In the conclusion to The Second Sex de Beauvoir (dB) takes a starkly analytical stance on the romantic relationships between men and women. She views them not as uniting of two souls, in the Shakespearean star crossed lovers sense, but as an unbalanced equation more concerned with profit than emotion. she describes the man's investment in a relationship as "doing something useful for his career...cultivating relations, entertaining himself"(758). she also asserts that for men "time is a positive asset"(758). The woman's stake in the relationship is quite different. She "be contrast" sees time as a "burden she aspires to get rid of; she considers it a benefit to succeed in killing time"(758). de Beauvoir argues that these differences in how men and women approach relationships leads to the mans presence being "pure profit"(758) and the woman participation being primarily designed "to 'dispose of all this excess time which she has on her hands"(758).
I found dB's conclusions to be doubly disturbing. First they ignore the innate human need to socialize. I found it strange that she was so obsessed with explaining biological "facticity" in the beginning of the book but failed to recognize it here. It is a universally accepted fact that humans are social creatures who absolutely need contact with people of both sexes for mental and social development. dB'd analysis completely ignored the emotional benefit that both participants in the relationship feel from being involved with the other person, regardless of whether the basis for that involvement is flawed or disingenuous. I myself am quite inclined to materialist interpretations of historical and social phenomenon but dB's assessment is far too materialist. Her view degrades attraction from a spiritually or even biologically based emotion to a cold economic calculation of supply and demand, profit and loss. In doing this she grossly oversimplifies the human psyche.
On a related note to the above point is the way in which many of dB's arguments assume homogeneity in human reactions. In her assessments of men's view of femininity (21), women's view of biological facticity (39), and on both men and women's views of relationships (758) dB makes massive assumptions about people's inner thoughts and feelings. such assumptions are deeply flawed. They are built upon the premise that all people react to the a certain physical reality with the same psychology. I simply don't buy that assertion. Take a different physical reality, such as a broken leg, and the same principles do not apply. Three people could each view their broken leg differently; one thankful they weren't hurt worse the other two bemoaning their cruel misfortune.
In conclusion, while many of dB's insights are genuinely useful in understanding some gender interactions she applies them too broadly and with little regard for individual differences.
I agree with you that, in reality, humans are more diverse than the examples given by Simone de Beauvoir.
ReplyDeleteThe innate human need to socialize is not necessarily ignored in The Second Sex, but the socializing that men and women do is insufficient, and consists of much frustration between the sexes, because of the gender roles they were brought up with. However, it is very difficult to believe that all men and women face these problems, and act in these ways.
I agree! It seems to me that de Beauvoir especially underestimates the male mindset of love. She generalizes that romantic relationships are secondary to men and primary to women when, in actuality, these situations are sometimes reversed. In trying to defend women from unfair judgment, she ends up laying unfair judgment upon the opposite sex, claiming that men don't value the attachment that human nature inherently needs.
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