Both readings in The Essential Feminist Reader focus on the fact that women are treated as objects whose main role is to please men. This pleasure comes through several aspects such as being the other and by visual and sexual means. Beauvoir presents this idea of the Other, where women are conceptualized as unable to achieve human freedom. In this reading Beauvoir attempts to answer the question what is a woman? She comes up with several definitions, all which are derived from the idea that men are superior. Beauvoir writes that “humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him”. This idea suggests that woman are not autonomous beings. This idea came from Genesis and how Eve was simply a “supernumerary bone” which suggests that Eve is simply just another piece of Adam. Others argue that despite the fact that Eve is a secondary being, Adam was simply only a rough draft and that God succeeded in producing the perfect human when he created Eve. In Friedan’s reading she talks about how women still are focusing their lives on being a great housewife and mother. Because this idea is still present in today’s society, when the successful woman goes into the workforce and receive jobs in areas where men are dominant, men begin to complain that the women are “robbing” us of our jobs.
I found it interesting that she writes that “a man is in the right in being a man; it is the women who is in the wrong”. She further explains that it is the women’s glands, her ovaries and uterus, that imprison women. Interestingly enough, men too also have glands that secrete hormones but they think of their bodies as having a direct and normal connection to the world.
After reading the online articles I found it very interesting how the authors presented their ideas. In Levy’s article I enjoyed how she focused on issues such as pornography that are “behind-closed-doors” materials. Most people refuse to talk about such topics. It was interesting how approachable this author made sensitive subjects.
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