Although Simone de Beauvoir is widely considered a primary influence on contemporary feminism, she notably criticizes women in her most famous book, The Second Sex. In illustrating the history of female oppression, Beauvoir emphasizes all the...

To a substantial degree, the political system of patriarchy is dependent on the manipulation of knowledge. The biological, psychological, and economic discrimination against women, as well as other marginal groups, has relied upon the...

It is widely acknowledged that women have often been “forced to occupy a secondary place in the world in relation to men” (Beauvoir 84). The woman is generally considered to be ‘the other’ or the ‘second sex’ and is used as a commodity for the...

Throughout the course of history, marriage as an institution has changed drastically, weaving in and out of various phases and forms. What began as a purely reproductive relationship evolved into an emotional companionship. Or has it? Does...

While Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is known primarily as a feminist text, it is Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist philosophy that influenced Beauvoir’s writings. As existentialists, these philosophers argue that philosophical thinking...

The question of what it means to be a woman has been floating through society for ages with any sort of permanent or universally accepted answer remaining elusive. It is a constantly changing definition in which traits appropriate to the time are...

Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex serves as a foundation for the second wave of feminism, and later, the third wave. De Beauvoir believed that a social struggle was needed to solve society's problems, not a women's movement. Second-wave feminism...