Book Reviews and Analysis

ETERNAL FEMININE:

She starts with the concept of the eternal feminine; the philosophical principle confining the immutable concept of the 'women'. It encompasses one side of gender essentialism which dictates that women and men have core 'essences'. 

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FEMININITY: 

Femininity as a concept has never been defined nor patented - usually described with flowery verbose language. Despite on paper their being asymmetry yet relation between the 2 sexes - it is not so binary. Yet - ineffably, the masculine has always superseded the feminine - even in concepts as basic and fundamental in grammar (with pronouns differentiated between men and women, men absorb the neuter as well as the masculine, the feminine just relegated to that. Too much hypocrisy - the theories of inferiority applied to women are supposedly ignored for men despite many having universal applicability. Women are obliquely defined as hormonal or subject to mood changes - disregarding the biological fact of a man's dependency on hormones also. 

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INCOMPLETE MAN:

Women are said to 'suffer from natural defectiveness' (Aristotle) - the man, unlike the woman, is complete and functional - the woman is inessential - an incomplete part broken off from man (St Thomas) she is relative to man - the concept dating back to Adam and Eve's later arrival. Man is referred to as the paradigm but woman is the Other. Monsieur Benda affirmed that 'man thinks himself without man. Woman does not think herself without man'. 

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ALTERITY:

She makes constant reference to the the age old alterity (not just between man and woman). No group has ever defined itself as One without imposing an Other in opposition to itself as a social given; to the racist - there are the races etc. 

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Unlike other dominated minorities - women do not have the numerical disequilibrium which motivated hierarchies in the past. Otherwise it was a catalytic event that caused the friction between these groups, previously autonomous from each other. E.g. The Jewish Diaspora sparked the split between Jews and Anti-semites; colonialism and slavery sparked the history of racism between Black and White people. The closest group that women can identify with is the proletariat in that neither is numerically marginalised however their subjugation has been the trajectory of an entire history. Unlike the proletariat, established through the awakening of capitalism, the alterity between men and women just appeared to be accident of history - happenstance rather than a created reality. 

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SOLIDARITY:

Throughout history, women have only won what men are willing to concede to them; they have taken nothing, only received. Women have no solidarity of interests/place/identity/location, instead we are disseminated amongst men, inextricably tied/obliged to them, through blood relation, economic stability, work, marriage etc. The ties that bind women to her oppressors is unlike any other - its biological. However, even the biological need to reproduce and the sexual desire men are reliant upon for the continuation of their legacy has not liberated women in that require women. It is almost undeniable that pregnancies and menstruation back in times where these utterly wore down the women created lengthy periods of impotence regardless of a women's capabilities outside of these periods of time. 

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Women have never found cause for solidarity because the bourgeois women mistakenly took her 'chains' for bring her privileges of class, misconstruing liberation as a weakening or removal of her cushy lifestyle. 

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Throughout history, women independent of thought enough to demand more from men and from life only asked for individual elements or allowances; education, literature, politics but never emancipation or equality from a united front. And many fighting for equality with men did so as an individual, prioritising themselves over the majority. 

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Questions the split with feminism and socialism despite their commonalities. The debilitating factor hampering the progress of feminism is 'internal division' as firstly they are governed by their class loyalties (bourgeois or proletariat) hindering any form of seamless coalition between classes under the umbrella of women. 

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CULTURE AND CUSTOM PREVAILS

Even when women's rights are recognised institutionally (in the legislation) they are not culturally embedded. The rules and customs taught in history where created by men - for the benefit of men. 

Even the biblical aversion to sex and the desire for a woman to maintain her virginity in that Christ was born of a Virgin.

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HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

The cycle has repeated itself as the lessons taught about history are made and taught by men; therefore the creation and manipulation of history is perpetuated through men's insistence. As progressively or indeed stagnantly as history appears to have unravelled, the majority of it was written by men therefore the instances of triumph or loss for women were mostly initiated by men. 

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THE PERPETUATION OF INEQUALITY:

The dynamic has come about in the same way racism was established as well summarised by George Bernard Shaw; 'The white American relegates the black to the rank of the shoe-shine boy and then concludes that blacks are only good for shining shoes. The conundrum used to explain or evidence female superiority was they were of inferior intelligence. Paradoxically this is only because men limited their access to education!

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The obsession with the degradation of female beauty, ignoring that of men be cause they are not seen as merely flesh. 

