The Second Sex

Beauvoir argues that love provides women a way to reconcile their desire for others with their narcissism. Through their love of a man, they can be validated and present their self. However, in Beauvoir’s view, there are two problems with love for women. If the man ignores the woman, she is trapped waiting for her love to be returned. However, if the man and woman consummate their love, she loses her freedom since the man often views his female lover as merely a part of himself. Further, women resort to entrapment through marriage or a child to cement their relationship with a man. However, such tactics infringe on a woman’s freedom as well.

It is possible for a woman and a man to enter a truly reciprocal relationship. However, it would require both the man and the world to recognize themselves and each other as free individuals: “The day when it will be possible for the woman to love in her strength and not in her weakness, not to escape from herself but to find herself, not out of resignation but to affirm herself, love will become for her as for man the source of life and not a mortal danger” (708). For genuine love, it will require men to respect women and their independence, allowing women to assert their individuality in a way not dependent on men or on what Beauvoir describes as narcissism.

Besides love, another escape for women is religion. In Beauvoir’s view, the idea of God can dominate women in much the same way a husband or lover can. In its most extreme form, women can embrace asceticism in violent ways—more so than men. Beauvoir writes that “it is through humiliation and suffering that she metamorphoses [her body] into glory” (714). Such female mystics, Beauvoir explains, are driven to imitate the sufferings of Jesus Christ to prove their love of God. However, like narcissism, religious devotion does not provide women an avenue to freedom or give her an authentic place in the world.