Yes, a short text.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One time in grade eleven I almost read The Second Sex. Then I decided against it, partially because I didn’t want to read a huge book (yet I still borrowed it – I know), and also because I looked up the Parshley translation and found that it was widely criticized<\/a>. Attempting to read the original was not an option either, for a few different reasons (some of those reasons produced in hindsight). We’re reading it now, though, and despite any misgivings, it is very compelling.<\/p>\n From the first page, de Beauvoir manages to nail down (in my estimation) the paradox of both deifying and demonizing femininity (which Jill talked about last lecture). There’s this bit:<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0Is this attribute [femininity] something secreted by the ovaries?\u00a0\u00bb (xli)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It’s just too similar to this<\/a>, down to the word choice.<\/p>\n Also, since this text is so short, I’m rereading it now and picking up on things I didn’t notice before, like this:<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0A man would never get the notion of writing a book on the peculiar situation of the human male.\u00a0\u00bb (xliii)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course not, because \u00ab\u00a0[i]f a woman writes about herself, she\u2019s a narcissist. If a man does the same, he\u2019s describing the human condition<\/a>\u00ab\u00a0. (Okay, so I read that first on Tumblr, but Emily Gould says it herself – she expects her audience to be people on that site.) The idea of writing about men is just writing about people. A few days ago, my sister and I were watching TV and in reference to The Mentalist, she asked why so many shows were like that. I presumed she meant, and I answered, that there are a lot of shows featuring a quirky main male character with a supporting cast. I mean, honestly (if you use \u00ab\u00a0quirky\u00a0\u00bb loosely): How I Met your Mother. Community (sort of, sort of). House. Sherlock. The Big Bang Theory (also sort of). Need I go on? Those are just the shows that I’ve watched appreciable portions of (figured that I should keep the complaining about shows I don’t watch<\/a> to a minimum). There are more. Granted, there are also a lot of shows that feature a main female character with a supporting cast, but like it’s been said so many times before (and, forewarning, so much more elegantly), generally women are okay with reading\/watching entertainment about men, but generally men are not as okay with reading\/watching entertainment about women<\/a>.<\/p>\n De Beauvoir also says this:<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0The parallel drawn by Bebel between women and the proleteriat is valid in that neither ever formed a minority or a separate collective group of mankind.\u00a0\u00bb (xlvii)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To comment on the idea that \u00ab\u00a0women have never formed a separate collective group of mankind\u00a0\u00bb – I feel like I’ve been trying to find a way to express that and de Beauvoir just went and did it.<\/p>\n I took way too long to write this. Thanks for reading everyone.<\/p>\n [Edit for clarification about the femininity paradox.]<\/p>\n