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Introduction

In The Second Sex from 1949, Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) examines why women have historically and culturally been defined as “the Other” – that is, in relation to men rather than as independent beings.

Combining the existentialist concept of freedom with a feminist analysis of women’s historical and social oppression, Beauvoir shows how existential freedom is, in practice, limited by social structures and internalized norms – especially for women. Her aim is thus to expose the mechanisms that have created and maintained women’s subordination and to make the reader reflect on how these structures can be broken.

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

This is the work’s most famous sentence and its central thesis: gender is not only biological, but primarily a social construct. Woman has been shaped by culture, upbringing, and societal expectations rather than by an essence or “natural femininity.” This imprinting begins already in childhood, where the little girl learns to see herself through the eyes of others as an object, not as a subject – that is, as an independent, acting person. Note that “the gaze of the other” is a general phenomenon for all human beings, but Beauvoir shows that women are particularly caught in it. They are brought up to, and internalize the naturalness of, being attractive, passive, and in relation to the man, who becomes the norm, the woman the deviation (“the Other”).

For both men and women, it applies that the human being is fundamentally free and creates itself through action. In Jean-Paul Sartre’s words: Man is not merely free; man is condemned to be free. But woman has often been denied this freedom, Beauvoir argues, because society has imposed roles on her such as wife, mother, and muse instead of allowing her to realize herself as an individual.

In addition, the woman’s economic dependence on the man has made her liberation and her possibilities for self-realization impossible.

With these reflections, Beauvoir wants the reader to consider how the norms and expectations we take for granted are in fact historically created. She wants us to see how oppression does not only occur through violence or force, but also through culture, upbringing, and internalization.

She urges us to consider how we ourselves – regardless of gender – are shaped by society’s ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman. And she wants us to take a stand: Should we accept the roles we have been assigned, or can we create something new?

Biology

From a purely biological perspective, one could argue that it is the man who takes the woman. Among many mammals, this is to be taken quite literally: the male grabs hold of the female, restrains her, and penetrates her. The female’s body serves as a protection for the egg cell, but also as a resistance that must be overcome for fertilization to occur, whereas the male, in penetrating the female, realizes himself through action. If intercourse leads to fertilization, the woman then undergoes a nine-month-long and demanding pregnancy that profoundly affects her body, followed by a painful and dangerous birth, breastfeeding, childcare, and new cycles, until the woman is released from the grip of the species. And even then, she must go through a difficult crisis when her fertility ceases during menopause.

In comparison with her, the man seems to be far more privileged. The force that stems from his nature as a species-being is something he incorporates into his own life – potentially without any consequences whatsoever. For the female, however, the interests of the species are in conflict with her individuality. Beauvoir writes:

“It is as if she is possessed by powers alien to her being… The male continuously finds new ways to use the forces he masters. The female experiences ever more strongly that she is enslaved. Her life is embittered by the constant conflict between her interests as an individual and the reproductive processes inherent in her.”

But, Beauvoir emphasizes, although biological realities may give us a key to understanding certain aspects of woman, they do not, once and for all, determine her destiny. Individuals are never completely at the mercy of their own nature, but are shaped by custom, taboos, laws, and values. Beauvoir concludes:

“If we want to know what role biological conditions play, we must therefore place them in their ontological, economic, social, and psychological context. That woman is enslaved by the species, that there are certain limits to her individual unfolding are facts of immense significance. Woman’s body is one of the essential factors in the situation she finds herself in, in the world. But we cannot define woman merely by describing her body. Its true meaning depends entirely on the way the individual, within the society, consciously makes it her own through action.”

Penis Envy

By nature, says Beauvoir, the human being has a tendency to want to detach and transcend itself, so that we experience ourselves as an acting and meaning-creating subject in a world that exists outside of us. But with the experience of being separated from the external world also comes a desire to find our alienated existence reflected in that world — something we can identify with. Beauvoir writes:

“In its anxiety over freedom, the individual is led to seek itself in things, which is a way of fleeing from itself. This tendency runs so deeply in human nature that the child, immediately after weaning, when it feels separated from the All, eagerly seeks its alienated existence in mirrors and in the gaze of its parents. Primitive peoples alienate themselves in mana and totems; the civilized in their individual minds, in their ‘I’, their names, their property, and work.”

