In the introduction to her magnum opus, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) writes, “I hesitated a long time before writing a book on woman. The subject is irritating, especially for women; and it is not new. Enough ink has flowed over the quarrel about feminism; it is now almost over: let’s not talk about it anymore.” Is feminism still talked about? This is a tongue-in-cheek question, of course. Better we should ask, is feminism now merely a subject, intellectual and otherwise, or does it in any way reflect a lived reality for women, and thus, does it demand our attention? Do we need to change the way we view feminism or is it, much like Karl Marx’s theory on capitalism, only weakly relegated to the confines of academia and the insufferable theoretical professing?

De Beauvoir perhaps was not aware of how much impact her book would have, not merely on the feminist movement but also on feminism as an academic subject. Neither should come as a surprise since de Beauvoir has written a text that draws on a variety of disciplines in order to better illuminate the reality and condition of being a woman.

Born into a devout Catholic family, de Beauvoir considered becoming a nun when she was a young girl. Perhaps she wasn’t that special in this desire: emulating their elders, many girls who were taught by nuns had similar desires. When her teenage years erupted, de Beauvoir not only abandoned Catholicism but faith in God entirely. She declared herself an atheist and would remain one for the rest of her life.

Although she clearly could hold her own, de Beauvoir is ironically always connected to French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), who was her partner for fifty years. This should be said with a rather large asterisk: de Beauvoir and Sartre were in an open relationship. According to Judith Thurman, “She [de Beauvoir] had a sense of inferiority, it would appear, only in relation to Jean-Paul Sartre.”

Their bizarre relationship arrangement extended beyond a lack of sexual exclusivity. As Thurman writes in her introduction to The Second Sex, de Beauvoir “often recruited, and shared, his [Sartre’s] girls, some of whom were her students, and her first novel, She Came to Stay, in 1943, was based on one of their ménages à trois.” In fact, a few former female students came forward decades later claiming that de Beauvoir was a predator and that she caused psychological damage. De Beauvoir and Sartre were also in support of pedophilia.

Of course, one’s biography doesn’t necessarily nullify or change one’s intellectual work. However, the mere facts of de Beauvoir’s treatment of sex, love, and relationships reveal a certain kind of psychological disposition that undoubtedly colored her intellectual work.

In The Second Sex, first published in 1949, de Beauvoir covers every aspect of womanhood, from biology to mythology to history and beyond. It is an audacious work, and well thought out. It’s not a work of mere sociology or psychology. Rather, de Beauvoir makes use of philosophy, history, and literature in order to illuminate her arguments about womanhood. Yet essentially, The Second Sex is rooted in pure rationalism (as described by Michael Oakeshott) and psychoanalytic, Kinsey-esque analysis.

Camille Paglia, that great philosopher-provocateur and feminist herself once said that despite de Beauvoir’s important contribution to the cause of feminism, it is greatly “deficient in humor,” and that certainly comes through in her work. In addition, Paglia points out that de Beauvoir’s view of religion is “symptomatic of an infantile mind.” Indeed, most of de Beauvoir’s arguments about religion and its oppression of women (especially in terms of contraception and abortion) sound as if they are written by a young girl intent on rebelling against either her parents or other authority.

Despite great many deficiencies of de Beauvoir’s thought, she still raises important questions about womanhood and many different aspects relating to it.

Girlhood, Interrupted

De Beauvoir begins her chapter on childhood with a rather bold statement. “One is not born, but rather becomes, woman,” writes de Beauvoir. “No biological, psychic, or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female takes on in society; it is civilization as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the eunuch that is called feminine.”

This statement alone sounds like it could have been said today, especially in regards to the debates about transgenderism. We have gone so far down the rabbit hole of ideology that we are finding ourselves affirming the obvious biological facts about being a woman.

De Beauvoir is not necessarily wrong in her opening sentence. Of course, no female is born a woman. She is born an infant, but ultimately what de Beauvoir is asserting is that gender is a social construct completely unrelated to the bodily form. This may not come as a surprise since de Beauvoir had such antipathy, if not hatred, toward motherhood and procreation.

