Knocked Up Preggers Up the Spout A Bun in the Oven * * * The word “pregnant” is pregnant with connotation. And for women—often viewed in more bodily terms than men—nothing foregrounds a woman's body more than pregnancy. It’s interesting to consider what Simone de Beauvoir, dubbed the "mother" of modern feminism, thought about motherhood itself. Given what she writes in The Second Sex, Beauvoir would probably concur with my friend’s attitude… ...A number of years ago, a friend of mine spoke to

"The Second Sex", six decades after it first got published, still stands supreme for its highly comprehensive work in the field of gender. Simone de Beauvoir, though writing keeping in mind her French upbringing, it is surprising to see how much her work is globally relevant, even today's time. She does not limit herself to a particular viewpoint but sincerely tries to dig into the? Why? Of things that are concerned here. Her work is holistic, ranging from perspectives from biology, psychoanalys...

To seem, rather than to see, to appear, rather than to be: this, in a nutshell, has been woman's existential project thus far, according to de Beauvoir. Woman's historic destiny has prohibited her from developing into a self, understood as an autonomous ontic unit and agent. Instead, hers has been a merely instrumental existence defined entirely by her social roles. Never a maker of meaning, her success in life was defined to the extent that she was a suitable canvas for receiving others' meanin...

Video Review2020: Hopefully I won't be burnt at the stake for making an unfavourable review about this.-----2017 Review------This isn't light reading, and in retrospect, I wouldn't recommend you read it unless your university or lover forces you to do so.This was a painful and frustrating read for me as reflected in the names I gave it I soldiered through it:"Being second, sucks""Why Kurt Vonnegut hated the semi-colon""The most masochistic thing I ever did""Comprehensively diabolical""Two legs b...

Foundational and packed with insight, so much so that much of the work's worth checking out, even if parts now read as dated. In dense, dizzying prose the first volume critiques psychoanalysis and Marxism, overviews the history of women in Western civ, and unpacks the assumptions behind sexist cultural myths; the second walks through the major stages of human life and considers how they differ for men and women, implicitly focusing on the experiences of middle-class white Europeans. The first is...

it seems it has taken me almost a year to finish this book. in my defense it's 701 pages.for as long as i can remember, since first i heard her name and after when i knew that there is a book called the second sex written by a French woman (and i admire the french), i have wanted to read it.the years passed by, i was playing with the idea of learning as much french as i can to read it in the original but alas, so little time, so many books to read. and i also have a fetish for books in paper and...

No Wonder Intrigue and Strife Abound"A Man never begins by representing himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a Man." Man represents himself as both the positive and the neutral. He represents Woman as the negative. Man represents himself as objective. He represents Woman as subjective. Ironically, Man is the Subject, but objective; Woman is the Object, but subjective. Aristotle defines a Woman in terms of a certain lack of qualities and therefore as de...

Every time I clean my apartment (every morning, that is)—as I am given to meditations which are best summarized as, "Why, why, the recurrence of dust??!"—I think of Simone de Beauvoir. Indeed, actually doing housework offers the most apt opportunity to comprehend its peculiar infinity. Beauvoir underscored the perpetuity of the work traditionally assigned to women—perpetual because it is never complete and renews its demands every day. It is also, without contradiction, undeniably transient: the...

Reading De Beauvoir’s seminal “feminist manifesto” has allowed me to compose my genealogical tree, for The Second Sex is a book about my mother and the mother of my mother and the mother of my grandmother and of all my female ancestors in endless regressive progression who rebelled before obeying and who ended up capitulating like slaves shackled to the indomitable future of preordained inferiority. “Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not re...

700 pages of magical reality. Beauvoir is one of those handful writers, worth a name. Simone's narrative quality is so much powerful, I've never experienced before. A must read for third world. I will be revisiting this book very soon.

The part of this book that has affected me the most in the ten years since I've read it is most certainly the introduction, where de Beauvoir says that in order to define herself to herself she must start with, "I am a woman". This surprised her then as it surprises me now when I realize that that is how I must start, too. Although I grew up in a post-feminist "you can have it all" type of environment, it was eye-opening and disconcerting to learn that women are considered "the other" as opposed...

The Second Sex is one of those dense old feminist classics I was embarrassed not to have read. When I finally started it last month, it was almost impossible to put it down (though I did take a break in order to read William Vollmann's new magnum opus.) Simone de Beauvoir theorizes, hypothesizes, and generalizes about every phase of a woman's life, from infancy to old age, and the events marking each phase, such as menarche, sexual initiation, childbirth, and menopause. While Nick's review makes...

Most people consider The Second Sex to be the Feminist 'Bible'. While Beauvoir's text is certainly a seminal text in feminism — both in terms of feminist theory and the larger movement for emancipation — it has some of the same flaws as its theological counterpart(s). Beauvoir starts her nearly-800-pages-long existential project for the woman's condition with a hugely impressive Introduction highlighting some of the principal arguments of the feminist movement and why it exists. Going forth, s...

Le Deuxième Sexe = The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex is a 1949 book by the French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, in which the author discusses the treatment of women throughout history. Beauvoir researched and wrote the book in about 14 months when she was 38 years old. She published it in two volumes, Facts and Myths and Lived Experience. Some chapters first appeared in Les Temps moderns. One of Beauvoir's best-known books, The Second Sex is often regarded as a major work of...

Personally, I believe that de Beauvoir has never felt the effect of injustices or gender inequalities. I think, rather, that it all started when she realized that people considered her inferior to Sartre, her lover - just because she was a woman. I think she was surprised to see that her existence was reduced to an essential fact : " I'm a woman ". " The Second Sex" - is not only a book about the role of women in history and society, but also about " otherness " - as an archetype and philosophic...

The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another; it is never the given that confers superiorities: ‘virtue’, as the ancients called it, is defined on the level of ‘that which depends on us’. My life has led me to develop a love for thought, a love heavily dependent on the context of reality and my personal view of such, a love that has been, is, and will continue to grow through heavy doses of words both

As a feminist, it's been recommended to me for years that I read Simone de Beauvoir's 1949 book, The Second Sex. As a regular person, though, I have always felt like it "wasn't the right time" to read it.What does that even mean?As someone living as "the second sex" myself, there is no excuse for this. I was lazy, bottom line. It's a big book, and while big books do not normally frighten me, I was worried I wouldn't be smart enough for Simone de Beauvoir. She was, from what I understand, a highl...

This unfortunately was the short version of Simone de Beauvoir's 'The Second Sex' as I made a mistake when ordering (because of the price), so this is only extracts from the full version which hopefully will read at another time. As a passionate supporter of feminism, equality and sexual liberation for women this was an interesting and for it's time controversial take on feminist philosophy and would suit anyone who doesn't have the time on their hands to read the longer edition, but I am a litt...

This was surprisingly old-fashioned. It was published in 1949 but it just seems so out-dated and often - dare I say it? - wrong and irrelevant.de Beauvoir's mission is to define woman and find out why the male is the "default" or "normal" sex, while the female sex is the other, the one who deviates from the norm. She does this by looking at biology, psychoanalysis, the history of women from the stone ages to today (or well, 1949) in France, USA, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, the Middle East....

This extensive, scholarly study, written in 1946 by French existentialist novelist and feminist Simone de Beauvoir is a seminal text for 20th-century feminism. The lengthy study contains numerous chapters, beginning with the history of women in societies throughout the world. Beauvoir's first basic observation is that the world has always been dominated by men--hence, her title that names women as "the second sex" or "le deuxième sexe." Her premise that runs through the book is that there is no