Blog 15: Simone De Beauvoir

In "Woman: Myth and Reality, by Simone De Beauvoir, she describes and analyses what she calls the myth of the Eternal Feminine. Throught her description Beauvoir states that beliving in this myth resembels Platonic ideas (Beauvoir 784). Although she goes into great detail about the myth of the Eternal Feminine she, herself does not believe in it. As Beauvior states, "the myth of woman, sublimating as immutable aspect of the human condition- namely, the "division" of humanity into two classes of individuals- is a static myth" (Beauvoir 784). Here she explains that this "myth" (which is something that has yet to be proven true fact) separates individuals into two groups, slaves and masters; in which the women are the slaves and the men are the masters. This is typical feminist thinking, and Simone De Beauvoir was most definatly a feminist.

She goes into greater detail ripping the myth apart to anaylze every aspect of it to prove it is faulty. She states that the myth, "justifies all privileges with alleviating the pains and the burdens that physiologically are women's lot, since these are "intended by Nature;" men use them as a pretext for increasing the misery of the feminine lot still further" (Beauvoir 787). Here she is speaking of how this myth was created and what it was intended for. She said the myth was "intended by Nature" to do what it does to women. She also goes on to say that men use the myth to their advantage, to power over women, for that was what nature wanted and why they created the myth. All throughout the essay she repeats that women are mysterious to the rest of the society (men). I believe this is beacuse since men are so sexest and one-sided they do not take the time to learn and really see what women are like, what they do, and who they are; that is the only reason men find women a mystery. I really loved the sentence by Beauvoir when she said, "mystery is never more than a mirage that vanishes as we draw near to look at it" (Beauvoir 791). She was explaining how if we never take the time out to actually grasp something, it will start to vanish before our eyes.

Personally, this text was difficult to understand. I found myself re-reading sentences over and over again just to grasp what was meant. Troughout reading I started to think that the myth must have been created by a male of some sort, for there is no doubt that a female would never put burdens such as these on herself. While reading I noticed that Beauvoir kept repeating herself that she did not believe in this myth of the Eternal Feminine, but that she was just explaiding and anaylzing it to show how un-true it is. I agree in that there was such a thing as the Eternal Feminine, but that women were characterized wrong. I think that in today's socitey this myth would not stand a chance; for women have many more rights and priviliges now.

De Beauvoir, Simone. "Women: Myth and Reality." From "The Second Sex." A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Trans. H. M. Parshley. 7th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. pp 781-795.