Simone De Beauvoir

·         January 9^th 1908 – April 14^th 1986

·         Lived in Paris, France

·         French Feminist/ Existentialist Philosopher

·         Notable Works

o   She Came to Stay (1943)

§  Fictional

§  Depicts Beauvoir and Sarte’s relationship with Olga and Wanda Kosakiewicz, former students of Beauvoir.

o   The Second Sex (1949)

§  Book focused on the question of what is Woman, and the problem of female oppression

o   The Mandarins(1954)

§  Novel depicting the lives of French intellectuals post World War 2

·         Quotes

o   What is Woman?

§  “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”

§  “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman”

o   Oppressed Women and the Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic

§  “The whole of feminine history has been man-made. Just as in America there is no Negro problem, but rather a white problem; just as anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem, it is our problem; so the woman problem has always been a man problem.”

§  “Woman is the incidental, the inessential, as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute-she is the other."

§  “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”

§  “The advantage of the master, he says, comes from his affirmation of Spirit as against Life through the fact that he risks his own life; but in fact the conquered slave has known this same risk. Whereas woman is basically an existent who gives Life and does not risk her life, between her and the male there has been no combat.”

o   Why Do Women Remain Opressed?

§  “Woman enjoys that incomparable privilege: irresponsibility. Free from troublesome burdens and cares, she obviously has ‘the better part’. But it is disturbing that with an obstinate perversity – connected no doubt with original sin – down through the centuries and in all countries, the people who have the better part are always crying to their benefactors: ‘It is too much! I will be satisfied with yours!’ But the munificent capitalists, the generous colonists, the superb males, stick to their guns: ‘Keep the better part, hold on to it!”