@00444984 Professor Ursula Theory, Text, Writing- Level 7 January 2016 Simon de Beauvoir In France 1949, Simone de Beauvoir published "The Second Sex" which is considered one of the most fundamental publications that discussed the status of women in the modern era. She believed that women suffer from oppression that is practiced upon them by a patriarchal society. According to Beauvoir, "One is not born, but rather becomes a woman" (293). Women are artificially socially manufactured by men. There is no biological, psychological or economic evidence that identifies a woman. Furthermore, there is no scientific evidence that shows how a woman should act and react. A female becomes a woman based on how society defines a her. "The word sex for what Beauvoir says one is born with, and the word gender for what Beauvoir describes as what one becomes" (Parker 159). In order to discuss The Other Sex, and Beauvoir's statement, fundamental questions need to be explained and answered. Those question are how the human mind was structured to understand the difference between sex and gender. Another question that Beauvoir raised is why woman are considered to be the 'other'? This research will discuss many literary and philosophical concepts such as: existentialism, sex and gender, situated freedom, patriarchal ideology, the other and the idea of passive and active. "Feminist theory usually sees gender as constructed product of culture rather than the natural, enviable product of biology and anatomy" (Parker 159). The short story "Mannequin" by Jean Rhys explains how the protagonist Anna is seen as a constructed product or in other words how Anna is a victim of patriarchal programming of men. Anna fought to be a model and when getting this position, she acknowledged that she is a man's' creation where: "In the mannequins' dressing-room she spent a shy hour making up her face-in an extraordinary and distinctive atmosphere of slimness and beauty; white arms and faces vivid with rouge; raucous voices and the smell of cosmetics; silken lingerie… a depressing room, taken by itself, bare and cold, a very inadequate conservatory for these human flowers" (Rhys 150). This extract explains how woman are viewed as ill-suited, and to be fit to society they need to be submissive to men. Men wanted woman to wear makeup and convinced them that it is the way to be "good". And when wearing makeup and concerning too much on their looks, men attack woman claiming that women issues and concerns are trivial thus claiming women as passive objects. Basically, beauty is defined from the point of view of men. Men construct the rules of society and "Women measure themselves and each other according to socially constructed and variable standards of beauty, behavior, activity, and sexuality" (Scholz 69). Today, women are trying to change the stereotype that man have reinforced upon them. Patriarchal programming created certain myths about woman. One of t.

1. @00444984
Professor Ursula
Theory, Text, Writing- Level 7
January 2016
Simon de Beauvoir
In France 1949, Simone de Beauvoir published "The
Second Sex" which is considered one of the most fundamental
publications that discussed the status of women in the modern
era. She believed that women suffer from oppression that is
practiced upon them by a patriarchal society. According to
Beauvoir, "One is not born, but rather becomes a woman" (293).
Women are artificially socially manufactured by men. There is
no biological, psychological or economic evidence that
identifies a woman. Furthermore, there is no scientific evidence
that shows how a woman should act and react. A female
becomes a woman based on how society defines a her. "The
word sex for what Beauvoir says one is born with, and the word
gender for what Beauvoir describes as what one becomes"
(Parker 159).
In order to discuss The Other Sex, and Beauvoir's
statement, fundamental questions need to be explained and
answered. Those question are how the human mind was
structured to understand the difference between sex and gender.
Another question that Beauvoir raised is why woman are
considered to be the 'other'? This research will discuss many
literary and philosophical concepts such as: existentialism, sex
and gender, situated freedom, patriarchal ideology, the other
and the idea of passive and active.
"Feminist theory usually sees gender as constructed product of
culture rather than the natural, enviable product of biology and
anatomy" (Parker 159). The short story "Mannequin" by Jean
Rhys explains how the protagonist Anna is seen as a constructed
product or in other words how Anna is a victim of patriarchal