For the little boy, this can be achieved through the penis, which becomes a kind of toy and alter ego that can be erected and stand as a symbolic expression of agency and self-assertion. The boy can thus turn his alienation into something external and visible; he can make himself into a (acting) subject through a part of his body which — in the patriarchal society — is socially elevated as a potent, masculine symbol of power and subjectivity.

The little girl and the woman cannot do the same. First, she does not have the possibility of identifying herself with a penis-like body part; and second, from puberty onwards, she experiences the body as a kind of resistance — something she is bound to through menstruation, pregnancy, and social pressure. Consequently, she experiences a sense of lacking — not necessarily a penis in the biological sense, but rather a recognized tool or symbol to which society attributes value and the status of subjecthood. If a woman is to succeed in asserting herself as an individual, she must invent a substitute for the phallus. Beauvoir notes in this regard that a doll — which embodies the promise of a child — may therefore come to mean far more than the penis does for the boy. But this comes at a price: the little girl is encouraged to alienate her entire person and regard it as something giving and passive; and the doll may cement the female’s role as mother. (More on the doll in Volume 2 — next article coming soon.)

Doll or not, in a patriarchal society it is more difficult for a woman to identify with her body as a subject, and she more easily internalizes her role as object — that is, as “the Other,” as someone who is seen, shaped by the man’s gaze and desire, rather than someone who sees. While society elevates the male to the norm — the active, productive, expansive — the woman ends up being defined negatively, as that which is not man: passive, receptive, defined from the outside. 

Production and Economy

Simone de Beauvoir acknowledges that woman’s economic dependence on man has historically been central to her oppression, but emphasizes that freedom and existence cannot be reduced to a function of economic conditions.

As mentioned, the human being can only grasp its own essence by projecting itself into something outside itself — by alienating itself. In the external world, the human being attempts to find itself in some foreign form, which it then takes possession of. In this way, the human being can find itself from the outside. When we use a tool, for example, we invest a part of ourselves in it. In the same way, when we own something, we attempt to affirm ourselves through the possession of the external object. 

If we view the human being’s relationship to tools or property only as something economic, practical, or functional, we lose the entire existential and ontological dimension. It is not just about a tool being used for production — it is about what it means for the human being to use and own something and therefore, we must understand the relationship between possessions and actions, tools and work, as part of human existence, not merely as a matter of production logic. In other words, property is not just about economics, but an attempt to affirm the self through the world.

This is why the struggle for women’s liberation is not the same as class struggle. Biology does not determine woman’s destiny; it only provides a framework that society then shapes and interprets — and this makes the situation more complex than in class struggle. Woman is not merely an economic unit, but also a body, a mother, and an existential agent whose reproductive role is existentially grounded. Pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare transcend historical and economic conditions because they concern bodily experience, closeness, and being — not just function.

Beauvoir also notes that among several so-called primitive peoples, motherhood was not in itself seen as something valuable. On the contrary, it could be a burden — for example, during migration. With this, Beauvoir challenges the idea that it lies “in a woman’s nature” to want to be a mother, or that she has always had a special role in securing the survival of the species. It is society, not nature, that makes motherhood woman’s destiny — and this, Beauvoir argues, can and should be criticized.

This is a nuanced feminism that insists on freedom and choice for women, while not denying her embodiment or capacity for motherhood. Thus, Beauvoir accepts neither a vision of total equality that erases difference, nor a biological determinism that says woman must be a mother. 

Man’s Production vs. Woman’s Reproduction

Beauvoir points to a crucial difference in the perception of man’s and woman’s existential situation:

“When man goes fishing, he creates tools, shapes nature, and appropriates it — in this, he feels his power, his freedom, his transcendence of nature and his forward movement. Man shapes the world. Woman gives birth, but in this she does not become creative in the same sense — she does not bring forth something of her own intention, but is a link in nature’s cyclical order and is shaped by the world.” 

