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 As the first blog entry got exhausted. My second book |
| Evolution of Love Part 2 |
| Simone de Beauvoir sat at her desk in a Left Bank café, finishing a manuscript that would get her condemned by the Vatican, ridiculed by critics, and dismissed by the academic establishment. She knew it would. And she published it anyway. The book was called "The Second Sex." It opened with eleven words that would change the world: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Think about what that sentence means. Really think about it. It means that everything you've been told about what women "naturally" are—passive, emotional, nurturing, domestic—isn't nature at all. It's training. It's social conditioning. It's a role you've been taught to perform since before you could speak. And if it's taught, it can be unlearned. In 1949, this idea was explosive. The backlash was immediate and vicious. The Vatican placed "The Second Sex" on the Index of Forbidden Books—a list of texts Catholics were prohibited from reading under pain of mortal sin. The Church declared Beauvoir's work dangerous to faith and morals. French intellectuals—mostly men—attacked her mercilessly. Albert Camus criticized the book for what he saw as its harsh portrayal of men. François Mauriac, a Nobel Prize-winning author, reportedly said he'd learned "everything there was to know about [Beauvoir's] vagina"—a crude dismissal designed to reduce her intellectual work to her body. Academic reviewers threw her manuscript across rooms. Literally. They called her arguments "unscientific," "hysterical," "absurd." Critics ridiculed her appearance, her relationship with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, everything except her actual ideas. They couldn't engage with her ideas because her ideas were too threatening. What had Simone de Beauvoir done that was so dangerous? She'd noticed something simple but profound: throughout human history, man was treated as the default human being. In philosophy, religion, law, literature—man was the standard. The universal. The subject. Woman existed only in relation to him: as wife, mother, daughter, helper, temptress, saint, whore. Always secondary. Always defined by someone else. Always "the Other." She wrote: "He is the Subject, he is the Absolute—she is the Other." Beauvoir systematically examined every assumption about women—that they were naturally passive, naturally suited for domestic life, naturally less intelligent, naturally emotional, naturally meant to serve men. And she showed, with meticulous research and devastating logic, that none of it was natural. It was all constructed. Built. Maintained. Enforced by laws, customs, religions, stories, expectations, punishments both subtle and explicit. Biology wasn't destiny. Society was. And if society created these limitations, society could change them. This was revolutionary. Truly revolutionary. Because if womanhood wasn't fixed by nature, then the entire structure of Western civilization—built on the assumption that women were naturally inferior and meant to serve—collapsed like a house of cards. The book sold thousands of copies in its first week despite (or perhaps because of) the scandal. Readers lined up at bookstores. The first printing sold out immediately. The Vatican tried to make it disappear. They failed. Ideas, once released, cannot be caged. A teenager in a small Norwegian village read Beauvoir's words and suddenly saw her entire world differently. The limits she'd accepted as natural—that she'd marry young, have children, never pursue education or career—suddenly looked like choices, not fate. Students in Paris felt liberated by the possibility of defining themselves rather than accepting definitions imposed by family, church, and state. Women across continents—women who'd never read philosophy before, who'd been told they couldn't understand "serious" books—devoured "The Second Sex" and began questioning assumptions they'd never been taught to question. If being a woman was something you became rather than something you were, then you could become something different. Something you chose. Betty Friedan, an American journalist and housewife, read Beauvoir's work in the 1950s. She saw her own life reflected in those pages—the suffocating expectations, the sense of wasted potential, the problem that had no name. In 1963, Friedan published "The Feminine Mystique," which ignited second-wave feminism in America. She credited Beauvoir's work as foundational. The feminist movements of the 1960s and 70s built directly on Beauvoir's thesis: if gender roles are constructed, they can be deconstructed. If limitations are social, they can be changed. But here's what makes Beauvoir's story even more remarkable: she wasn't just theorizing. She was living it. She never married. She had a lifelong partnership with Jean-Paul Sartre, but refused to be legally bound to him. They had other relationships. They challenged every convention about how partnerships should work. She traveled the world alone. She wrote prolifically—novels, philosophy, memoirs, essays. She was politically active, supporting causes from Algerian independence to abortion rights. And she endured constant dismissal. Critics called her "just Sartre's girlfriend" despite the fact that she was a brilliant philosopher in her own right. They said she was "unfeminine," "unnatural," "damaged." She kept writing anyway. Because she understood something essential: women had been silenced for so long that simply speaking was an act of resistance. Writing was rebellion. Thinking for yourself was revolutionary. Simone de Beauvoir died in 1986 at age 78. By then, "The Second Sex" had been translated into more than forty languages. It was studied in universities worldwide—including at institutions that had once dismissed it as nonsense. The book the Vatican banned had become one of the most important philosophical texts of the twentieth century. Today, her influence is everywhere, even if we don't always recognize it. Every time a girl refuses to apologize for her ambition—that's Beauvoir. Every time a woman sits at the head of a table without shrinking—that's Beauvoir. Every time someone challenges the expectation that their destiny must match the limitations others assigned them—that's Beauvoir. Every time we ask "Why?" about a rule that seems natural but isn't—that's Beauvoir. She gave us permission to question everything. To define ourselves. To reject the roles we were handed and create our own. And she did it in 1949, when doing so meant being condemned, ridiculed, banned, and dismissed. She did it anyway. Because she understood that truth matters more than comfort. That freedom matters more than approval. That the right to define yourself matters more than fitting someone else's expectations. "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Eleven words. One revolutionary idea. You are not what biology dictates. You are not what society expects. You are not what your family demands or religion commands or culture assumes. You are what you choose to become. That becoming isn't easy. Beauvoir never said it would be. She knew the cost of defying expectations—she paid it every day of her life. But that becoming is possible. And it starts with a single question: Why? Why must I be this? Why must I accept this? Why must I perform this role, follow this script, live this life someone else wrote for me? Why? And once you ask that question—really ask it, not just perform asking it—everything changes. That's Simone de Beauvoir's gift to us. Not a blueprint. Not a set of rules to replace old rules. But permission to question. To think. To choose. To become. The Vatican tried to silence her. They failed. Critics tried to dismiss her. They failed. History tried to forget her. It couldn't. Because some ideas are too true to die. Some voices are too clear to silence. Some questions, once asked, echo forever. Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986): Philosopher, writer, revolutionary. The woman who asked "Why?" and changed everything. Her book was banned. Her ideas became unstoppable. And we're all freer because she refused to be silent. |
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