2. programming of men. Anna fought to be a model and when
getting this position, she acknowledged that she is a man's'
creation where:
"In the mannequins' dressing-room she spent a shy hour making
up her face-in an extraordinary and distinctive atmosphere of
slimness and beauty; white arms and faces vivid with rouge;
raucous voices and the smell of cosmetics; silken lingerie… a
depressing room, taken by itself, bare and cold, a very
inadequate conservatory for these human flowers" (Rhys 150).
This extract explains how woman are viewed as ill-suited, and
to be fit to society they need to be submissive to men. Men
wanted woman to wear makeup and convinced them that it is the
way to be "good". And when wearing makeup and concerning
too much on their looks, men attack woman claiming that
women issues and concerns are trivial thus claiming women as
passive objects. Basically, beauty is defined from the point of
view of men. Men construct the rules of society and "Women
measure themselves and each other according to socially
constructed and variable standards of beauty, behavior, activity,
and sexuality" (Scholz 69). Today, women are trying to change
the stereotype that man have reinforced upon them.
Patriarchal programming created certain myths about
woman. One of the myths is the myth of motherhood. To men,
women should "look great at the office and over the breakfast
table, attend to all her children's needs, and please her husband
in bed" (Tyson 91). To men, a woman should be " modest,
unassuming, self-scarifying, and nurturing. She has no needs of
her own, for she is completely satisfied by serving her family"
(Tyson 90 ). Men define motherhood as if it is natural process
where it is the job of the woman to raise children. Beauvoir
argues, "forced motherhood results in bringing miserable
children into the world, children whose parents cannot feed
them, who become victims of public assistance or 'martyr
children' " (538). Saying that, woman does not necessarily have
a maternal instinct. Even if woman were not forced to give
birth, they too can leave their children to death, for example "a

3. mother refused to call a doctor for her daughter in the name of
unconditional submission to God's will" (538). Therefore, not
all mothers have this maternal instinct, mothers differ from one
another. This myth of motherhood is a false illusion that men
gave in order to control woman and make them surrender under
their rule. Men label woman as unfulfilled if they did not wish
to be mothers. On the other hand, "research indicates that…the
concept of maternal instinct has no support as a biologically
based explanation for care giving, and both men and women
have similar emotions related to nurturing" (Brannon 214).
Beauvoir argues that life is a choice, what we choose to be
we become. She also believes that one is born free from all
societal, religious, political and economic restrictions and have
the right to choice and decide as she said, " no biological,
psychical or economic destiny defines the figure that human
female takes on in society"(293). This philosophical doctrine
that Beauvoir believed in is called existentialism,
"A philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the
existence of the individual person as a free and responsible
agent determining their own development through acts of
the will" (Oxford Dictionary). To exist means to have the
possibility of taking decisions and selecting options without any
limitations reinforced upon us. It means having an independent
mind and choosing without fear. Existentialism means
respecting other minds and ideas. Therefore, to exist on earth
means to liberate from societal restrictions.
There are two kinds of people in this world, those who
blindly accept reality and try to fit in this world and those who
are ready to build their own reality. It is a matter of choice,
either taking control of your mind or letting your mind to
control you. When explaining existentialism Kierkegaard said:
"For the purpose of becoming (and it is the task of the self
freely to become itself) possibility and necessity are equally
essential just as infinitude and finitude" (Kierkegaard 35).
Every human should be aware of himself and should know how

4. to define himself. To define one's self, it is easier to compare it
to its opposite. The opposite of a male is a female. The opposite
of the subject is the object. The opposite of the superior is
inferior. Beauvoir states, " Woman does not think of herself
without a man… she determines and differentiates herself in
relation to man, and he does not in relation to her, she is the
inessential in front of the essential. He is the Subject; he is the
Absolute. She is the other" (6). Comparing to explain does not
make one term lesser in value than the other while evaluating
does. When using the terms 'women' and 'men' here we are
comparing to clarify. Two opposite terms do not mean that one
is better than the other; when comparing and contrasting there
are both similarities and differences. The differences among two
things is what makes uniqueness. Yet, saying that a woman is
the opposite of a man is partly true but what is a woman? A
woman could not be everything a man is not! A woman could
not be a man's shadow or his negative. To woman being a
feminist "means that it is best for woman to choose how to be
women, whether that means going to college and working
outside the home or working in the home and raise children,
whether it means heterosexual desire or lesbian, driving truck or
baking cookies, wearing a pink dress or wearing jeans, studying
physics or French, or any combination of these" (Parker 159-
60). Those women who accept defining themselves by
themselves are the ones who are able to create their own reality.
Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, explained
finitude as those people who " use their talents, accumulate
money, carry on worldly affairs, calculate shrewdly, etc., are
perhaps mentioned in history, but themselves they are not;
spiritually understood, they have no self, no self for whose sake
they could venture everything, no self before God -- however
selfish they may be for all that. " (Kierkegaard 35). This could
be related to women who believe that they are predestined in a
certain position and that reality is the final truth. Woman in the
finitude believe that everything has a cause including every
single act whether good or bad. Everything that we are and that

