The Second Sex

I do not consider myself to be a typical reader of this genre by any stretch of the imagination. That said, I've never had so many of my intangible thoughts and experiences articulated so clearly. Simone de Beauvoir speaks on such specific generalizations that it feels impossible for her words to be accurate, but she simply did not miss a beat. This was a push to read all the way through, but I'm glad I did...

The Second Sex is a behemoth of an analysis on female otherness—childhood, adolescence, marriage, abortion, motherhood, etc. Every chapter hit me with painful truths that I probably never would have identified otherwise. Each time I had a reading session of this, I felt seen on a level I actually did not know was possible. I'd recommend everyone make this a reading project at some point—the relief & understanding it exposes is otherworldly despite that it's not particularly delightful to read.

The author made interesting life choices, but I don't think they effected the book negatively, I think it stands strongly regardless of the author's life and how she tricked young women, girls.

An amazing exploration of how the world can convince you that you are not worthy of yourself and others.

This book explores outdated biology, psychology, but in a way that's interest and thoughful, reveals what a person might have thought about these subjects at that time. It takes you through experiences of french women from birth to old age. Offers some limited understanding around race and homosexuality. Discusses religion, relationships, marriage and how they disempowered women at the time and in history. Women writers, women in men's literature, prostitution, “the mother”, birthcontrol. How women were encouraged to give up, try less, stayed passive, and devoting themselves to nothing.

Learned that religious saints were something I did not think they were. I felt called out even thought I was not born as a woman, but a lot of passive behaviors I definely adapted because of odd life experiences. I feel this book helped me to envision another path for myself and now I want to dream a little bigger and be a little more harsh to myself. There were lot of thoughts I had before that were recontextualized and found new strength with this book. I feel like my views around love are naive and incomplete and this crushed my odd convictions considerably which I feel is good. This book is full of love went wrong scenarios.

The conclusion is good, but there aren't many soliutions proposed as to how exactly it might get achieved.

I loved this as an experience and the first feminist work I have read. I now realise I read so little philosophy which is sad and must change, this is so nourishing. I think this is the first “harder” philosophical work I read. There must be a ton of less accessible works, oh boy, can't wait to tackle those.

I read this book at the advent of women's history month after years of Tbr-ing it. My primary reason for the lack of enthusiasm for reading this was that it is too old and maybe the proposals and scenarios mentioned here would be drastically different than this 21st-century world but to my surprise, they weren't exaggerated and the topics mentioned in every chapter still hold relevance to this age which makes me think even if we have progressed so much in terms of wealth distribution, educational opportunities and technology how much unjust discrimination and scorn are still prevalent in the depth of the human mind. How we are still fighting against prejudice, hypocrisy, stereotype and the eternal case of making us the ‘other' party who has no place other than the shadow of the ‘superior' sex, the marginalised group who are still considered competitors and not someone who has equal rights to the fairer sex.

Especially the first half of the book mindblown me and made me think deeply about things like the deeply flawed logic of misogyny and how a sexist mindset deeply affects all the people of our society especially harms the marginalised section of our society. I was also fascinated by how volatile the sexist parameters are and how they changed in terms of human conclusions like how Virginal blood is considered to be harmful to male virility and brides were being deflowered before she was officially wed. At some point(and it still prevails), these perceptions and conclusions changed and how virginal maidens are considered pure and worthy of their male counterpart My favourite parts of this book are vol 1 part 1 chapter 1 biological data, vol 1 part 2 history, vol 1 part 3 myths chapter 1.
p.s- Gonna throw the second sex at someone's face(metaphorically!!) the next time I debate with someone on misogyny.
4.5 stars/ 5 stars

I tried to sit down multiple times to write my thoughts on this, but alas, they've been eluding me for quite some time now. Needless to say, this feminist manifesto doesn't require any introduction and I can't do a proper review right now, so I'll just give a personal push to folks reading this - pick it up even if you don't plan to finish it, as the parts in themselves are power punches.