Beauvoir's Argument - Essay Example

Assignment: In The Second Sex, Beauvoir sees romantic love as integral to women's subordination. Identify and critically discuss the main points of Beauvoir’s argument, considering how relevant her position is to romantic relationships in the twenty-first century Student’s Name: Student number: Name of the unit: Unit Code: Unit coordinator: Introduction The concept of love is viewed differently by the different genders. Love is a powerful, intricate affect that makes one to find joy in, and yearn for the own-dom of another in order to promote the wellbeing of the other (eds Sanger & Taylor 2013). On top of that romantic love has in it the aspect of eroticism (Friedman 2003). Simone de Beauvoir in her book, Second Sex, postulates that love betokens two different things for woman and man (ed. Evans 1998). This essay intends to look at the views of philosopher Simone de Beauvoir on romantic love especially on how the same romantic love has played a role in the subordination of women. The essay will also look at the relevance of those views on the position of romantic relationships in the twenty-first century. Marriage is occasioned by romantic love. In the societal setting, be it traditional or modern, a woman is expected to marry a man who is a bit higher than her in the social parameters such as being taller, richer, older, smarter than her. This means that whatever the man is bringing into the marriage table is greater than what the woman contributes to the marriage table. In essence, there is an imbalance on what each contributes to the marriage. And because of this there is a high likelihood that the man can easily overrule the woman in case of a disagreement (Friedman 2003). It is on this platform that Simone de Beauvoir advances her views on romantic love. She posits that romantic love presents morally destroying incommensurableness for women. In her book, The Second Sex, Beauvoir argues that in the process of socialization men and women are taught to engage in romantic love asymmetrically in that the woman submits to the plans, projects and identity of the man and in so doing she is denied the opportunity to become her own self. She instead has to give in to the subjective male’s identification (Scarth 2004). Beauvoir argues that a woman who is in love attempts to remove anything that differentiates her from the male partner. She struggles to fit into the life of the man. In her own words, “she longs for her own complete destruction and for ecstatic union and identification with him. She submits to him as if to a god and seeks to be another incarnation of her loved one, his reflection, his double. She seeks to be him” (Friedman 2003, p. 127). Beauvoir also agrees to the fact that women to a certain extent also contribute to their self-destruction by willingly allowing men to dominate them in the name of romantic love. Beauvoir asserts that such notions as immanence and transcendence, life and spirit and historical situations have condemned the woman to enslavement and have to greater extent embolden male subjectivity and diminish female subjectivity (Theriault 2007). To a much more extent the historical situation has influenced how men and women perceive love. Beauvoir describes the situations which shape the perceptions of love by asserting that men find themselves in a love situation that allows the identification of men as an autonomous identity. He enjoys transcendence by virtue of how he relates to the world through his undertakings and projects. On the other hand, she posits that women in love find themselves in a situation where they are required to give up their all for the benefit of the man who in this case of romantic love is a sovereign identity (Theriault 2007). Women are not economically and socially endowed as men and hence symbolize immanence while men because of their social and economic endowments symbolize pure transcendence (Scarth 2004). In a nutshell the situation determines the way how one particularly women perceive love. And from the situations described above men and women find themselves in situations that have reduced women to subordinates and elevated men to being masters. In romantic relationships, women tend to look forward to marriage which in turns promises safety for her home life. In so doing, she avoids the consequences which she deems dangerous of her own liberty. This is what Beauvoir termed as “the dream of annihilation”. The woman renounces her own transcendence and relinquishes her own likes, preferences, projects and desires as a way of saving herself (Theriault 2007). Beauvoir vividly brings out this aspect in her own words “The woman in love tries to see with his eyes; she reads the books he reads, prefers the pictures and music he prefers; she is interested only in the landscape she sees with him, in the ideas that come from him; she adopts his friendships, enmities, his opinions; when she questions herself, it is his reply she tries to hear; she wants to have in her lungs the air he has already breathed; the fruits and flowers that do not come from his hands have no taste and fragrance. She uses his words, mimics his gestures, acquires his eccentricities and his tics” (Theriault 2007, p. 34). The aspects of life and spirit have relegated women into the state of oblivion. The women live their lives subscribing to life and not to spirit whereas the life of men orientates towards spirit. Since women subscribe to life, they are more concerned with activities that sustain life such as child bearing, child care and food preparation. There is no transcendence when one is orientated towards life. This means that the importance of the individual does not go beyond of that biological necessity (Theriault 2007). The woman is relegated to a biological