The Second Sex

Shore’s own judgments and connections

Beauvoir's slogan, "Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity": facticity is the thrown, already-there situation nobody can wish away, though anyone can push against it.

Put simply Beauvoir's slogan: "Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity." "Facticity" is the situation we are already thrown into, which nobody can wish away, though anyone can push against it.

Beauvoir's diagnosis: man is treated as the default human, woman as the derivative; a man need never introduce himself as belonging to a sex, while she is "defined and differentiated with reference to man."

Otherness, for Beauvoir, is built into thought, "as primordial as consciousness itself": no subject simply is who it is; each finds itself only against an Other.

Put simply Beauvoir: the idea of an "Other" is as basic as consciousness itself. Nobody simply is who they are on their own; each of us finds ourselves only by setting ourselves against someone else.

Beauvoir finds Marxism too reductive on women: private property alone does not explain their oppression, and sex relations are not just a class struggle, even if economics and class matter.

Put simply Beauvoir: Marxism reduces too much to economics when it comes to women. Private property alone does not explain their oppression, and relations between the sexes are not just class struggle, though economics and class matter.

Beauvoir writes that woman must choose between affirming her transcendence and alienating herself as an object: she is no puppet of clashing drives, whatever Freud says.

Put simply Beauvoir: a woman must choose between asserting her power to go beyond her situation ("transcendence") and turning herself into an object. Whatever Freud says, she is not a puppet of conflicting drives.

The root of oppression, for Beauvoir, is the urge to escape oneself: we flee our own subjectivity by alienating ourselves in an Other.

Put simply Beauvoir: oppression comes, at root, from the urge to escape ourselves. We run from being a free self by losing ourselves in someone or something else, an "Other".

Kojève's Heidegger-steeped reading of Hegel, centered on master and slave, was, in Shore's view, a main conduit for Hegel into French existentialism, and into The Second Sex especially.

Put simply Shore: Kojève read Hegel through Heidegger, centering on Hegel's story of master and slave. In her view, that reading was a main route by which Hegel reached French existentialism, and The Second Sex above all.

Following Heidegger, Kojève replaces talk of nature or the world with le donné, the given: we are always already caught up in it, so no uninvolved standpoint exists.

Put simply Kojève, following Heidegger, speaks of "the given" instead of "nature" or "the world". We are always already caught up in it, so nobody can stand outside it as an uninvolved observer.

For Kojève, being human means negating the given, in Hegel's sense of overcoming: its concrete features still mark us, but we are no longer its captives.

Put simply Kojève: to be human is to "negate" what is given to us, in Hegel's sense of overcoming it. Its concrete features still mark us, but we are no longer trapped by them.

Man, for Kojève, is not a being but a nothingness, and that gap is exactly what leaves room for freedom: for acting, having a history, being an individual.

Put simply Kojève: a human being is not a fixed thing but a kind of "nothingness", and that gap is exactly what makes room for freedom: for acting, having a history, being an individual.

Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity builds existentialist ethics around resisting bad faith, mauvaise foi: the pull toward escaping one's own freedom and the load of being a subject.

Put simply Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity builds an existentialist ethics around resisting "bad faith": the pull to escape our own freedom and the burden of being a self who must choose.

Beauvoir takes Marx seriously but refuses his determinism: she wants room for human agency inside a Marxist story about where history is heading.

Put simply Beauvoir takes Marx seriously but rejects the idea that history is fixed in advance. She wants room for people to act freely within Marx's story of where history is going.

From Heidegger, Beauvoir takes the strong notion that human finitude must be accepted: we are mortal, moving toward death, and that is the context in which we make decisions.

For Beauvoir, ethics presupposes failure: dilemmas sometimes offer no clean option, and often every available choice harms innocent people. The task is to face that squarely.

For Beauvoir, creation starts from lack: a person is first of all a negativity, and only that absence opens room to make something positive, oneself included.

Put simply Beauvoir: creating starts from lack. A person begins as an absence, a "negativity", and only that emptiness leaves room to make something positive, oneself included.

For Beauvoir, values come from nowhere but human existence: there is no higher authority handing them down, so making them is our job alone.

Transcendence, a notion Beauvoir carries over from her religious childhood, becomes possible only by accepting freedom, finitude and responsibility in this life, not in any afterlife.

Put simply Beauvoir keeps a word from her religious childhood, "transcendence": going beyond. But for her it is possible only by accepting freedom, mortality and responsibility in this life, not in any afterlife.

Nobody chooses from a blank slate: a person decides what to become "on the basis of what he has been," starting inside a world and a past already given.

Put simply Beauvoir: nobody starts from a blank slate. A person decides what to become "on the basis of what he has been", inside a world and a past that are already given.

Beauvoir's slogan, "Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity": facticity is the thrown, already-there situation nobody can wish away, though anyone can push against it.

Put simply Beauvoir's slogan: "Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity." "Facticity" is the situation we are already thrown into, which nobody can wish away, though anyone can push against it.

Shore suspects that without her American trips, Chicago above all, Beauvoir would not have had the three-case comparison of Jews, Black Americans and women in quite the same way.

Put simply Shore suspects that without her trips to America, especially Chicago, Beauvoir might not have compared Jews, Black Americans and women as three cases of "the Other" in quite the same way.

The Camus character's monologue in Beauvoir's roman à clef captures, in Shore's view, the core of the postwar French debate over excusing Stalinism.

Put simply Shore: in Beauvoir's novel about her own circle, a speech by the character based on Camus captures the heart of the postwar French argument over whether to excuse Stalin's regime.

The Second Sex attacks patriarchy, not men: Beauvoir, who likes men, targets domination and oppressive conventions, habits, traditions and institutions, a distinction she insists on throughout.

