn Sade?, The Long March, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, The Prime of Life, A Very Easy Death, The Woman Destroyed, The Coming of Age, and All Said and Done.

De Beauvoir was educated in private institutions and was committed to a life of learning, studying and writing. A professor by profession, she was also deeply interested in the politics of the time, especially post the World War II. She was associated with several causes during her lifetime such as feminism and the issues related to aging in society. She died in Paris on 14 April, 1986.