[4][5] One of Beauvoir's best-known and controversial books (banned by the Vatican), The Second Sex is regarded as a groundbreaking work of feminist philosophy,[6] and as the starting inspiration point of second-wave feminism.
[12] Beauvoir writes that motherhood left woman "riveted to her body", like an animal, and made it possible for men to dominate her and Nature.
[13] She describes man's gradual domination of women, starting with the statue of a female Great Goddess found in Susa, and eventually the opinion of ancient Greeks."
[17] Beauvoir describes, from the early fifteenth century, "great Italian ladies and courtesans", and singles out the Spaniard Teresa of Ávila as successfully raising "herself as high as a man".
[18] Through the nineteenth century, women's legal status remained unchanged, but individuals (like Marguerite de Navarre) excelled by writing and acting.
[19] Beauvoir finds fault with the Napoleonic Code, criticizes Auguste Comte and Honoré de Balzac,[20] and describes Pierre-Joseph Proudhon as an anti-feminist.
[26] Examining the work of Henry de Montherlant, D. H. Lawrence, Paul Claudel, André Breton, and Stendhal, Beauvoir writes that these "examples show that the great collective myths are reflected in each singular writer".
[29] "Feminine devotion is demanded as a duty by Montherlant and Lawrence; less arrogant, Claudel, Breton, and Stendhal admire it as a generous choice..."[30] For each of them, the ideal woman is the one who more exactly embodies the Other capable of revealing it to himself.
Montherlant seeks pure animality in women; Lawrence demands that she summarizes the female gender in her femininity; Claudel calls her soul-sister; Breton trusts the woman-child; Stendhal is looking for an equal.
[37] Presenting a child's life beginning with birth,[38] Beauvoir contrasts a girl's upbringing with a boy's, who at age 3 or 4 is told he is a "little man".
[45] She relates several ways that girls in their late teens accept their "femininity", which may include running away from home, fascination with the disgusting, following nature, or stealing.
[49] Beauvoir writes that "to ask two spouses bound by practical, social and moral ties to satisfy each other sexually for their whole lives is pure absurdity".
[61] Beauvoir writes that, "maternal sadomasochism creates guilt feelings for the daughter that will express themselves in sadomasochistic behavior toward her own children, without end",[62] and makes an appeal for socialist child rearing practices.
[64] She writes that "marriage, by frustrating women's erotic satisfaction, denies them the freedom and individuality of their feelings, drives them to adultery".
In contrast to prostitutes, hetaeras can gain recognition as an individual and if successful can aim higher and be publicly distinguished.
[69] To pass her time she might engage in useless "women's handiwork", watercolors, music or reading, or she might join charitable organizations.
[70] While a few rare women are committed to a cause and have an end in mind, Beauvoir concludes that "the highest form of freedom a woman-parasite can have is stoic defiance or skeptical irony".
The concept of harmony is one of the keys to the female universe, it implies the perfection of immobility, the immediate justification of each element in the light of the whole, and her passive participation in the totality.
In a harmonious way, women thus achieve what men seek in action,[74] as illustrated by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, and Katherine Mansfield's magnum opus.
[80] A few women have successfully reached a state of equality, and Beauvoir, in a footnote, singles out the example of Clara and Robert Schumann.
[83] Among writers, Beauvoir chooses only Emily Brontë, Woolf and ("sometimes") Mary Webb (and she mentions Colette and Mansfield) as among those who have tried to approach nature "in its inhuman freedom".
Beauvoir then says that women don't "challenge the human condition" and that in comparison to the few "greats", a woman comes out as "mediocre" and will continue at that level for quite some time.
[87] She concludes that, "to carry off this supreme victory, men and women must, among other things and beyond their natural differentiations, unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.
[91] In 1960, Beauvoir wrote that The Second Sex was an attempt to explain "why a woman's situation, still, even today, prevents her from exploring the world's basic problems.
[95] Philosopher Judith Butler argues that Beauvoir's formulation that "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" distinguishes the terms "sex" and "gender".
"[98] Bair also quotes British scholar C. B. Radford's view that Beauvoir was "guilty of painting women in her own colors" because The Second Sex is "primarily a middle-class document, so distorted by autobiographical influences that the individual problems of the writer herself may assume an exaggerated importance in her discussion of femininity.
The rise of second wave feminism in the United States spawned by Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, which was inspired by Simone de Beauvoir’s, The Second Sex, took significantly longer to reach and impact the lives of European women.
Social feminists then went further to claim that women “were fundamentally different from men in psychology and in physiology…”[103] and stressed gender differences rather than simply equality, demanding that women have the right of choice to stay home and raise a family, if they so desired, by issue of a financial allowance, advocated by the Catholic church, or to go into the workforce and have assistance with childcare through government mandated programs, such as nationally funded daycare facilities and parental leave.
[107] The result, published in November 2009,[108] has met with generally positive reviews from literary critics, who credit Borde and Malovany-Chevallier with having diligently restored the sections of the text missing from the Parshley edition, as well as correcting many of its mistakes.