Roxana Drocan

Professors: Bogdan tefnescu, Ruxandra Rdulescu

Main Concepts in Contemporary Critical Theory
20 May 2013
Feminist Concerns and Approaches
Simone De Beauvoir: from The Second Sex

Feminist criticism attempts to emancipate women and to expose the way in which they
have been opressed and undermined in literature throughout the centuries. In order to expose
the mechanism of manipulation, feminists fight against the stereotypes created by the
patriarchal society according to which women are weak and irrational, as opposed to men,
who are strong and rational by nature. Such stereotypes, which feminist critics regard as
traditional gender roles, have been encouraged in literature and thus, literature has become an
ideological intrument of the male dominated society (tefnescu, Unpublished course).
The French feminist critic Simone de Beauvoir is one of the writers who discusses the
status of women both in literature and society. In The Second Sex (1949), she illustrates how
the masculine has always been the important sex (the one), while the feminine has been and
still is regarded as the second sex (the other). Although she did not consider herself a
materialist feminist, her book has become a theoretical basis for materialist feminists
(Seminar folder, 96).
According to Simone de Beauvoir, the simple act of stating the question What is a

woman? is significant as no one would ever ask such a question about a man. A man never
presents himself as an individual of a certain sex but a woman does. The masculine is
regarded as the absolute human type (tefnescu 163). When we say men, it goes without
saying that we refer to both men and women, but when we say women, we refer strictly to
women. Such things have become so common, that people have learned to regard them as
natural (tefnescu, Unpublished course).
Aristotle said that the female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities. A
similar view was shared by Bossuet who described the woman as an imperfect man, an
incidental being, who, in Genesis, was created from a supernumerary bone of Adam.
Therefore, a woman is not an individual being and she can only be defined and differentiated
with reference to a man. The feminine is regarded as the sex, meaning that a woman appears
essentially to a man as a sexual object. He is the essential, the Subject and she is the
inessential, the Other (tefnescu 163).
The dependence of women on men, be they fathers or husbands, is a consequence of the
fact that women live dispersed among men and are socially and economically attached to
them. Womens victory against inequality was made impossible by the fact that they dont
share a history and a religion of their own. Moreover, according to Simone De Beauvoir, their
passivity is also caused by their fear to be free, since freedom can bring either success or
failure: If woman seems to be the inessential [being] which never becomes essential, it is
because she herself fails to bring about this change (Seminar folder, 97). Thus, it can be said
that womens fight has never been more whan a symbolic agitation because, in the end, they

have taken nothing but only received that men have been willing to grant (tefnescu 163).
Culture, society, religion and education have also contributed to the inferior status of
women. According to the religions invented by men, it is willed in heaven that women should
occupy a subordinate position (tefnescu 164). How many women do we mention if we are
to make a list of great scientists, writers, artists? The answer is: very few. This is because the
patriarchal society and education have never encouraged women to take part in these
activities. In literature for example, in the Victorian Age, female writers had to use male
pseudonyms in order to have their works published and taken seriously by the readers
(tefnescu, Unpublished course). Even in contemporary society, female writers are still
discriminated. Mattew J. Bruccoli in his preface to The Great Gatsby lists twelve authors
who have contributed to the age of achievement in American literature among which there is
only one woman, although there are many other female writers who deserve to be mentioned
as well (Seminar folder, 84).
To sum up, I think that even if the status of women has improved in time, and their
image in the history of literature has gradually changed, there is still a great deal of
discrimination against them in society. Inequality is still a common issue nowadays and
although the peculiarities of the stereotypical woman have changed, the problem is that
stereotypes still exist. Consequently, the work of feminists is not done yet and in spite of their
efforts, which one cannot deny, equality between sexes has not been achieved.

Bibliography
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2002.
Surdulescu, Radu. tefnescu, Bogdan. Contemporary Critical Theories: A Reader.
Bucharest, 1998.
tefanescu, Bogdan. Unpublished course on Main Concepts in Contemporary Critical Theory
thought at the University of Bucharest, 2012-2013
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. A User-Friendly Guide. New York: Routledge, 2006.