Simone de Beauvoir’s The
Second Sex, Woman as Other may seem like a feminist empowerment piece of
literature to some, but it’s more of a deliberate attempt to bring the issue of
women being oppressed by the male dominating society to the forefront so that as
a collective group, women’s rights, opinions, and even their role in society
may be viewed differently. That a woman is not just a body with ovaries, but a
being that possesses conviction, values and intellectual input that has the
capacity to offer the world more than just a subservient role placating the
masses. With de Beauvoir’s research and
facts interspersed throughout the Second
Sex, the reader is able to infer that this is an intelligent woman who is
able to use these examples to show how woman’s rights or the lack thereof, have
been attacked/thwarted by men throughout the ages.
Although I haven’t seen the 1954 movie Mildred Pierce, the
clip I’ve selected demonstrates the struggle between mother and daughter and
their conflicting values and upbringings that it relates to de Beauvoir’s Other Sex wanting more out of life, out
of society – the desire to not mimic the mother’s role. Just as man can use the excuse that because a
woman is not a man she must follow the rules of x, y and z, woman can
manipulate man’s perspective by feeding him a similar entrapment, which in this
particular film lies with a promise of a baby.
Veda, the daughter, uses her womanhood as a means to obtain money. Money meant power then and it still holds
true today, and in this film it’s the power of freedom for Veda to escape the
normalcy that has been forced upon her.
She wants a different future for herself, not one with a
white picket fence, being the demure housewife cooking all these dishes for the
family. She wants to be free of that
life her mother lived. De Beauvoir
states in her introduction that women are tired of the subject of woman, but
maybe it’s because those same woman have succumbed to their societal roles as
woman and the restrictions that come with it.
Whereas Veda wants to escape the town she lives in to get away from the
women who wear uniforms, living a drab and boring life.
It’s these women in uniforms and mothers like Mildred who to
some extent, through their complacent actions, have aided in keeping woman’s
position in society as such, confined.
Whereas someone like Veda, being somewhat of an extremist, and de
Beauvoir through her writing, have used their own methods to confront or evade their
respective prison cell who in the end both want more power, the freedom to
select and choose as she pleases as man does.
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