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Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition

The Second Sex

by Mary Johnson

Identification: Book by Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

Date: Le Deuxième Sexe, 1949 (English translation, 1953)

Type of ethics: Sex and gender issues

Significance: The Second Sex attempts to explain why women as a class remain oppressed. It advocates a constructivist view of gender, rejecting the essentialist view that gender traits are determined by biology.

Simone de Beauvoir rejects the Aristotelian position that women, because of their biological characteristics, must play a limited role in society. She further rejects Freudian psychology’s position that woman’s natural state is passive while man’s is active because of the physical characteristics of the genitalia. She posits that women are limited primarily by the conditioning imposed on them by a male-dominated society, not by any biologic weakness or inferiority.

Because the behavior of human beings is based in large part on rationality and choice instead of on instinct, Beauvoir suggests that human behavior is not fixed and immutable but should be based on the individual’s rational decision to behave in a particular way in a given situation. Beauvoir then expands on that stance, using Jean-Paul Sartre’s belief that to be fully human, each person must be free to choose what he or she will become and that the process of choosing never ends. She further asserts that the sexual identity assigned to girls by modern Western society, which prepares them primarily to become wives, mothers, and housewives, destroys women’s creative potential and leads to self-alienation and destruction of the psyche.

See also: Beauvoir, Simone de; Sexism; Sexual stereotypes; Sexuality and sexual ethics; Women’s ethics; Women’s liberation movement

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Johnson, Mary. "The Second Sex." Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition, edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Ethics_0908.
APA 7th
Johnson, M. (2019). The Second Sex. In G. Lucas & J. K. Roth (Eds.), Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Johnson, Mary. "The Second Sex." Edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth. Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.