According to de Beauvoir, even before she becomes a woman, the girl is already oppressed. Her destiny is already established—she will have to “catch” a husband and derive the meaning of her existence from him. She must surrender because “physically and morally she has become inferior to boys and incapable of competing with them … [and] her humility engenders all her failings; its source is in the adolescent girl’s past, in the society around her, and precisely in this future that is proposed to her.”

We have to keep in mind that de Beauvoir wrote this in 1949. We cannot disregard the societal changes and shifts in how male-female relationships function (or not function, for that matter) today. Still, there are some things that remain the same, namely the inescapability of our gender and pure biological elements that are not a choice.

All of these societal impositions constitute an interruption of one kind or the other. If a girl is doomed to an existence that has already been chosen for her by the societal structure, then, does she have a recourse to change her life? Time is determined not necessarily by chronology but by a male imposition on the girl’s metaphysical structure. She is not in charge of her own body or her mind, and every time, she tries to escape the clutches of masculine-driven time, she causes unpleasant interruptions, as if being electro-shocked, Milgram style, into submission.

According to de Beauvoir, even before she becomes a woman, the girl is already oppressed. Her destiny is already established.

“At about thirteen,” writes de Beauvoir, “boys serve a veritable apprenticeship in violence, developing their aggressiveness, their will for power, and their taste for competition, it is exactly at this moment that the little girl renounces rough games.” De Beauvoir is alluding to an argument that this type of behavior continues into adulthood, and she clearly sees it as an impediment to a woman’s life of success. Once again, the girl is doomed to fail.

But is there truly anything wrong with aggressiveness? The more appropriate question would be, where does aggressiveness lead? What kind of man will a boy become? If one is not born a woman, then it would follow that one is not born a man either, and that we are all continuously becoming men and women. Should aggression be part of a woman? Would this indicate that she would be free and successful if she suppressed her frailty, humility, and submission?

De Beauvoir writes as if men are not needed, but as Camille Paglia said in a Playboy interview: “All it takes is one natural disaster for that entire artificial world [of elites] to come crumbling down, and suddenly, everyone will be screaming and yelling for the plumbers and the construction workers. Only masculine men of the working class will hold the civilization together.”

De Beauvoir would probably bristle at this statement. There is an implicit refusal throughout The Second Sex to accept the importance of civilization as both a concept and reality. After all, civilization itself implies a masculine thrust into the unknown. But both men and women greatly contribute to it. The question is whether the contribution creates chaos or order. De Beauvoir doesn’t appear to be concerned about that, and her strangely personal position on marriage and motherhood reveals an unnatural hatred for procreation and children.

Marriage and Motherhood

There are plenty of historical examples of loveless marriages. They still exist. People get married for a variety of reasons, and love can often be an exception rather than the rule. Some marry out of financial convenience; others out of a female urge to have children thereby making the man nothing more than a glorified sperm donor; others possibly from the pressure of society or family.

For de Beauvoir, “marriage incites man to capricious imperialism: the temptation to dominate is the most universal and the most irresistible there is; … to turn over a wife to her husband is to cultivate tyranny in the world; … [marriage is] conjugal enslavement.” De Beauvoir rightfully takes issue with a submission or submersion of a woman’s identity to that of a man. She must remain a sovereign being, and this is one of the biggest challenges for both men and women. For women, however, it creates a bigger challenge because of motherhood—since by its very essence, being a mother is to be a giving caretaker of an innocent and helpless child.

Although this critique is perfectly acceptable and raises important questions even for women today, de Beauvoir’s intentions have more to do with narcissism than with a genuine search for the best ways of being a mother. In her chapter on motherhood, de Beauvoir first offers arguments for abortion. Her thoughts are indeed the origins of much of what we have heard in the recent past: that abortion is safe when done properly, and that the fetus is nothing more than a parasite growing in a woman’s body.

De Beauvoir relies too much on psychoanalytic language. The child and motherhood are described in purely clinical terms. While pregnancy may or may not feel good, the reality of a child comes into existence after the birth. “Now in front of them [women] is a person who has rights to them,” writes de Beauvoir. “Some women happily caress their babies while they are still in the hospital … but upon returning home, they start to regard them as burdens. … He [the baby] inflicts a harsh servitude on them, and he is no longer part of his mother: he is like a tyrant; she feels hostility for this little individual who threatens her flesh, her freedom, her whole self.”

