From the opening chapters of Simone De Beauvoir’s enlightening yet controversial text The Second Sex, her attitude towards women as pro-creators, the bearers of the future generations, is severe, critical and undermines the notion of motherhood. For most women in the Western world, pregnancy and motherhood have always been beautiful experiences and not burdens. In my own experience as an Aunty, the unlimited and unconditional love I feel for my nieces and nephew is so powerful, I cannot even begin to comprehend the love their mothers feel towards their children. One of the first feminists, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote of her eagerness at arrival of her child in a letter to her husband William Godwin, “I begin to love this little creature, and to anticipate his birth as a fresh twist to a knot which I do not wish to untie” (Locke 130). De Beauvoir herself never experienced pregnancy or motherhood, and her writing was based on intellectual and person observation.
According to Lazaro, from her reading of The Second Sex, De Beauvoir claims “female reproductive capacities are – partially, at least – the cause of patriarchal oppression” (87). In The Second Sex, De Beauvoir states “if she [woman] produces harvests and children, it is not by an act of her will”, she is “an object charged with fluids” (196). De Beauvoir uses dark imagery to convey her feelings concerning the female reproductive system in which she asserts “that females are biologically doomed” (Lazaro 88). De Beauvoir perceives the process of the period of pregnancy as “demanding heavy sacrifices”. In another bleak interpretation of “conception and reproduction her language also portrays the female as attacked and invaded by a hostile other” (Scarth 140). De Beauvoir also believes following the process of childbirth, a woman “weighed down by maternities… loses her erotic attraction… woman is repellent” (The Second Sex 192). Considering that her theories as expounded in The Second Sex are based on the notion that woman is “The Other”, and that man is the “The One”, it is perhaps not surprising that her stance on pregnancy is conveyed in terms of aggression and invasion.
Motherhood, as portrayed in The Second Sex is, similar to pregnancy, a controlled environment for all women, where expectations are pre-ordained and the woman is seen as the “natural” mother. One of De Beauvoir’s endeavours is to de-mystify motherhood and to show that “a mother should not be confined to a life entirely within the household” not only because “in their frustration, could be damaging to their children” but because “they are unable to achieve through activities in the world” (Scarth 147). Motherhood was to De Beauvoir a “strange mixture of narcissism, altruism, idle daydreaming, bad faith, devotion and cynicism” (Irish Independent). Rather than focusing on new life and fresh beginnings, De Beauvoir’s attentions are diverted to death; “The Mother dooms her son to death in giving him life; the loved one lures her lover on to renounce life and abandon himself to the last sleep”, (De Beauvoir 197).
Bearing in mind that De Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex soon after World War II, at a time when women essentially had no rights, is it perhaps understandable that she projected such negative theories; it is harder for women to accept maternity and motherhood, when their choice is eliminated, it is their only destiny.
Works Cited:
De Beauvoir, S. “Introduction” and “Dreams, Fears and Idols.” The Second Sex. Ed. Parshley, H.M. London: Vintage, 1997. 192,196 &197.
Lazaro, R. “Feminism and Motherhood: O’ Brien vs. Beauvoir.” Hypatia. Vol.1. No.2. 1986. 87-88
Locke, D. A Fantasy of Reason: The Life and Thought of William Godwin. Oxon: Routeledge. 2010. 130.
Scarth, F. The Other Within: Ethics, Politics, and the Body in Simone De Beauvoir. Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield. 2004.
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Rachel O' Donoghue 