The Second Sex The Fight Against Women s Oppression

Simone de Beauvoir â€Å"The Second Sex’: The Fight against Women’s Oppression Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir simply referred to as Simone de Beauvoir was a French intellectual, writer, political activist, existentialist philosopher, social theorist and feminist born in 1908. Often subscribed to the schools of Existentialism, French Feminism and Western Marxism, she did not regard herself as a philosopher even though she is heralded for her significant influence of feminist theory and feminist. In her literal journal, Beauvoir wrote monographs and autobiography on philosophy, social issues and politics as well as biographies, essays and novels (Bauer, 2001). She is renowned for The Second Sex her 1949 treatise that offered†¦show more content†¦At the time if it’s writing and publication, there existed minimal philosophical works on women from a feminist perspective. With the exception of a few books the systematic oppressed treatment of women in modern age and historically were virtually unheard off. Striking on the basis of the profundity of its fundamental insights and research, The Second Sex subsist a foundational text in feminism, women studies and philosophy. The Second Sex’s main thesis revolves around the belief that a woman has always been held in a long-standing oppressive relationship to the man via her relegation to being the man’s â€Å"other.† In agreement with Sartrean and Hegelian Philosophy, Beauvoir depicts that the self needs otherness to define itself as a major subject. For this reason, the category of otherness is necessary for the establishment of self as a self (Beauvoir et al, 2010, pp.76-85). She however digresses through a feminist existential perspective by stating that the self-understanding movement via alterity should be reciprocal in nature, such that the self is objectified by its other just like the self objectifies it. This is the philosophical thought th at defines The Second Sex. Based on this understanding, The Second Sex aims at postulating the manner in which religious French social. Political, religions and literary traditions have developed a world in which conflicting and impossible femininity ideals propagate an ideology of women’s natural