I suppose this is one way to look at it, even if it sounds overly melodramatic. Many women have recorded difficulties with post-partum depression and feelings of alienation from their children. Whether hormonal or existential, a woman is overwhelmed with a sea of emotions. Yet even if a woman is feeling alienated, there is still a call to moral responsibility to tend to an innocent and helpless being. De Beauvoir is unmasking herself as a person who resents children and whose only mission is (ironically!) a life of masculine thrust. De Beauvoir’s fear of procreation and children is the fear of life itself. In this sense, she is an incomplete human being.

Pregnancy and birth are in a way, violent events, yet this is also where the center of life resides. De Beauvoir appears to be missing the point that life is messy and full of uncertainty. This, of course, does not mean that every woman must become a mother. Some make a conscious choice to not have children, and that is perfectly fine. However, de Beauvoir has started the feminist tradition that has continued: one woman speaking for all women. This, by far, is one of the biggest problems with feminism. Of course, a thought of one person can indeed morph into a movement, political or otherwise. However, once an individual thought or critique changes into a collective thought, it has a tendency to become an immovable ideology.

This is the case with feminism, and certainly with most -isms that become large movements. Many feminists, if not most, insist on engaging in absolutism when it comes to attempts at solving social or political problems. There is a tendency to turn a legitimate grievance into collective victimhood, whereby a uniqueness of an individual (especially his or her circumstances) is often negated. Why should it follow that one woman’s frustration or rejection of marriage would be the same for another? This can, of course, also apply in a reverse situation—we do see some of that reaction to today’s ideological chaos of people turning to nostalgic, 1950s sentimental, “yes, dear” view of marriage and motherhood that never existed in that form to begin with.

I realize that there is no perfect solution. But I do think that we need to be constantly aware of the tension between individual and collective experience. An -ism has a tendency to change life into ideology, which turns people into talking heads rather than complete human beings.

The Feminine Other

Much of de Beauvoir’s arguments depend on the notion of the Other, which is an important feature of especially French philosophers and writers. In particular, de Beauvoir makes an argument against Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95), who was one of the intellectual pioneers in the concept of the Other.

In the Introduction to The Second Sex, she criticizes Levinas for making the man a subject but the woman is the Other. “I suppose Mr. Levinas,” writes de Beauvoir, “is not forgetting that woman also is consciousness for herself. But it is striking that he deliberately adopts a man’s point of view, disregarding the reciprocity of the subject and the object. When he writes that woman is mystery, he assumes that she is mystery for man. So this apparently objective description is in fact an affirmation of masculine privilege.”

Are we able to have a discussion about womanhood and motherhood without invoking feminist critique? Is such a discussion inherently and inevitably feminist?

Later in her work, de Beauvoir expands this argument even further: “In her [girls’ and women’s] eyes, man embodies the Other, as she does for man; but for her this Other appears in the essential mode, and she grasps herself as the inessential opposite.” Again, de Beauvoir may not be wrong in terms of experience, but philosophically speaking, she has completely misunderstood not only Levinas but the very idea of the Other.

Much of her argument against Levinas comes from his work, Time and the Other (1947). Levinas does not have a simplistic notion of the Other, as de Beauvoir claims. For him, the relationship between the Self and the Other is first and foremost face-to-face. It affirms the primacy of ethics—in other words, the face of the Other is always a moral call. I am, in some way or other, responsible for that Other because the call to ethics is always present.

It isn’t merely that a woman is a mystery. In fact, a human being is never entirely revealed. As Levinas writes, “The relationship with the Other, the face-to-face with the Other, the encounter with a face that at once gives and conceals the Other, is the situation in which an event happens to a subject who does not assume it, who is utterly unable in its regard, but where nonetheless in a certain way it is in front of the subject.”

De Beauvoir’s argument against Levinas spawned a continuous feminist critique of Levinas’ work. He is yet another chauvinist pig in the long line of others. But there is more to Levinas’ language of gender metaphors than the simplistic analysis offered by de Beauvoir. She has a similar intellectual relationship to Levinas as she does to her critique of religion.

