Monday, March 16, 2020

Simone dE Beauvoir essays

Simone dE Beauvoir essays Reader Response: Simone De Beauvoir Women: Myth and Reality The essay Woman: Myth and Reality, written by Simone De Beauvoir, in my understanding, provides an excuse as to why men believe women are not equal to them. The concept of the Eternal Feminine myth has no basis or concrete grounds for existence. Women are said to be mysterious because they are not like man. Is this because we do not look like men? If so, then the reasoning would be considered ridiculous. I believe the anatomical structures of a woman and man hold no relevance as to why women were and still are treated as the subordinate sex. However, women too have helped the myth of the Eternal Feminine grow. In her essay Simone De Beauvoir mentions how women are seen as the Other human sex. In connection to that she also writes about the story of the master and the slave. The story is significant because it points out how both the slave and woman are called the Other, leaving man with the title master. The irony of the story is how man is the master, who rules over woman, who in turn has been lowered to the level of the slave. The sad thing is that women over the years have played into the myth of women and the Other. We, in essence, have dug our own hole and are now trying effortlessly to climb out and take our place as an equal being to man. In my own personal view, women are not entirely sure of what they want. Women have strived to prove they can live in a mans world but have held back because they are afraid of losing their femininity. This makes the myth only stronger. As Jacobus says, Women who accept the myth will manipulate men for their own purposes by trading on that myth, but in the process they will lose their individual nature (pp. 818). Accepting the Eternal Feminine myth will only cause women to lose themsel ...