5. happens to us is fate, meaning that if women were rated in a
certain way this is because they are predestined to be so.
Women are predestined to cook, raise the children, clean the
house, and please the entire family. When doing those tasks,
they forget themselves and who they are and as a result has no
self. What we believe in is created by us, humans therefore all
humans, both males and females have no predetermined essence.
Men are the ones who benefit from the finitude for they like
women to be kept that way under societal restrictions.
Kierkegaard explained infinitude as "if possibility outruns
necessity, the self runs away from itself, so that it has no
necessity where to it is bound to return -- then this is the
despair of possibility. but does not budge from the spot, nor get
to any spot " (Kierkegaard 36). Those kinds of people are the
ones who try to find their essence but eventually gain many
experiences thus not a final self. This implies for women more
than men for women try to explain themselves through many
experiences and also through the theory feminism. Unlike the
finite, in the infinite people have free will to choose their
position in life. In the end, Possibility and necessity are equally
important, for a person to define himself first s/he must undergo
many experiences and second the self should be determined by
the world. Saying that, her statement "One is not born, but
rather becomes a woman" means gender does not matter, what
matters is what the society makes of you or how you create your
own gender and most importantly self. It is all a matter of
choice; you are the one who choose to be in the finitude or the
infinitude position.
Furthermore, "Existentialist characteristically deny the
validity of supposedly overarching, objective or pre-existing
structures that might lend antecedent meaning to human
experience. In itself, human experience is radically
meaningless, and it acquires meaning and value only through
subjective acts of choice and decision" (Stewart 166). Men
view 'subjectivity' as non-valid judgments because it interferes
with one's own decisions. They prefer being objective; being

6. objective means getting rid of our emotions, memories, heritage
and ethics, and instead focusing on the theme of the subject
itself. Being objective implies making judgments without being
narrowed for a specific opinion. To men, judgments is based on
scientific evidence or looking at facts. Men failed to recognize
that experience and the self are inseparable, for what we
interpret is based on how we think. Similarly, Sartre believes
that 'existence precedes essence'. After human beings were born
to this planet then everything else was put into place. In other
words, humans are the ones who build and shape the world and
not vice versa. Sartre coined two words "in-itself" and "for-
itself". Being "in-itself" means "consciousness must be for
Sartre nothing but a revealing intuition of things, the being of
which everywhere"(Sartre 24). It is as accepting everything as it
is plus being unaware of the self. Being "For-itself" is the
opposite of being "in-itself", it is when a person become
conscious of the unconscious. Women are being 'for-itself'
when men label them as being 'in-itself'.
Men assure that woman are subjective and men are
objective when thinking. On the other hand, they claim that
women are the 'objects' and they are the 'subjects'. By doing
that they are imposing their opinions on woman, back again to
the idea of patriarchal ideology. But, how could humans define
themselves as objects and subjects? How is it possible for a
person to label himself as superior than others? How could a
person claims that he is objective if most of what we learn
comes from subjective experience? Can reality be independent
without referring back to subjective experiences? To answer
these questions first we need to categorize reality. According to
Steven Joshua, reality is divided into five parts:
"Absolute- Logic of God (Truth Laws of creation)
Actual- Logic of physical (Truths, laws of science and math) the
metaphysical (The correction and the mirror)
Individual- Logic of our being and is a combination of all of the
above and below (truthslaws of being)
Consensual- Logic of agreement (truths laws of man)

