Simone de Beauvoir
Blog #5
It’s 2020 and we’re still trying to understand women, who in case you didn’t know, have been around just as long as men. So here are a few hints to truly understand what really makes us tick: 1) we get absolutely hysterical and can’t make rational decisions at certain times of the month, so we clearly cannot be good leaders, 2) once we have babies we just sit around and get fat because our sole purpose has been fulfilled and, heck, we’ve already landed a man, 3) we’re intellectually limited, very shy and weak and need a man to speak up for us, 4) we’re naturally born to please men, just like in “I Dream of Jeannie,” and we’re completely satisfied as long as they have an orgasm.
Simone de Beauvoir did extensive research before writing about women as the “second sex.” She found that nowhere in history books did it speak of a minority called “women” who were displaced and thrown into a world dominated by men. Yet, “Man is defined as a human being, and woman as a female. Whenever she behaves as a human being, she is said to imitate the male.” In science books you will not find a different species of ‘human beings’ called ”women’ or ‘female.’ We were not captured, as were the African slaves, and brought to another land where we were sold as property. Nor were we hunted, caged, and killed like the Jewish people, leaving those who were allowed to live eventually scattering around the globe looking for safe havens. No, we’ve always inhabited the same spaces, climates, and societies as men. Women have never naturally declared men as the enemy nor fought them for territories, power or gold. In fact, we have happily supported men in their endeavors and celebrated their successes. But, for the most part, they haven’t reciprocated. Instead, their power has allowed them to create a world with laws and social ‘norms’ that keep us in the background, the ‘supportive’ role as wives, mothers, housekeepers, and beautiful possessions to have on their arms as reminders of their power and property. For thousands of years we’ve graciously accepted what they offered us, bought into their myths about our minds and bodies, apparently believing they know what’s best for us and truly care about our well-being. But along came the sixties with its sex, drugs, and rock n roll and all bets were off. Women felt their power, their freedom, their true sexuality, all based on their subjectivity. They didn’t want to defeat men, just be their equals. It’s been a slow uphill battle since then and some gains have been made. Simone de Beauvoir put things into perfect perspective when in the late nineteen hundreds she said, “But the woman’s effort as never been more that a symbolic agitation. They have gained only what men have been willing to grant. They have never taken anything, they have only received.” It’s 2020 and women are beginning to take what is due them. But first we have to understand what we are and what we aren’t through our reality rather than through man’s ego.
As Simone de Beauvoir said, “Women are not born feminine, but shaped by 1,000 extensive processes.” In short, “Woman is a male concept, always the ‘other.’ And male is the seer, the subject.” Men have always tried to make us feel special for the few pleasing feminine activities we pursue, or traits we display. We have always gladly taken the limited praise they gave us; being beautiful and sexy, being good mothers who train our daughters to follow our same path, and sometimes even good business people, as long as we look good doing our job, don’t make waves, and make sure our other womanly duties are done on the home front. If men are the dominant leaders and decision makers it leaves women objectively labeled as “the other.” Our value is determined by and for our relationship to men. We are wives of men, mothers to their children, keepers of their homes, beautiful possessions that enhance their sense of manliness. Even our place as co-producers of children was denied in the seventeenth century by Aristotle, who led people to believe that the male sperm alone created a new being and that only the woman’s menstrual blood was needed to nourish it. I find it interesting that while the men took full credit for the genetic offspring, they seemed to have little interest in their day to day upbringing. Why bother when your wife dutifully knows exactly how you want her to do it. The fact that the sperm seeks the egg, which stays in place, found a way to support the myth of the female staying home while the man traveled and encountered the world outside. Nothing was thought of fact that without the constant environment of the womb, the growing fetus would not survive, actually thrive. It was in the late seventeenth century that it was discovered that the woman did indeed contribute an egg, but even that didn’t change the status of women. According to Aristotle, “We should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.” St. Thomas claimed women to be, “an imperfect man, an incidental being.”
Holding the power and fearing their loss of it, men benefit greatly from keeping the woman in her place. If they suspect that a woman may be a strong contender for a position, men don’t necessarily fear her femaleness, they feel that their masculinity is being threatened by ‘the other.’ This unspoken fear was very common growing up in the fifties and sixties. We grew up wanting to be as perfect as June Cleaver, and to feel that joy she exuded as prepared dinner in her dress and pearls, eagerly waiting for her husband to open the door as we handed him a martini. In junior high, we girls filled the typing and home economics classes striving to become a great wife for some man, and if our husbands allowed us, be a wonderful secretary for a swell male boss. Meanwhile, the junior bosses and husbands were busy learning science and math in order to obtain the management positions and gave little thought about whether or not they would be good husbands or fathers.
In The Eternal Feminine, de Beauvoir explains that marginalized groups such as Blacks, Jews, and Women are created by those who subjugate them. I see now that I was also indoctrinated into the eternal feminine game by a mother and father who almost found bliss in the cocktail era. All I wanted to do was catch polliwogs in the creek, pop tar bubbles in the street, and ride my horse. I have a vivid memory of a photo taken of my mom, my sister, and I at Disneyland wearing matching dresses and bows that came from the Speigel Catalog. My mom never looked prouder, posing with her two little girls who held promise to be just like her. I was around eight years old then and I guess I was already in training to be the eternal feminine and bring a smile to my father’s face. I wanted him to be proud of me, wanted him to think I was smart and pretty. So I worked hard in school and earned good grades. By the time I was in middle school my dad told me that my best bet was to learn to type so I could be a secretary. Somehow I didn’t equate that with being smart, and I thought that although it would be boring to sit and type all day, at least I should be pretty while doing it. Without going into detail, let’s just say that by the time I was sixteen I had learned that my sexuality was a valuable commodity that came in handy when I needed to feel loved. I felt a weird sense of power. So when my mom died at eighteen, I left home and soon married a man who treated me as a possession. As Simone de Beauvoir would have said, I was his “Goddess on a pedestal.” Being the good little girl that I was, I repeatedly promised to be better when he’d beat me for talking to another male and making him feel insecure. I felt it was my responsibility to change, to adapt to his needs and desires. I wanted to fulfill my role as the perfect wife, the other. So, to ease his violent jealousy of my male professors, I dropped out of college, I denied my own humanity and allowed him to cut my wings…..for two years! Some of us are slow learners. That seems like another lifetime, a different Nonie who no longer exists.
According to Wikipedia, The ‘Eternal Feminine’ is a belief that men and women have different core “essences” that cannot be altered by time or environment. Simone de Beauvoir’s studies have shown us how this false theory was created and perpetuated by men in order to deflect their threat of women and preserve their patriarchal society. I think Simone would agree that in 2020 more women are shaking up the world, speaking out, and demanding respect. But I also think she’d be disappointed by how many women still accept their inferiority, their limited value, without question and allow themselves to be used as sexual props to sell products. She would remind us that “Experience, not essence defines a woman. Her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.” We have a choice.
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