Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Simone de Beauvoir's Theories
- NO SEPARATE WOMAN'S NATURE
- Later in the 1970s, Simone de Beauvoir was dismayed by the idea of a separate, mystical, 'feminine nature'.
- "Just as i do not think that
women are inferior to men,
nor do i believe that they
are natural superiors
either".
- In The Second Sex, Beauvoir had famously stated, 'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman'.
Women are different from men because of what they have been taught and socialised to do and be. It was
dangerous, she said, to imagine an 'eternal feminine' nature, in which women were in touch with the earth
and the cycles of the moon. According to Beauvoir, this was just another way for men to control women, by
telling them that they were better off in their cosmic, spiritual 'eternal feminine, kept away from men's
knowledge and left without all the men's concerns.
- A RETURN TO ENSLAVEMENT
- The notion of a 'woman's nature' struck
Simone de Beauvoir as further oppression.
She called motherhood a way of turning
women into slaves. It did not have to be that
way, but it usually ended up that way in
society precisely because women were
told to concern themselves with their own
divine nature. They were forced to focus on
motherhood and femininity instead of
politics, technology or anything else outside
of the home and the family.
- This was a way of rendering women second class
citizens: the second sex.
- TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY
- The Woman's Liberation Movement helped
Simone de Beauvoir become more attuned to
the day-to-day sexism women experience.
Yet, she did not think it was benificial for
women to refuse to do anything the 'man's
way', or refuse to take on qualities deemed
masculine.
- Some radical feminist
organisations rejected
leadership hierarchy as a
reflection of masculine
authority and said that no
single person was in change.
Some feminist artists
declared they could never truly
create unless they were
completely separate from
male-dominated art.
- Beauvoir recognised that the Women's Liberation movement had done some good, but she said that feminists
should not utterly reject being part of a man's world.