 

'BIOLOGICAL WEAKNESS' 

De Beauvoir goes into depth about the biological differences between men and women to not only highlight how they have been falsely used in the past to create a gender hierarchy but also disprove the ways in which they have. 

 

In History, she talks of how men gained superiority over women, those who would have been venerated for the giving the gift of life, by being the one to risk his life to kill for food, make provision, and innovate. Something only available to men at the time as women, devoid of contraception or concepts of fertility, were confined to birth after birth.

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According to past philosophers and others, the womb is equivalent to the woman and how many believe that the ovaries secrete femininity. Even the inert state of the ovum, after centuries of deliberation of the reproductive process and the organs and cells involved within it, was argued to show the passivity of women. Whereas surely, the ovum a stronghold for nutrients and cultivation is the concrete foundations upon which the sperm, a plentiful and relatively minuscule cell may or may not be able to implant. However, to allegorically compare the prowess of one over the other is redundant as once, implanted, both merge, losing individuality and emerging an androgynous cell which then, she aptly adds, has no preplanned mechanism for gender. It is a mutual and reciprocal process which cannot occur without both and relies on the antithetical characteristics for successful conception. Therefore this is a 'dubious analogy' upon which to base the supremacy of one sex over the other. Furthermore a gender is not defined by their sex cell and the ovum or the sperm does not encompass all that is femininity or masculinity respectively. 'Cells are not microcosms for the whole organism.' Also this explanation does not cater to the numerous cases of intersexuality and hermaphroditism. In fact, from the process of copulation to the cells themselves women and men are very complimentary and therefore should not be seen as at odds or competing. Then De Beauvoir goes on to describe the often brutal give and take of animal reproductive processes. In some cases the males are slaves to the women and vice versa - the processes are variable and numerous. 

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Interestingly, a philosophical or allegorical outlook can be adopted when looking at animal reproduction as there appears to be a hierarchy and a trend depending on the species' status in the tiers of natural selection. Lower down the purpose is for quantity not nurturing, insects etc. have a brutal yet efficient means of reproduction where the male is usually expendable as long it is fertilises whats necessary. Further up the totem, the majority of fish reproduce externally therefore there is much less of a relationship so to speak between partners and often either one or both of the parents has no involvement with the offspring. However, it is also much more common for the male to take over the role as primary care giver e.g. sea horses. Moving up further for species such as birds, reproduction is about success and caring for the offspring until they have matured and therefore, due to the lack of an 'impetus to bring forth new life-forms' both mother and father have a greater investment in the clutch. Mammals - the most 'individualised' of the species have the most 'complex' processes. In most cases - the mother takes on the nurturing role whereas the father has less of a connection. For the male - its priority is its virility and producing offspring. For the female - it is the maternal and cultivating side of things which often falls to her responsibility. Much of her life cycle[s] is dictated by the estrous cycle and a males need to copulate which usually involves some sort of competition or display to attract her attention and favour. Also, in the case of mammals the question of consent (presumably a human concept) is majorly overlooked. Perhaps this domination of female mammals (in that they are an 'inert receptacle to the male's tool') is some inspiration for the social dynamic today. 

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Some explain female inferiority as an obvious fact due to physical weakness, gradually established due to the fact that women couldn't physically use heavier tools therefore were diminished as powerless. But to say that doesn't explain how women remained inferior when machines levelled out the industry making it possible for men and women to complete the same jobs. Maternity and the debilitating nature of pregnancy was seen as another factor for belittling women and segregating her within the domestic sphere as greater pressure was put on women to have more kids with it being their sole responsibility to look after them after she had produced a dozen. However this doesn't explain how, with the decline in societal emphasis on women as breeders and the increase in care for children by mothers, fathers and external carers, that the woman is still seen as inferior though no longer defined by her maternity. And so continues her evaluation, plucking out antiquated theories who attempt to quantify and qualify sexism then shooting them down with well researched, evidence and logic. 