asset that is only for procreation. She abandons the life of spirit where one goes beyond biological level of necessity by adventuring, experimenting, open to the future and creating and re-inventing one’s self (Theriault 2007). Beauvoir also argues that women have not only been made objects in the romantic love circle by deterring social relations and structures of domination and subordination inherent in the society but also by their own making. They have willingly accepted the world the way it has been constructed by men for them. In fact, they have gone an extra mile in modifying themselves into creatures that men want them to be. They embrace femininity and turn it into a project that they should bring into fruition. Instead of aiming at achieving transcendence for themselves, they make choices that close their chances of having a shot at transcendence (Leighton 1975). This is summarised by Beauvoir in her words “in their dreams of romantic love, in their own narcissistic pre-occupation with their appearances, in their various rejections of rationality, women turn themselves into objects and so systematically give up their claim to be regarded as autonomous subjects” (ed. Evans 1998, p. 138). Romantic love has played an integral role as far as the subordination of women is concerned but it is also worth to note that women to a certain extent have brought this upon themselves because they have made choices to be objects instead of subjects in a romantic relationship (Holveck 2002). They have found it easier to accept complicity rather than resisting it. The feminine values that they struggle so much to uphold and inculcate in themselves does not even originate from themselves. These values have been constructed for them by men. Men have also constructed for themselves masculine values that set them up as transcendent subjects. Women have also entertained this since they haven’t come up with their own values that bring them out as transcendent beings (ed. Evans 1998). The views expressed by Simone de Beauvoir in her book, The Second Sex, in 1949 have afforded women the level of transcendence that they enjoy now in the twenty first century. It is her views that formed the platform from which women have catapulted themselves to being regarded as subjects in the domain of romantic love. The views of Beauvoir especially those expressed in her book, The Second Sex, have informed and inspired most feminist movements in women standing up and claiming their subjectivity (Theriault 2007). This has also spilled over from romantic love to representations in the vital institutions of government by women where governments have adopted gender mainstreaming in work places in attempts to make sure that there is equal representation by both men and women in work positions. Movements that were initiated by Beauvoir’s views have changed the way women are viewed and imaged. This led to the women mobilising themselves in the 1960s and 1970s to protest marginalisation by the patriarchal society during the Vietnam War. These views also saw the formation of Women’s Liberation Movement as the sexual revolution was under way in the Western world (Theriault 2007). This sexual revolution has had a positive impact in that it has led to the increase in the attainment of sexual freedom by women (Theriault 2007). Beauvoir’s views are very relevant even in this era since some societies subscribe to the model of romantic love where men enjoy transcendence and women immanence. Her observations are shedding light on women in such societies to take that leap towards social freedom. Theriault (2007) propounded the idea that such revelations by Beauvoir pushed women with feminine consciousness to join together and resist the impediments patriarchal society had imposed on them. This has also gone a long way in making feminist writers to be more open in discussing the differences of a social nature that exist between men and women and which have relegated women to being objects in love rather than subjects. It is relevant in that it has seen women take up roles that were initially thought that they could only be carried out by women like being in charge of their families in single parenting, more involved in technological developments and many more. Conclusion According to Beauvoir, romantic love is damaging to women as in romantic love the women is required to abandon her interests, tastes and preferences and projects as their attention is diverted from the wider political arena and confined to home life. She asserts that women have been reduced to objects in romantic love and men to subjects. Women are required to submit to their ‘masters’ who in this case are men. She points out that the patriarchal society views men as being transcendence and women as immanence. She separates historical, biological and cultural factors that have reduced women to a second and lesser sex hence the name The Second Sex. References Evans, R (ed.) 1998, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex: New interdisciplinary essays, Manchester University Press, Manchester. Friedman, M 2003, Autonomy, Gender, Politics, Oxford University Press, New York. Holveck, E 2002, Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy of lived experience: Literature and metaphysics, Rowman &Littlefield Publishers Inc., Maryland. Leighton, J 1975, Simone de Beauvoir on woman, Associated University Press Inc., New Jersey. Sanger, T & Taylor, Y (eds) 2013, Mapping intimacies: Relations, exchange, affects, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire. Scarth, F 2004, The other within: Ethics, politics and the body, Rowman &Littlefield Publishers Inc., Maryland. Theriault, AD 2007, Love and annihilation: Beauvoir and the future of romantic love, Mcmaster University Press, Ontario. Read More