Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex - Translation Note: Parshley translates "la realité humaine" as human nature instead of human reality. de Beauvoir rejects the notion of a stable human nature or essence. For an online version of the Introduction and the Conclusion see http://marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/debeauv.htm)
A. Reading and Discussion Guide for the Introduction
What alternative answers does de Beauvoir discuss to the question, "What is a woman?"?
How does she describe the category of the Other? How do men define women?
Why do women submit to being defined as Other? How are they different from other Others such as blacks, Jews or the Proletariat according to de Beauvoir?
How is the relationship of man and woman a master-slave relation according to de Beauvoir?
How did the subjection of women begin and persist? What explanations are false and why? How do men profit from sexual dualism according to de Beauvoir?
Why does de Beauvoir find the arguments of feminists suspicious?
How does de Beauvoir define her own position?
B. Reading and Discussion Guide for the Conclusion
How do the concepts of facticity, transcendance, 'maleness' and 'femaleness', and equality figure into the conclusion?
What does it mean to be a "woman" according to the conclusion?
How are the introduction and conclusion related to one another?