When Levinas speaks of the “feminine” or the “masculine” for that matter, he is usually referring to “regions of being,” to use a phrase coined by Richard Cohen, philosopher and American translator of Levinas’ oeuvre. Levinas is utterly uninterested in ideology or sociology but in creating a difference between metaphysics and ethics, thereby affirming the primacy of a human encounter, rooted in moral responsibility for the Other.

Of course, we don’t want to get mired in various feminist discourses and critiques of Levinas’ work, however, it should be noted that most of the issue with de Beauvoir and feminism itself stems from the denial of the humanity of the Other, something which is recognized by Levinas and others like him. More than anything, de Beauvoir dismisses an individual’s singularity and uniqueness. Her feminism is narcissism, the opposite of what Levinas (and yes, religion too!) advocates. Recognizing an injustice against an oppressed woman does not mean an affirmation of women’s superiority, or an immediate assumption that men are the one and only oppressors. (There have been many intellectual cases made by feminists about how women oppress one another.)

Where Have We Been, Where Are We Going?

At the beginning of this essay, I have asked whether The Second Sex is even relevant today, and whether feminism has any purpose today. I ask this because we are experiencing great shifts in society, especially in terms of human relationship to technology, which has rendered us more alienated from each other.

We endlessly discuss the meaning of masculinity because indeed such discussion is needed—the attack on manhood is real. We even discuss what it means to be a woman but everything appears to be mired in extreme reactionism. Some men are becoming strange, homoerotic versions of Nietzsche’s übermensch; some women are retreating into an ultra-traditionalist cocoon and are practicing conspicuous motherhood; some men and women are trying to be the opposite gender only to live an existence of both physical and metaphysical mutilations; others are just trying to not pay attention to all this affected nonsense that appears to only live in the online, pseudo-intellectual world, and are simply living their lives, taking care of their families in an unstable and disordered world. 

There is one link that connects de Beauvoir’s work and today, and that is narcissism. This certainly applies to feminism as well, both past and present. In addition, it applies to the political order as well. Paglia points out in her magnum opus, Sexual Personae (1990), the weakness of feminism then: “Modern liberalism suffers unresolved contradictions. It exalts individualism and freedom and, on its radical wing, condemns social orders as oppressive. … Feminism has inherited these contradictions. It sees every hierarchy as repressive, a social fiction; every negative about woman is a male lie designed to keep her in her place. Feminism has exceeded its proper mission of seeking political equality for women and has ended by rejecting contingency, that is, human limitation by nature or fate.”

We want to be free. This is a deeply human desire, yet we truly don’t know how to handle it. Paglia is correct about where feminism has ended up. Yet, even with de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, we see that the central attempt of feminism is to exceed limits that nature or fate gives us. Seeking equal pay is quite different from having abortion on demand, and coldly rejecting a moral obligation of taking care of a child.

Although having discussions about what it means to be a woman are not without their meaning, feminism as a political or intellectual movement is weak. At the very least, it is a peripheral issue at a time when national and personal sovereignty are under attack. As it stands today, we must first defend our humanity—our whole Selves—not just some aspects of who we are. Are we able to have a discussion about womanhood and motherhood without invoking feminist critique? Is such a discussion inherently and inevitably feminist? A good starting point in any analysis is for us to break free from the shackles of ideology. In this sense, if feminism is an ideology, then we don’t have to rely on its principles at all in order to illuminate an otherwise dark corner of womanhood. In fact, other forms of expression, such as literature, art, and film have revealed the complexities of being a woman better than any feminist or philosophical tract can even dream of doing.

This means that we have to affirm the primacy of experience, a life actually lived. We certainly do not need feminist theories to speak about marriage or motherhood. Such discussions are intertwined with the question of what it means to be a human being. Inevitably, we shall be led back to the face-to-face encounter—an essential component of being human. We have moral obligations to one another, even if it is a difficult existence to nurture and realize. Rejecting this premise constitutes the weakness of de Beauvoir’s thought in The Second Sex. Being a woman is not without its complexities but such complexities should never be bereft of love and joy.