Editing Simone de Beauvoir (section)

==''The Second Sex''==
[[File:Le deuxième sexe.jpg|thumb|''[[The Second Sex]]'']]''[[The Second Sex]]'', first published in 1949 in French as ''Le Deuxième Sexe'', turns the existentialist mantra that ''[[existence precedes essence]]'' into a feminist one: "One is not born but becomes a woman" (French: "On ne naît pas femme, on le devient").<ref>Beauvoir, ''The Second Sex'', 267.</ref> With this famous phrase, Beauvoir first articulated what has come to be known as the [[sex-gender distinction]], that is, the distinction between biological sex and the social and historical construction of gender and its attendant stereotypes.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mikkola |first=Mari |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/feminism-gender/ |title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=3 January 2018 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |chapter=Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender |via=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> Beauvoir argues that "the fundamental source of women's oppression is its [femininity's] historical and social construction as the quintessential" Other.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bergoffen |first=Debra |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/beauvoir/ |title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=2015 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Fall 2015}}</ref>

Beauvoir defines women as the "second sex" because women are defined as inferior to men. She pointed out that [[Aristotle]] argued women are "female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities", while [[Thomas Aquinas]] referred to women as "imperfect men" and the "incidental" being.<ref name="marxists.org">{{cite web |last=Beauvoir |first=Simone de |title=Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex, Woman as Other 1949 |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/introduction.htm |website=marxists.org}}</ref> She quotes "In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beauvoir |first=Simone |title=The Second Sex}}</ref>

Beauvoir asserted that women are as capable of choice as men, and thus can choose to elevate themselves, moving beyond the "[[immanence]]" to which they were previously resigned and reaching "[[transcendence (philosophy)|transcendence]]", a position in which one takes responsibility for oneself and the world, where one chooses one's freedom.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Beauvoir, Simone de |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/907794335 |title=The second sex |date=2 March 2015 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-0-09-959573-1 |oclc=907794335}}</ref>

Chapters of ''The Second Sex'' were originally published in ''Les Temps modernes'',<ref>Appignanesi 2005, p. 82</ref> in June 1949. The second volume came a few months after the first in France.<ref>Appignanesi 2005, p. 89</ref> It was published soon after in America due to the quick translation by [[Howard Parshley]], as prompted by [[Blanche Knopf]], wife of publisher [[Alfred A. Knopf Sr.|Alfred A. Knopf]]. Because Parshley had only a basic familiarity with the French language, and a minimal understanding of philosophy (he was a professor of biology at [[Smith College]]), much of Beauvoir's book was mistranslated or inappropriately cut, distorting her intended message.<ref name="Moi, Toril 2002">Moi, Toril "While We Wait: The English Translation of 'The Second Sex'" in ''Signs'' 27(4) (Summer, 2002), pp. 1005–35.</ref> For years, Knopf prevented the introduction of a more accurate retranslation of Beauvoir's work, declining all proposals despite the efforts of existentialist scholars.<ref name="Moi, Toril 2002" />

Only in 2009 was there a second translation, to mark the 60th anniversary of the original publication. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier produced the first integral translation in 2010, reinstating a third of the original work.<ref>{{cite web |title=Review: The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-the-second-sex-by-simone-de-beauvoir/article1615327 |via=The Globe and Mail}}</ref>

In the chapter "Woman: Myth and Reality" of ''The Second Sex'',<ref>Beauvoir, Simone de. "Woman: Myth and Reality".<br />** in Jacobus, Lee A. (ed.). ''A World of Ideas''. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2006. 780–95.<br />** in Prince, Althea, and Susan Silva Wayne. ''Feminisms and Womanisms: A Women's Studies Reader''. Women's Press, Toronto 2004 p.&nbsp;59–65.</ref> Beauvoir argued that men had made women the "Other" in society by the application of a false aura of "mystery" around them. She argued that men used this as an excuse not to understand women or their problems and not to help them, and that this stereotyping was always done in societies by the group higher in the hierarchy to the group lower in the hierarchy. She wrote that a similar kind of oppression by hierarchy also happened in other categories of identity, such as race, class, and religion, but she claimed that it was nowhere more true than with gender in which men stereotyped women and used it as an excuse to organize society into a [[patriarchy]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2021}}

Despite her contributions to the feminist movement, especially the French women's liberation movement, and her beliefs in women's economic independence and equal education, Beauvoir was initially reluctant to call herself a feminist.<ref name="oxfordreference.com" /> However, after observing the resurgence of the feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Beauvoir stated she no longer believed a [[Revolutionary socialism|socialist revolution]] to be enough to bring about women's liberation. She publicly declared herself a feminist in 1972 in an interview with ''[[Le Nouvel Observateur]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fallaize |first=Elizabeth |title=Simone de Beauvoir: A critical reader |publisher=Routledge |year=1998 |isbn=978-0415147033 |edition=Digital print |location=London |page=6}}</ref>

In 2018, the manuscript pages of ''Le Deuxième Sexe'' were published.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Christensen |first1=Lauren |date=29 June 2018 |title=Revisiting Simone de Beauvoir's ''The Second Sex'' as a Work in Progress |language=en |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/books/review/simone-de-beauvoir-second-sex-manuscript.html |access-date=2018-07-26}}</ref>