This is the key to the whole riddle of woman’s subordination. Man is perceived as creative and active because he appropriates the world from the outside and gives it a face. Woman is perceived as passive and bound to nature because her creation happens from within and is not seen as cultural production.

Beauvoir elaborates:

“The primitive masses did not think of posterity… Children were for them a burden, not a wealth. This is evident from the fact that infanticide has always been widespread among nomadic peoples… The woman who gives birth, therefore, does not know the pride of having created. She experiences herself as a passive plaything for obscure forces… Later, the child gained greater significance. In any case, to give birth and to nurse are not active actions, only natural functions… the woman surrenders passively to her biological fate… Man’s condition is fundamentally different. He does not nourish society through a simple vital work process like worker bees, but rather through actions that transcend his animal condition. From the earliest times, homo faber is an inventor… before he can conquer the waters, he must first hollow out boats. If he wants to appropriate the riches of the world, he must incorporate the world itself into his domain, and in this undertaking he feels his own power. He sets goals, devises means to achieve them, he realizes himself as an existing being. In his effort to maintain, he creates, transcends the present, and opens the future… Through these accomplishments, man recognizes himself as human.”

Moreover, man’s activity exposes him to danger, providing proof that life in itself is not the greatest good for human beings, but that life must serve a higher purpose. Beauvoir explains:

“It is not by giving new life, but by putting one’s own life at stake, that the human being rises above the animal. Therefore, in humanity, it is not the sex that gives birth that is most highly valued, but the one that kills.” 

Summarizing, it is the perspective on birth that Beauvoir criticizes. She shows why society has not attributed the same existential dignity to woman as to man, despite her reproduction of the species and woman’s claim to be recognized as existing in the same sense as men.

Woman through the ages

Prehistoric times

It remains a myth that women enjoyed a golden age; the world has always been a man’s world, Beauvoir emphasizes. Even in earlier matriarchal societies, women did not have real power. Rather, it was the forces of nature — forces with which woman was identified — that were worshipped.

The emergence of patriarchy

With the development of technologies and social structures — especially agriculture and private property — the man’s role becomes (even) more central. He appropriates nature, he begins to express himself concretely through the appearance he imposes on the world, he begins to think this world and to think himself. Although this also means that the child now gains a new function—since land is now passed on to the child or the clan through the child—and motherhood accordingly gains higher esteem, the woman is still reduced to a reproductive function and a form of property. Even if a Mother-Goddess is worshipped, however mighty she may be, the image formed of her is a product of the male consciousness. She is thus at his mercy, and the goddess can be torn down as soon as a conflict arises. Beauvoir explains: 

Little by little, man has imposed his experience [i.e., made his worldview dominant], and both in his imagination and in his concrete existence, it is the male principle that has triumphed. Spirit [i.e., thought] has triumphed over life, transcendence [transformation, creation] over immanence [stasis], technique over magic, reason over superstition. The degradation of woman is a necessary step in the history of humanity. For her position of power was based on the weakness of man, not on her own positive value, and man liberates himself from her rule as he liberates himself from nature. The transition from stone to bronze makes it possible for him, through his labor, to complete the conquest of the earth and to conquer himself.

And further:

The peasant was at the mercy of the whims of the forces that sustained him. The craftsman, on the other hand, forges his tool as he pleases and shapes it with his own hands according to the purpose it is to serve. Faced with passive nature, which resists but which he overcomes, he asserts himself as an independent will. With each blow on the anvil, he hastens the perfection of the tool; but nothing can hasten the ripening of the grain. Craftsmanship also leads him to see his own responsibility — a more or less skillful move can improve or ruin the tool. With cleverness and caution, he completes a work he is proud of. The good result does not depend on the favor of the gods but on himself… The seed grain may or may not sprout, but metal always reacts in the same way to fire, tempering, and mechanical force. This universe of utensils can be enclosed in clear concepts; now rational thinking, logic, and mathematics can make their entry. The worldview is completely transformed.

Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Woman is dethroned with the advent of private property, and her fate is closely tied to it through the centuries. The success of property rights as an institution depends on the notion that property constitutes a tangible, earthly incarnation of the immortal soul. We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave property behind—but this, of course, presupposes ownership. Therefore, both children and wife belong to the man. The woman is no longer merely lent from a clan, but is the man’s possession, just as one might buy a piece of livestock or a slave—and without any right of inheritance. For the woman, marriage simply means that the father’s absolute authority over her is transferred to the husband.

Over time, circumstances change, but more or less the ideal for a woman remains to be the perfect housekeeper and a support to her husband. Christianity brings with it a certain idea of spiritual equality between man and woman, but it also contributes to the oppression of women and presupposes that the woman denies her gender, body, and sexuality. For example, Paul says in the New Testament: 

Man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man … just as the Church submits to Christ, so too should wives submit to their husbands in everything.

Or, as Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) writes a millenial later: The man is the head of the woman, just as Christ is the head of man.

The Renaissance and the Enlightenment

During the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, women gain slightly more access to education and public life, but it still occurs with the man’s permission. For example, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) writes: “The entire education of women should be directed toward the man … women are made to be subordinate to him and to put up with his unreasonable behavior.” Largely, however, the democratic and individualistic ideals of the 18th century do work in favor of women, and most thinkers regard women as human beings equal to men.

But woman continues to be defined as the Other, and it is man who is regarded as the standard for the human. Some ruptures do occur — particularly during the Enlightenment — but not full emancipation.

It is worth noting that culture and upbringing do their work, and most bourgeois women give in to the promise of a carefree existence—that is, a parasitic existence in which they are wholly dependent on the man. As Bernard Shaw said:

“It is easier to put people in chains than to free them from those chains when there is prestige attached to them.” 

Modern Times

In the 19th and 20th centuries, industrialization and the rise of the bourgeoisie give rise to a new female figure—the housewife. The woman becomes a mother and wife, but still without independent status, though women begin to gain the right to vote from the beginning of the 20th century (in Switzerland as late as 1971, and in one canton not until 1990). Working-class women must work, but under harsh conditions, for lower wages than men, and without rights. Beauvoir points out that the woman’s body and role are still used to the man’s advantage, and that the woman is still not a subject on her own terms. Beauvoir also notes that women are not in solidarity with their own gender, but primarily with their social class.

As to the reasons for this development, Beauvoir writes:

As a result of the rapid development of industrial culture, fixed property loses ground to movable property, and the principle of the family group’s unity likewise loses its force. The mobility of capital makes it possible for its owner to possess his wealth without it possessing him in return, and he can freely dispose of it. It was through the family possession that the woman was so tightly bound to her husband. The moment this no longer exists, the spouses are simply equal … This development is particularly evident in the USA, where the modern form of capitalism celebrates its triumphs: divorces abound, and the spouses are more like temporary partners. 

In summary, Beauvoir concludes that history is not a neutral development, but has been shaped by man’s need to define himself as the subject — and thereby define woman as the object. Historically, woman has not had the opportunity to define herself. Even when she gains rights, it often happens within the man’s system and on his terms.

The Myths of Woman

Woman is not only a biological or historical entity, but also a mythical figure — a mirror image that men throughout the ages have created in order to keep woman in a certain role. Woman is not understood as a concrete human being, but as an idea, an essence that fits into man’s worldview. She is therefore often portrayed either as the pure and self-sacrificing (the mother, the virgin) or the dangerous and destructive (the seductress, the witch). These opposing images conceal a deeper strategy: to deny woman the status of subject and instead make her the Other, through which man defines himself.

These myths create a double movement: Woman is exalted as something “special” — but this very exaltation becomes a way of locking her into predefined conceptions and depriving her of her freedom and individuality. She becomes a projection, not a person.

What all myth types have in common is that they are male constructions. It is the male gaze and needs that shape the myth—for example, the idea of “the eternal feminine” as something salvific, beautiful, and genuine. It is an exaltation that obscures the concrete woman’s existence by covering her social, economic, and bodily experiences with ideals that do not correspond to her reality. 

But the potential of the myth goes even further. In its effort to affirm itself, the human being needs another human being, since it is only in the encounter with something we are not that we emerge as subjects. But we do not merely want to be a subject; we want to be the sovereign subject—that is, the one who acts, decides, and holds meaning. This often happens by turning “the other” into an object or slave — something one can control and define oneself in relation to. This leads to a struggle for dominance. As Beauvoir writes:

This foreign freedom, which affirms my own freedom, also comes into conflict with it. This is the tragedy of the unhappy consciousness. Every consciousness will seek to assert itself alone, as a sovereign subject. It tries to fulfill itself by making the other its slave.

Yet this drama can be overcome, Beauvoir urges:

[…] if each individual freely affirms themselves in the other, if both, in a mutual exchange, simultaneously establish themselves and the other as object and subject. But the friendship and generosity that are the real prerequisites for such a mutual recognition of each individual’s freedom are not virtues that are simply granted. It is indeed by means of them that the human being is fulfilled and reaches the truth about itself, but this truth is tied to a struggle that is constantly being resolved and flaring up again; it requires that the human being at every moment overcomes itself. One may also use another image: the human being arrives at a genuine moral stance by taking on its existence and renouncing being; thereby it also renounces any form of possession, as possession is a striving after being. But the human being never definitively reaches true wisdom — it must live in a continual attempt to reach it, and this requires a constant tension. That means that the human being cannot fulfill itself in solitude, and that, on the other hand, having a relationship with its equals always represents a danger. Human life is a difficult endeavor, and a good outcome is never guaranteed in advance. 

In other words, we as human beings can only become whole and authentic if we dare to recognize the other’s freedom as being just as meaningful as our own. Human freedom and truth arise in the relationship between subjects—not through dominance.

Furthermore, we must abandon the idea of “being something definite” (for example, “the perfect woman” or “the powerful man”) and instead live responsibly, freely, and consciously, without seeking security in fixed identities or possessions — not necessarily in a concrete sense, but as a value. To own is a way of trying to be something fixed — and that is contrary to the existential nature of the human being, which is movement, choice, and change. The idea of being or remaining something definite is an illusion.

But, writes Beauvoir:

The human being does not like difficult tasks, and it recoils from danger. In a self-contradictory movement, it strives both for life and rest, for existence and being. It knows that “the unrest of the spirit” is the price for its own development, and that a certain distance from the object is the condition for being present to itself. But it dreams of a rest within the unrest, of a dense fullness that is nonetheless inhabited by consciousness. And woman is precisely an incarnation of this dream. She is the desired mediator between nature, which is alien to man, and his equal, who is all too identical with him.

Or as Michel Carrouges (1920–1988) puts it: 

Woman is not a redundant repetition of man, but an enchanted place where the living connection between man and nature is fulfilled. If she disappears, men are left alone as strangers without passports in a lifeless world. She is the earth itself, lifted to the peaks of life, an earth that has become joyful and sensitive. Without her, the earth is mute and dead to man. 

Woman is thus endowed with an almost supernatural power. She meets man neither with nature’s hostile silence nor with the harsh demand for mutual recognition. By a quite unique privilege, she is herself a consciousness and yet it still seems possible to possess her. Thanks to her, man has the opportunity to escape the merciless dialectic between master and slave, which arises where there is interaction between two wills.

The myth of woman thus becomes an expression of man’s need to make the world meaningful for himself — but through her. And it is this illusion that Simone de Beauvoir aims to dismantle and expose as ideology disguised as love or aesthetics, just as she encourages woman to step out of the myth and become a self-defining agent. 

Concluding Remarks

I hope the above introduction to Volume 1 of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex from 1949 has sparked your interest. In the next article, I will present Volume 2, which focuses on the woman’s development from childhood to adulthood, as well as the lesbian woman.

And if you’d like an introduction to another author who builds on many of Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas, here is a link to Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Denial of Death, which expands on Beauvoir’s reflections on humanity’s need for creation and self-realization.

Skeleton-Man show – Death: The High Price of Life

In my show Death: The High Price of Life, I introduce the audience to the existentialist tradition. You can read more about the show here, which is especially aimed at educational institutions and businesses — for example, as a festive feature at the annual general meeting of an art club.

For BOOKING and pricing inquiries, please contact: info@skeleton-man.com