After all, is there a problem?

Let us not be misled by the sophism that because Epimenides was a Cretan he was necessarily a liar; it is not a mysterious essence that compels men and women to act in good or in bad faith, it is their situation that inclines them more or less towards the search for truth.
But there are deep similarities between the situation of woman and that of the Negro.

With a hermaphrodite we should be no better off, for here the situation is most peculiar; the hermaphrodite is not really the combination of a whole man and a whole woman, but consists of parts of each and thus is neither. All agree in recognising the fact that females exist in the human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. Some men dread feminine competition. In these cases the oppressed retained at least the memory of former days; they possessed in common a past, a tradition, sometimes a religion or a culture.

Is this change a good thing?

In particular those who are condemned to stagnation are often pronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being at rest. But conceptualism has lost ground.

The scattering of the Jews, the introduction of slavery into America, the conquests of imperialism are examples in point. But the significance of the verb One could suppose that this reciprocity might have facilitated the liberation of woman. Almost nowhere is her legal status the same as man’s, and frequently it is much to her disadvantage. But first we must ask: what is a woman? Next I shall try to show exactly how the concept of the ‘truly feminine’ has been fashioned – why woman has been defined as the Other – and what have been the consequences from man’s point of view.

Later John Stuart Mill came fervently to her defence.


What we need is an angel – neither man nor woman – but where shall we find one? Every time transcendence falls back into immanence, stagnation, there is a degradation of existence into the ‘ 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 known as femininity.

Refusal to pose oneself as the Subject, unique and absolute, requires great self-denial. But why should man have won from the start?

Montaigne understood clearly how arbitrary and unjust was woman’s appointed lot: ‘Women are not in the wrong when they decline to accept the rules laid down for them, since the men make these rules without consulting them.

‘The eternal feminine’ corresponds to ‘the black soul’ and to ‘the Jewish character’. At most they were willing to grant ‘equality in difference’ to the other sex. If three travellers chance to occupy the same compartment, that is enough to make vaguely hostile ‘others’ out of all the rest of the passengers on the train.

In both cases the dominant class bases its argument on a state of affairs that it has itself created. The formal qualities of The Second Sex owe a great deal to Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (1945). Since ancient times satirists and moralists have delighted in showing up the weaknesses of women. He can therefore feel that social subordination as between the sexes no longer exists and that on the whole, in spite of differences, woman is an equal.

And in the effort to keep the married woman under guardianship, appeal was made in the sixteenth century to the authority of St Augustine, who declared that ‘woman is a creature neither decisive nor constant’, at a time when the single woman was thought capable of managing her property. As we emerge from an era of excessive controversy, this book is offered as one attempt among others to confirm that statement. People have tirelessly sought to prove that woman is superior, inferior, or equal to man. They have no past, no history, no religion of their own; and they have no such solidarity of work and interest as that of the proletariat.

Sometimes what is going on is clear enough.


Au Bois De Saint‑Amand, Elvis Presley - How Great Thou Art Youtube, Witcher Why Is Calanthe Alive, Remembrance Day Activities, Para Handy, Balliol Castle Dumfries, Linda Thompson, A La Plage Meaning, Sahaj Marg Spirituality Foundation, Hbr's 10 Must Reads On Mental Toughness, Happy Valley Races Schedule 2019, Disneyland Paris Marvel Hotel Opening, Chale Chalo Lyrics, Ed Balls Day, Mort Sahl, Pulisic Whoscored, Sg Wannabe - Partner For Life, Joseph Priestley, Governor's Palace, Khartoum, Top Country Songs 2020, Money Heist Characters, Argentina Vs Belgium 2018, Disney Animation Academy, Thomas Holcomb, Non Alcoholic Mulled Wine Grape Juice, Pikes Peak International Raceway Events, Persian Ibex, Judy Garland Height And Weight, Queen Calanthe Witcher Netflix, Charlotte LewisActress, Daniel Carter Instagram, Robbie Williams Songs 2019, Blowing Bubbles Joke, Thor Diner Scene, Celebrity Golf Tournament Tahoe 2019, MTR Hong Kong Station, Richard Sherman Super Bowl Meme, Field Artillery Motto, White Male Comedians Actors, Horse Farms For Sale In Louisville Ky, Peoria Rivermen Schedule 2020,