The Second Sex (excerpt)
Autor: TMR | Publicado: 2016-09-02T14:05:00-03:00


For a long time I have hesitated to write a book on woman. The subject is irritating, especially to women; and it is not new. Enough ink has been spilled in the quarreling over feminism, now practically over, and perhaps we should say no more about it. It is still talked about, however, for the voluminous nonsense uttered during the last century seems to have done little to illuminate the problem. After all, is there a problem? And if so, what is it? Are there women, really? Most assuredly the theory of the eternal feminine still has its adherents who will whisper in your ear: "Even in Russia women still are women"; and other erudite persons - sometimes the very same - say with a sigh: "Woman is losing her way, woman is lost". One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should, what place they occupy in this world, what their place should be. "What has become of women" was asked recently in an ephemeral magazine.




But first we must ask: what is a woman? "Tota mulier in utero", says one, "woman is a womb". But in speaking of certain women, connoisseurs declare that they are not women, although they are equipped with a uterus like the rest. All agree in recognizing the fact that females exist in human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality know as femininity. Is this attribute something secreted by the ovaries? Or is it a Platonic essence, a product of the philosophic imagination? Is a rustling petticoat enough to bring it down to earth? Although some women try zealously to incarnate this essence, it is hardly patentable. It is frequently described in vague and dazzling terms that seem to have been borrowed from the vocabulary of the seers, and indeed in the times of St. Thomas it was considered an essence as certainly defined as the somniferous virtue of the poppy.



(...) Science regards any characteristic as a reaction dependent in part upon a situation. If today femininity no longer exists, then it never existed. But does the word woman, then, have no specific content? This is stoutly affirmed by those who hold to the philosophy of the enlightenment, of rationalism, of nominalism; women, to them, are merely the human beings arbitrarily designated by the word woman. (...) But nominalism is a rather inadequate doctrine, and the antifemininists have had no trouble in showing that women simply are&nbsp;not&nbsp;men. Surely woman is, like man, a human being; but such a declaration is abstract. The fact is that every concrete human being is always a singular, separate individual. (...) In truth, to go for a walk with one's eyes open is enough to demonstrate that humanity is divided into two classes of individuals whose clothes, faces, bodies, smiles, gaits, interests, and occupations are manifestly different. Perhaps these differences are superficial, perhaps they are destined to disappear. What is certain is that right now they do most obviously exist.



If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline also to explain her through "the eternal feminine", and if nevertheless we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face the question: what is a woman?



To state the question &nbsp;is, to me, to suggest, at once, a preliminary answer. The fact that I ask it is in itself significant. A man would never get the notion of writing a book on the peculiar situation of the human male*. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say: "I am a woman"; on this truth must be based all further discussion. A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man. The terms masculine&nbsp;and feminine&nbsp;are used symmetrically only as a matter of form, as on legal papers. In actuality the relation of the two sexes is not quite like that of two electrical poles, for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man&nbsp;to designate human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity. In the midst of an abstract discussion it is vexing to hear a man say: "You think thus and so because you are a woman"; but I know that my only defense is to reply: "I think thus and so because it is true", thereby removing my subjective self from the argument. It would be out of the question to reply: "And you think the contrary because you are a man", for it is understood that the fact of being a man is no peculiarity. A man is in the right in being a man; it is the woman who is in the wrong."


Simone De Beauvoir

*The Kinsey Report [AlfredC. Kinsey and others: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male&nbsp;(W. B. Saunders Co., 1948)]&nbsp;is no exception, for it is limited to describing the sexual characteristics of American men, which is quite a different matter.