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| The Second Sex (Vintage classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Simone De Beauvoir
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £10.99
Buy Used: £5.00
You Save: £5.99 (55%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 15452
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 786
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 1.7
ISBN: 009974421X
Dewey Decimal Number: 305
EAN: 9780099744214
ASIN: 009974421X
Publication Date: August 7, 1997
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir posed questions many men, and women, had yet to ponder when the book was released in 1953. "One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should..." she says in this comprehensive treatise on women. She weaves together history, philosophy, economics, biology and a host of other disciplines to show women's place in the world and to postulate on the power of sexuality. This is a powerful piece of writing in a time before "feminism" was even a phrase, much less a movement. --Christine Buttery
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
A hugely impressive book April 9, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Simone de Beauvoir was scandalised and ridiculed particularly by the church when this first came out in 1949 which must have been a disappointment for her. Perhaps a radical book at the time but very relevant to the present and this is worth reading by all women and any man who agrees that women should have a better time whilst on this planet.
The book covers many aspects of being a woman, begining when humans first roamed the earth as nomads and the tyranny of life as a woman giving birth constantly as unlike many animals humans are always fertile. Infant death and infantacide were a means of survival then and the reason why the human population was realatively small for tens of thousands of years. Then tilling the earth when the male began to domineer and own all land, passing it on to their male heirs, leaving woman to be a virtual slave to fathers and husbands, the start of male domination!
I learnt some really interesting things from reading this for example: I didn't know that reproduction was properly underrstood until the mid 19th Century, all sorts of bizare beliefs were practised prior to this revelation, people even believed that sperm contained tiny little people!!! Also discussed is how man and woman are prisoners of instinctive behaviour and really cannot help themselves to a great extent, brilliant for understanding relationships, ie why men walk away after sex in many cases but instinctively a for a woman it is the start of relationship due to the feelings of wanting to nurture a pregnancy. It also explains why in some ways a woman does not always progress due to involuntarily sabotaging their own plans ie preferring part time work or not going for the promotion due to home making instincts. Prostitution, love, ageing are all discussed in depth in this volume. A fascinating read, it sucks you in and you cannot put it down. Only one negative comment and that is that I found it very slightly depressing as there is little hope for women to be truly independant before they get old, ugly and die according to Ms De Beauvoir.
One of the great books of the 20th century March 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
There is more good sense in this wonderful book than in most of the rest of all the writing by and about women. Marvellous.
encyclopaedic March 28, 2006
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
The Second Sex is a book of mammoth proportions, displaying the intellectual prowess of de Beauviour in full swing, putting women right up there in the literary firmament. It is almost impossible to overestimate this book, and it is a shame that it never recieved its due praise whence published. However, this unfairness only concretises Beauvior's arguments upon Patriarchal attitudes. TSS is encyclopaedic in scope, and dazzling in its wealth of knowledge. Opening this book is like opening Pandora's box - there is no end to what you may find inside.
 Great book, shame about the editing February 4, 2004
29 out of 30 found this review helpful
This book is both absorbing and informative, giving an excellent account of what it is to be a woman as Other. I would normally give the work five stars, but I am prevented from doing so by the way the text has been translated and edited. Big, important and interesting parts have been lost through poor and reductive editing. Let me give an example: in the chapter “Through the Middle Ages to Eighteenth-century France” the paragraph on page 133 starting with the words “Woman still retained a few privileges in the Middle Ages…” has been heavily reduced, excluding de Beauvoir’s account and use of the Songes du Verger, a vitriolic and misogynous text vilifying women. As such this edition of the Second Sex is highly educational to all newcomers, but the shoddy editing will disappoint people already acquainted with this work, for it has robbed the book of some of its ideas and bite.
Amazing study of gender difference and similarity February 7, 2003
25 out of 26 found this review helpful
De Beauvoir takes us on an epic tour from the dawn of the human race to the contemporary world of 1940's commerce and culture, through the internal workings of the body to how others perceive them via the beliefs, thoughts and prejudices of societies throughout the world. Her breadth and depth of research is an attempt to answer one simple question- why are women constantly seen as inferior to men, in effect the "second sex"?
Such a question is almost impossible to answer but at just under seven hundred pages of intelligent writing TSS gets as close to the quick as any women's study or feminist book has got before or after its publication. Questioning every one of the "labels" attached to the human female De Beauvoir pulls apart traditional thinking on issues such as the "innate" maternal instinct, women's intellectual capacity and physical strength and make-up. Every chapter is a definitive case in itself and De Beauvoir's collection of facts, statistics and case studies are unshakable in their accuracy. Her conclusions are well thought through and easy to follow and it is only the sheer amount and wealth of information she gives us that can seem overwhelming at times.
The very fact that a woman has written such a masterpiece is evidence enough that women are as intellectually equal to men but it is sadly revealing of our patriarchal society that gives TSS less reverence than it deserves. Since the 1940's many other theories have developed in the area of gender studies so TSS is no longer the "one text that covers all". Supplementing TSS with more recent works such as those by Germaine Greer, Andrea Dworkin and Kate Millet will give you a more general picture of feminism but it still remains the greatest and most complete work on women's studies and possibly the most important book to come out of the twentieth century.
This is essential reading for any self-respecting individual, male or female, although its size and density means it is probably better to read this segments at a time.
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