4 - Simone de Beauvoir in Africa:Woman – The Second Sex?

Summary

In an interview in 2000, Toril Moi, a distinguished figure in the contemporary relaunching of Simone de Beauvoir, confirms that there are two major ideas in de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. One idea is that ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’. The other is that ‘in all known societies, woman has always been looked upon as ‘the other’’ (Larsen 2000, 82). This paper sets out to question and investigate the second statement. Is it really true that in all known societies woman is and has always been looked upon as ‘the other’, the second sex? Looked upon – by whom? Does it have to be so forever? That ‘woman equals the second sex’ is a firmly grounded idea in the Western world is not up for discussion. But what about other parts of the world? What about Africa? The point of the discussion is not empirical. The point is not to show whether places do exist where this a priori othering of women does not occur. The point is to open the mind to different ways of thinking about gender, and for different ways of analyzing gender relations. Freeing ourselves from old mindsets will allow us to envision new kinds of gender relations as we look toward the future – both the future of Africa and the future of ourselves as Western women (and men).