7. Imaginary: Logic of illogic (truthslaws of the unreal)" (Joshua
112).
The Absolute and Actual realities as Joshua
explains are 'independent' and can 'stand-alone'. He further
explains that the Individual, Consensual, and Imaginary are
'dependent' and 'cannot stand alone'. The Consensual and the
Imaginary "are derived from the people that have influenced us,
who and where we hang out, with group beliefs, our choices,
etc.". Men assert that when affirming that women are the other
or the subject, that is because they view themselves in the
Absolute and Actual position. Their Absolute position would be
supported by the story of Adam and Eve, where Eve attracted
Adam to eat from the forbidden tree therefore both were put out
from the Garden of Eden. As a result, because of Eve all woman
today bear children with pain "woman retain less calcium salt
and eliminate it during menstruation and pregnancy; the ovaries
seem to have a catabolic action concerning calcium; this
instability leads to disorders in the ovaries and in the thyroid…"
(Beauvoir 44). Their Actual position would be proofed by the
biological data in the story of Adam and Eve too, "Genesis story
symbolizes, where Eve appears as drawn from Adam's
'supernumerary' bone… Humanity is a male, and man defines
woman, not in herself, but in relation to himself…" (Behavior
5). Moreover, as Beauvoir explains women "has much less
muscular force; about two-thirds that of man; she has less
respiratory capacity…women are less robust, more apt to be
anemic" (Beauvoir 44).
While men think that they are in the Absolute and
Actual position, they are really in the Consensual and Imaginary
position. They are in the Consensual position because all agree
during pregnancy, women become heavy to hunt, fish, or
participate in many activities. And after giving birth women sat
at home to take care of the children, ''Women's absurd fertility
kept her from participating actively in the growth of these
resources. … so it was man who controlled balance between
reproduction and production'' (Beauvoir 74). This fact is agreed

8. upon both men and woman. Nevertheless, this is not a stuffiest
reason to prove that woman are weak and male should be
dominating, it is just how the biological body works. Joshua
explains that "The problem with Consensual reality is that if
someone disagrees the reality falls apart. That person could be
considered a threat to the Consensual reality" (Joshua 110).
True that women need help when pregnant or after birth but that
help does not necessarily have to come out from men! Thus,
how men programmed woman in needing them is nothing but a
false reality.
The last part of reality is the Imaginary or the logic
of the illogic, " includes fiction books, deception, politics,
thoughts, dreams, imagination and a significant amount of
entertainment. In all of these, there is some form of actuality
involved to sustain it. The actualities can be put together in
inaccurate sequences or they can be assembled to give the
illusion of one thing when it is really another" (Joshua 111). It
is where men create myths to hold power over woman. It is
where men create false realities and believe them as true to
sustain their position, "and even when the ovum was recognized
as an active principle, men continued to pit its inertia against
the agility of the sperm" (Beauvoir 26). Men are kept in that
position not because of the power they hold but because women
allow them to. Woman are always searching for that perfect
knight who is able to make their life easier, men view this as
them holding authority and being the dominant "Representation
of the world like the world itself, is the work of men, they
describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse
with absolute truth" (Scholz 71). A woman looks for a man who
opens the car door for her, who gives her his seat in public
places, and who let her in line in front of her when she is at the
grocery store. Women view these as romance while men view
all of this as weakness of women. When a man opens a door for
a woman that is because he wants to show that he is in charge of
every step she takes. When allowing women to line in front of
them or when giving his place to her, this is because he views

9. women as weak and is unable to stand and wait like men. He is
patient and she is not or in other words, he is active and she is
the passive.
By nature, men like to impose their rule to feel manly.
Thus, this behavior enforces to view men as the ones who are
being subjective for they are the ones who wrote down the
patriarchal gender roles of how men and woman should act. To
them "men are supposed to be strong (physically powerful and
emotionally stotic)…it is considered unmanly for a man to show
fear…" (Tyson 87-88). Fear is an emotion that occurs in all
human beings and is not restricted to one gender. There are
many types of fears and each human does have his own fears.
One cannot be defined as weak for showing fear. This is how
the man's mind works, if a man showed fear then he is a woman.
Men structured that because they want to show woman how
strong they are and also because they want to prove to women
that they can be trusted and all that they are doing is to defend
and protect women. By this, men are fabricating an identity on
women as well as make women subordinate to them. If women
allowed it, then there are defining themselves as dependent. If
not, then they are protecting their identity and reflecting their
true selves; that is, there is no specific image of femininity.
This research aim is not to attack men but to clarify some
points that men use against women. In the end both are human
being, and both are similar but different. They are different
because of the biological facts (x and y) chromosomes that no
one could not deny. Though humans are different biologically
yet they are free to make choices of their gender. On the other
hand, both sexes are equally important "The two sexes are
necessary for each other, but this necessity has never fostered
reciprocity; women have never constituted a caste establishing
exchanges and contracts on an equal footing with men"
(Beauvoir 451-452). This could be explained by Sartre's
situated freedom and Hegel's slave and master example. A
master and a slave is just as the male and female. A master is
the one who has the power to control but over who? If there is

