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One is not born: but
becomes a woman.
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No biological, psychic
or economic destiny
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defines the image
of women in society:
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it is created by
all civilization.
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This thought is still current.
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Despite being from 1949.
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It was written by
Simone de Beauvoir,
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in a literary essay
called "The Second Sex".
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Philosopher, essayist, novelist,
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writer, journalist...
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Beauvoir was all of that.
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Today we know her mainly
because she developed
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some of the fundamental
ideas of contemporary feminism.
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But who was Beauvoir?
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What do we know about her life?
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She was born in 1908,
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in Paris,
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within a rich and
Catholic family.
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At the age of 15, she already
knew that she wanted to be a writer,
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and by then she
had lost her faith.
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She studied Philosophy at
the Sorbonne University, Paris.
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There she met several
intellectuals of the time,
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including Jean Paul Sartre:
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the thinker who would accompany
her for the rest of her life.
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In 1949 she published
the book "The Second Sex",
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and although she did not
consider herself a feminist yet,
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it became the basis
of the world struggle
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in favor of women.
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The Second World War had a
great impact on the life of the thinker.
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Beauvoir set aside
her apolitical stance
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and began her participation in
the political conflicts of the time,
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as we would say today.
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In the 1970s, for example,
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she created a movement in favor
of the decriminalization of abortion,
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called “Choisir”.
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"Choisir" means
"to chose" in French.
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She died in 1986;
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but she left
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in her novels,
essays and memoirs
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Reflections that continue to
have repercussions up to date.
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The intellectual
current embodying
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Simone de Beauvoir's
thought is existentialism.
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Or to be exact,
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atheistic existentialism,
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which has no
theological foundation.
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According to this
line of thought,
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the human being
is not predetermined
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by any philosophical
or moral doctrine.
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Life and the world have
no intrinsic meaning,
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but each one can give their own.
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Furthermore, you have
to give it a meaning,
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if you want to live
an authentic life.
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The human being
is free, and therefore,
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you are doomed to
constantly make choices.
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And, consequently, you are also
responsible for your own decisions.
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You decide what kind
of person you want to be,
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and what kind of
society you want to build,
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through your
choices and actions.
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No more looking for
excuses in tradition,
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in biology or whatever!
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Therefore, Simone
de Beauvoir drank
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from existentialism.
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Here experiences
were very present
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in the development of
her thought, and for this,
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she merged philosophical,
scientific thought and literary gift.
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Her contributions can be
summarized in five main ideas:
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1- In order to be free, you
need to want it and act for it.
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According to Simone de
Beauvoir, freedom is always
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located and established:
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it occurs in each individual,
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conditioned by a given context.
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So people don't have
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the same opportunities
to develop their freedom
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and carry out their
own life projects.
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For example, the
slave does not have
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the same opportunities
as the lord,
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and the woman does not
have those of the man either.
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Against this,
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human beings have to
build, expand and fight for
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their and others
freedom at all times.
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In Beauvoir's words,
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to reject freedom is to
renounce to humanity.
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2- Humanity is ambiguous.
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Contradiction is essential
to the human being.
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It is the animal that does
not want to be an animal.
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The human lives in the present,
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as between the
past and the future.
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It is an individual, but
also, part of a collective,
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since the human is formed
through relationships with the others.
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Beauvoir declares and
thinks about these duplicities,
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and seeks to bring up and gather
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the typical binary ideas
within European thought.
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Life and death,
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the body and the mind,
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nature and culture,
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the man and the woman.
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Beauvoir paved the
way to review and rethink
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those binary schemes.
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3- The woman is built.
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She discarded the
attempts to predefine
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the human being,
the man or the woman:
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be it from economics, be it from
psychology, be it from biology.
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Life, and therefore concepts,
are given meaning by acting,
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according to one's own
specific or social frameworks.
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The meaning comes
from outside, and inside.
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There is no natural,
intrinsic essence.
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There is no oppression
or natural privilege.
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And therefore, as those
power structures and positions
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are cultural, they are variable.
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You are not born
Jewish, black, Basque,
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you come to be.
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The process is done by society,
the context and one's own decisions.
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So happens with the woman.
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4- The philosophy of otherness.
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Beauvoir uses the
category of "otherness"
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to explain the role of women
in this masculine world.
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Oneself is not enough
to develop a free project.
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Human beings develop ourselves
through relationships with others.
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The relationship between oneself
and the other can be of two types.
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If the relationship
develops wide open,
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respect will be bidirectional,
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and it will enrich both.
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If, on the contrary,
comes from the otherness,
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like that of the owner and the
slave, there will be no respect.
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The Other will always be defined
in the relationship towards the One,
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and the Other will know the world
and themself through the One's eyes.
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The owner will be
the "who", the subject;
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the slave, on the other
hand, the "other", the object.
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In Beauvoir's words,
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that's what happens with women.
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The man is the subject, the
woman, instead, the otherness.
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We can find an example of
this in today's sports news.
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Men's sport is sport.
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Women's sport,
on the other hand,
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a lower category, the
otherness, women's sport.
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5- Diversity of thought:
differences in equality.
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Regarding diversity,
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Beauvoir
counterpointed two ideas:
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on the one hand, the
oppressive and imperialist logic:
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“equality in difference”.
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Some kind of theoretical
equality is given
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to those who are different,
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but as far as the actual conditions
are concerned, they are relegated.
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On the other hand, the thinker
claims the inversion of the phrase,
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becoming "difference
in equality".
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Starting from that idea,
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countering the differences,
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she developed a
thought-line that would take
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them into account as
equals, from the very root.
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In essence, that could be the
basis for current understanding
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of various
domination-relationships
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and the intersectional struggle.
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We still use those concepts
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to understand and
analyze the current world.
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That is the reason why
Simone de Beauvoir
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is among the most significant
thinkers of the 20th century.
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And also for her ability
to look to the future:
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"new carnal and affective relations
of which we cannot conceive
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will be born between the sexes."
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70 years later,
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Could we say that she was right?
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Or do we still need to develop
relationships that we cannot imagine?