 

MYTHOLOGICAL ASSIGNATIONS/CHARACTERISATIONS:

De Beauvoir goes through a multitude of myths detailing gender bias and how it has amalgamated to form sexism and the inherent sense of alterity within society; the Genesis, Hercules, Prometheus, Cybele, Woman as Nature, Woman as water, man as fire, taboos and omens surrounding menstruation, myths of the cosmos, property, prostitution, fermentation, germination (man inseminating woman as he fertilises fields), virginity and whether its being intact gives men or women power, flora and fauna of describing women, fertility, magic, sorceress/enchantress, masturbation, the mother-in-law, the stepmother, muses, Perseus' tale revolving around Andromeda, Orpheus' around Eurydice, Prince Charming's around Sleeping Beauty, and Helen being at the epicentre of Troy, the damsel in distress (surrounding by insurmountable challenges, the harder the more satisfying), 'liberator', 'conqueror', witches, adulteresses.

 

In myth, she is associated with Nature - seen as synonymous with its power and processes, often attributed powers of life and death. This link to Nature something men couldn't control became an obstacle to them in terms of the dynamics of power. But, as De Beauvoir describes it, the farmer initially at the liberty of the changeability of nature and its seasons etc., was synonymously at the whims of women (as they embodied Nature). However, as man made more tools adept at catering and conquering nature, this fear of Nature and women's power diminished and he transcended this imbalanced relationship. But also in this way, she argues that by deferring to the chance and favour of Mother God (Nature) man remained in a 'primitive state of civilisation', suppressed by his fears. 

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In contrast the male represents the 'fertility principle' and the kings of Gods and the reigning sovereigns across the world's mythology have always been male - Zeus, Jupiter etc. She goes through Ancient cultural marital, inheritance and maternal customs and laws comparing Egyptians, Greeks etc. and how all lean towards favouring men however covertly. 

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STEREOTYPICAL ROLES:

Infantilism is associated with a woman's very nature. Interestingly, the spouse and the mother over time became celebrated, venerated roles, but once adopted, a women is limited to those functions.

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THE DIFFICULTIES FOR WOMEN:

Man's job is very much centred around mobility and innovation for women, she is static, immobile and stagnant - good at nurturing the present but with no vision for the future. 

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Stigmatisation of women for not conforming to their role is a prominent thing in society. For example the value placed on fertility and the stigmatisation and repudiation of infertility. Women's character is defined or are consequences of her subjugation.

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THE SOLUTION:

Woman cannot be emancipated unless she takes part in production on a large social scale and is only incidentally bound to domestic work. 

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The idea of the woman as this untameable other attracts man enough in the form of prey that he does not completely detach himself from her. 

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Naming system in Latin, Catullus, Catulla - she is part of his whole. 

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Different cultural standards by which a man is judged as having mastered his wife well - 'Oriental' = a fat wife to show she is 'well-fed', Muslim the more wives the better, bourgeois society, the outward appearance and manner of the wife is a qualitative exhibition of a husband's wealth and worth etc. 

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Woman has always been the guide for men's greatest destinies - the foil to their triumphs.

 

In essence teh domination of a passive woman achieves nothing if she is already inherently submissive but the appeal for men is in the exertion of power of them.  

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D.H. Lawrence - Reciprocity in the polarity between men and women - the seamless match of the sexes does not breed conflict etc. However, the male phallus is still at the epicentre of male-female relations and nothing functions without it. Lawrence also conforms to the mentality that woman is subordinate to men and must revolve around him and his identity. 

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Mondherlant - the degradation and debasement of women elevates him as a man. 

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all about autonomy

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the mysticism or eroticism eradicated with egotism and individualism. 

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Originally woman was the first sinner and the frist cause for punishment (according to Bible).  To Claudel, the union of is one of equivalency, to an extent, both rely on one another to bolster the other. (man first taught to use the temptation of woman's felsh as a tool for his own affirmation and growth and then to accept the divine pleasure it can provide) it is through giving yourself utterly to the union that you reach a point acceptable to God. 

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Breton makes the distinction between women incarnating Nature and women expressing it. Women are beauty. 'Truth, Beauty, Poetry, she is All' deeply rooted to Nature she is the closely rooted to the beyond. 

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Stendhal worships women - diverging completely from others and their set mindsets - instead, he rejects the eternal feminine philosophy, favouring the approach the people think differently  based on 'situation' not gender. Left to 'insipid\ banal work only preoccupying a small amount of attention - women have greater room to think and imagine. He insightfully points out the mechanisms in society maintaining female oppression - they are left maleducated to keep them subjugated etc.

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No physiology determines the eternal alterity between men and women - 'humanity is something other than a species: it is an historical becoming' - the perpetuation of the prototypical 'eternal feminine' derives from a females situation. Society has been 'codified' by men and thus always discriminates agains women.  

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