10. no slave, then there is no master. Saying that a master has the
power does not mean that the slave is powerless and unaware of
the situation around him, "now women have always been, if not
man's slave, at least his vassal; the two sexes have never
divided the world up equally; and still today, even though her
condition is changing, women is heavily handicapped"
(Beauvoir 9). But, just as any painter who chooses which colors
to paint his drawings, dark or light, one is free to choose the
way s/he wants to live their life. "The slave in chains is free to
break them; this means that the very meaning of his chains will
appear to him in the light of the end which he will have chosen:
to remain-a-slave or to risk the worst in order to get rid of his
slavery" (Sartre 562-563, 703). Having the decision to be free
from everything makes one stronger to plan his life the way he
sees it. Allowing oneself to be a slave means staying in a
position that is not yours. Freedom is not an additional
characteristic that humans gain through experience, it is born
with us. To be free means to free the mind. We are what we
think.
To conclude, from ancient times, women were defined as
the other. Many societies defined women since birth and label
them, as a result stereotyped them into something they are not.
The domestic work that is assigned for women could also be
performed by men because roles should be assigned by social
conditions and not some biological difference. Gender is a
choice, and even by plastic surgery sex is a choice nowadays.
Beauvoir, Sartre, Hegel and many other writers' views on
freedom were essential to explain the statement "One is not
born, rather becomes a woman".

11. Works Cited
(Beauvoir, S., Borde, C. and Malovany-Chevallier, S. (2010).
The second sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Brannon, Linda.Gender: Psychological Perspectives. 4th ed.
Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon, 2005.
Excerpted from Being and Nothingness, translated by Hazel
Barnes [NY: Washington Square Press, 1992 (1956)], pp. 562-
563, 703.)
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/
Joshua, S. (2010). I am I, by unfolding the flower. [online]
Google Books. Available at:
https://books.google.com.kw/books?id=4xBOB_SfSX0C&pg=P
A112&lpg=PA112&dq=reality+stands+alone+independent&sour
ce=bl&ots=hGr5ZWAcEB&sig=lUK5sFq8WAPI-
CQaOEFXbuQflnc&hl=ar&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjao7XX2_zJAh
VHuhQKHex7ACwQ6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=reality%20stan
ds%20alone%20independent&f=false [Accessed 4 Jan. 2016].
Kierkegaard, S. (1941). The Sickness Unto Death. [online]
Available at:
http://www.naturalthinker.net/trl/texts/Kierkegaard,Soren/TheSi
cknessUntoDeath.pdf [Accessed 4 Jan. 2016].
Mikkola, M. (2008). Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender.
[online] Plato.stanford.edu. Available at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#GenTer
[Accessed 4 Jan. 2016].
Parker, R. (2009). How to interpret literature. New York:
Oxford University Press.ION)

12. Scholz, S. (2010). Feminism. Oxford: Oneworld.
Stewart, Jon. Idealism And Existentialism : Hegel And
Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Philosophy. London:
Continuum, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 13
Dec. 2015
Tyson, L. (1999). Critical theory today. New York: Garland
Pub.
Sartre 'the transedndance ego'
file:///C:/Users/Hi/Downloads/Sartre,%20The%20transcendence
%20of%20ego.pdf
Rhys, Jean. (1990). Mannequin.
A school counselor tests the level of depression in fourth
graders in a particular class of 20 students. The counselor wants
to know whether the kind of students in this class differs from
that of fourth graders in general at her school. On the test, a
score of 10 indicates severe depression, while a score of 0
indicates no depression. From reports, she is able to find out
about past testing. Fourth graders at her school usually score 5
on the scale, but the variation is not known. Her sample of 20
fifth graders has a mean depression score of 4.4. Use the .01
level of significance.
1. The counselor calculates the unbiased estimate of the
population’s variance to be 15. What is the variance of the
distribution of means?
A) 15/20 = 0.75
B) 15/19 = 0.79
C) 152/20 = 11.25
D) 152/19 = 11.84
2. Suppose the counselor tested the null hypothesis that fourth
graders in this class were less depressed than those at the school

13. generally. She figures her t score to be .20. What decision
should she make regarding the null hypothesis?
A) Reject it
B) Fail to reject it
C) Postpone any decisions until a more conclusive study could
be conducted
D) There is not enough information given to make a decision
3. Suppose the standard deviation she figures (the square root of
the unbiased estimate of the population variance) is .85. What is
the effect size?
A) 5/.85 = 5.88
B) .85/5 = .17
C) (5 4.4)/.85 = .71
D) .85/(5 4.4) = 1.42
For the following question(s): Professor Juarez thinks the
students in her statistics class this term are more creative than
most students at this university. A previous study found that
students at this university had a mean score of 35 on a standard
creativity test. Professor Juarez finds that her class scores an
average of 40 on this scale, with an estimated population
standard deviation of 7. The standard deviation of the
distribution of means comes out to 1.63.
4. What is the t score?
A) (40 35)/7 = .71
B) (40 35)/1.63 = 3.07
C) (40 35)/72 = 5/49 = .10
D) (40 35)/1.632 = 5/2.66 = 1.88
5. What effect size did Professor Juarez find?
A) (40 35)/7 = .71

14. B) (40 35)/1.63 = 3.07
C) (40 35)/72 = 5/49 = .10
D) (40 35)/1.632 = 5/2.66 = 1.88
6. If Professor Juarez had 30 students in her class, and she
wanted to test her hypothesis using the 5% level of significance,
what cutoff t score would she use? (You should be able to
figure this out without a table because only one answer is in the
correct region.)
A) 304.11
B) 1.699
C) .113
D) 2.500
For the following question(s): A school counselor claims that he
has developed a technique to reduce prestudying procrastination
in students. He has students time their procrastination for a
week and uses this as a pretest (before) indicator of
procrastination. Students then attend a workshop in which they
are instructed to do a specific warming-up exercise for studying
by focusing on a pleasant activity. For the next week, students
again time their procrastination. The counselor then uses the
time from this week as the posttest (after) measure.
7. Suppose the counselor wants to examine whether there is a
change of any kind (either an increase or decrease) in
procrastination after attending his workshop. What would be the
appropriate description of “Population 2” (the population to
which the population his sample represents is being compared)?
A) People whose posttest scores will be lower than their pretest
scores

15. B) People whose change scores will be greater than 0
C) People whose change scores will be 0
D) People whose change scores will be less than their pretest
scores
8. Presume the counselor wants to examine whether there is a
change (either an increase or decrease) in procrastination after
attending his workshop. If the counselor tests 10 students using
the .05 level of significance, what cutoff t score(s) will he use?
(You should be able to figure this out without a table.)
A) 2.62, 0, +2.62
B) +2.262
C) 2.262, 0
D) 2.262, +2.262
9. Suppose the counselor found the sum of squared deviations
from the mean of the sample to be 135. Given that he tested 10
people, what would be the estimated population variance?
A) 135/10 = 13.5
B) 135/9 = 15.0
C) 10/135 = .074
D) 9/135 = .067
10. A researcher conducts a study of perceptual illusions under
two different lighting conditions. Twenty participants were each
tested under both of the two different conditions. The

16. experimenter reported: “The mean number of effective illusions
was 6.72 under the bright conditions and 6.85 under the dimly
lit conditions, a difference that was not significant, t(19) =
1.62.”
Explain this result to a person who has never had a course in
statistics. Be sure to use sketches of the distributions in your
answer.
4