Influence
Richard Webster writes that the attack on "the psychoanalytic denigration of women" in The Second Sex helped to inspire subsequent feminist arguments against psychoanalysis, including those of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, Kate Millett's Sexual Politics, and Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch.
Judith Butler says that Beauvoir's formulation that "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman", distinguishes the terms 'sex' and 'gender'. Borde and Malovany-Chevalier, in their complete English version, translated this formulation as "One is not born, but rather becomes, woman" because in this context (one of many different usages of "woman" in the book), the word is used by de Beauvoir to mean woman as a construct or an idea, rather than woman as an individual or one of a group. Butler says that the book suggests that "gender" is an aspect of identity which is "gradually acquired". Butler sees The Second Sex as potentially providing a radical understanding of gender. However, to be true to the times in which the book was written and to the words chosen by its author, the translators did not use the word "gender", which is a term developed in a later period, instead using de Beauvoir's term "sex" throughout.
Read more about this topic: The Second Sex
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Only let the North exert as much moral influence over the South, as the South has exerted demoralizing influence over the North, and slavery would die amid the flame of Christian remonstrance, and faithful rebuke, and holy indignation.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)
“If the dignity as well as the prestige and influence of the United States are not to be wholly sacrificed, we must protect those who, in foreign ports, display the flag or wear the colors of this Government against insult, brutality, and death, inflicted in resentment of the acts of their Government, and not for any fault of their own.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)