Salut Castor!
Simone de Beauvoir
Honestly I don’t like the name Simone. It’s the name of an acquaintance who hunkered over a friend buggy some years ago and sad with shrill voice in her countryish accent: “Oh what a pity, but don’t worry, next time it will become a boy…!” So we are already in the middle…
Tomorrow a role model of mine would have become 100 years old. She is being celebrated and reviewed in newspapers and on tv everywhere. One doesn’t get her most famous and impressive book anymore which she wrote 1949. It is called: ‘The second sex’. It is a cultural and sociological analyse of conditions that determine women’s lives in a male dominated society. A lot has changed since then, when women were not allowed to manage their own property or decline their husband sex. Sex was a duty to be fulfilled. Although one year before, 1948, the Universal declaration of Human Rights was ratified, where ‘all humans are equal in dignity and rights’. This has long not been achieved, and still isn’t.
This book I still recommend to everybody because of the brilliancy of formulating and letting the reader understand life conditions of females.
Simone de Beauvoir was an existentialist philosopher, she believed in the power of the individual, of the person. Because of that believe she analysed society and its influence. How men and women are affected by behaviours that leave everybody well-conditioned. Are role models something to conform to because of social need? Women and men will be confronted with punishing behaviour when not being conform to the establishment. How far can we balance integrity and longing for happiness with disappointing expectations?
She writes in ‘The second sex’ (p. 301): “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”.
Not biological facts determine behaviour, not women’s physical inferiority or maternity lead to dependence, the way how we deal with it is the crucial factor. There are undeniable differences between men and women, but the party will only get started when we claim our sibling relationship. It’s a when question, not an if- question.
Honestly I don’t like the name Simone. It’s the name of an acquaintance who hunkered over a friend buggy some years ago and sad with shrill voice in her countryish accent: “Oh what a pity, but don’t worry, next time it will become a boy…!” So we are already in the middle…
Tomorrow a role model of mine would have become 100 years old. She is being celebrated and reviewed in newspapers and on tv everywhere. One doesn’t get her most famous and impressive book anymore which she wrote 1949. It is called: ‘The second sex’. It is a cultural and sociological analyse of conditions that determine women’s lives in a male dominated society. A lot has changed since then, when women were not allowed to manage their own property or decline their husband sex. Sex was a duty to be fulfilled. Although one year before, 1948, the Universal declaration of Human Rights was ratified, where ‘all humans are equal in dignity and rights’. This has long not been achieved, and still isn’t.
This book I still recommend to everybody because of the brilliancy of formulating and letting the reader understand life conditions of females.
Simone de Beauvoir was an existentialist philosopher, she believed in the power of the individual, of the person. Because of that believe she analysed society and its influence. How men and women are affected by behaviours that leave everybody well-conditioned. Are role models something to conform to because of social need? Women and men will be confronted with punishing behaviour when not being conform to the establishment. How far can we balance integrity and longing for happiness with disappointing expectations?
She writes in ‘The second sex’ (p. 301): “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”.
Not biological facts determine behaviour, not women’s physical inferiority or maternity lead to dependence, the way how we deal with it is the crucial factor. There are undeniable differences between men and women, but the party will only get started when we claim our sibling relationship. It’s a when question, not an if- question.
posted by merla @ 7:55 pm
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