Beauvoir holds women partly responsible for their own subordination: too often they shrink in bad faith from freedom's burden, remaining the inessential and accepting the object role.

Put simply Beauvoir: women are partly responsible for their own subordination. Too often, lying to themselves, they shy away from the burden of freedom, stay secondary to men and accept being treated as objects.

The opening of The Second Sex, Shore suggests, echoes Being and Time's hermeneutic circle: to be able even to ask what a woman is, one must already half-understand the answer.

Put simply Shore: The Second Sex opens with a move like Heidegger's "hermeneutic circle": to be able even to ask "what is a woman?," you must already half-understand the answer.

Beauvoir's diagnosis: man is treated as the default human, woman as the derivative; a man need never introduce himself as belonging to a sex, while she is "defined and differentiated with reference to man."

Otherness, for Beauvoir, is built into thought, "as primordial as consciousness itself": no subject simply is who it is; each finds itself only against an Other.

Put simply Beauvoir: the idea of an "Other" is as basic as consciousness itself. Nobody simply is who they are on their own; each of us finds ourselves only by setting ourselves against someone else.

Kojève, reading Hegel, holds that a person counts as genuinely human, to himself as much as to others, only through recognition by others, ultimately by all of them.

Put simply Kojève, reading Hegel: you count as fully human, even in your own eyes, only when others acknowledge you, ultimately all of them. Hegel's word for this is "recognition."

Beauvoir finds Marxism too reductive on women: private property alone does not explain their oppression, and sex relations are not just a class struggle, even if economics and class matter.

Put simply Beauvoir: Marxism reduces too much to economics when it comes to women. Private property alone does not explain their oppression, and relations between the sexes are not just class struggle, though economics and class matter.

Sexuality, for Beauvoir, cannot be absorbed into the social order: eroticism is "a revolt of the instant against time," and trying to channel or exploit it risks killing it.

Shore detects Bergson behind Beauvoir's view of sexuality and the erotic as a domain of freedom, living spontaneity that cannot be handled like inert matter.

Beauvoir finds Freud as reductive as Marx: psychoanalysis swaps existential choice for hardwired drives and involuntary repression, a determinism she cannot accept, however seriously she takes sexuality.

The prestige Freud grants the penis needs an existential explanation, Beauvoir argues: anxious about his freedom, the subject seeks himself in things, an alienation that lets him flee himself.

Put simply Beauvoir: the special importance Freud gives the penis needs explaining from human existence itself. Anxious about his freedom, a person looks for himself in things, an "alienation" that lets him escape himself.

Beauvoir writes that woman must choose between affirming her transcendence and alienating herself as an object: she is no puppet of clashing drives, whatever Freud says.

Put simply Beauvoir: a woman must choose between asserting her power to go beyond her situation ("transcendence") and turning herself into an object. Whatever Freud says, she is not a puppet of conflicting drives.

The root of oppression, for Beauvoir, is the urge to escape oneself: we flee our own subjectivity by alienating ourselves in an Other.

Put simply Beauvoir: oppression comes, at root, from the urge to escape ourselves. We run from being a free self by losing ourselves in someone or something else, an "Other".

Beauvoir's immanence and transcendence, as Shore reads them, work roughly like Sartre's in-itself and for-itself, with a somewhat different twist: immanence is bound up with facticity.

Put simply Shore: Beauvoir's "immanence" (staying stuck, passive) and "transcendence" (going beyond) work roughly like Sartre's fixed "in-itself" and free "for-itself." The twist: immanence is tied to the given facts of one's situation.

"All oppression creates a state of war": woman, shut in immanence, once tried to lock man in with her; now, Beauvoir says, she fights to get out, toward transcendence.

Put simply Beauvoir: "All oppression creates a state of war." Woman, shut into a passive, confined life ("immanence"), once tried to keep man shut in with her. Now she fights to get out, toward freedom to act.

Men suffer under patriarchy too: a man consumed with appearing male and superior play-acts, fears the women he is hostile to, and "would be liberated with their liberation."

Put simply Beauvoir: patriarchy harms men too. A man obsessed with seeming manly and superior is always acting a part, fears the women he is hostile to, and "would be liberated with their liberation."

Men dread the very liberation that women's freedom would bring them, on Beauvoir's account, because people shrink from seizing their own subjectivity.

The Second Sex, Shore observes, ends not in Hegelian reconciliation but in hope: reciprocal freedom is possible, never guaranteed, and only if people seize their own subjectivity.

Put simply Shore: The Second Sex ends not with Hegel's final reconciliation but with hope. Freedom on both sides is possible, never guaranteed, and only if people take charge of their own selves.

Conflict between the sexes can be overcome, Beauvoir thinks, if people take hold of their subjectivity: free, autonomous subjects could then recognize one another reciprocally, and with desire.

Put simply Beauvoir thinks conflict between the sexes can be overcome if people take charge of their own selves. Then free, independent people could acknowledge each other as equals, and with desire.

Freedom, for Beauvoir, is no zero-sum game: when women seize theirs, men gain too, though no teleology guarantees it.

Put simply Beauvoir: freedom is not a contest where one side's gain is the other's loss. When women take their freedom, men gain too, though nothing in history guarantees it.

Beauvoir meets Sartre while both prepare for the agrégation in philosophy.

Sartre proposes marriage; Beauvoir declines, and they keep an open but committed relationship.

Kojève's Paris seminar on the Phenomenology of Spirit.

She Came to Stay L'Invitée

Sartre, Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Aron and others found the journal Les Temps Modernes.

Introduction to the Reading of Hegel Introduction à la lecture de Hegel

The Ethics of Ambiguity Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté

The Second Sex Le Deuxième Sexe

The Second Sex published, serialized in Les Temps Modernes.

The Mandarins Les Mandarins

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée