I decided, that if I was going to start spouting off about feminsim entering a new phase, I ought to know what I was talking about, which meant boning up a bit on the history of feminism. And so last night I went to the library, pulled a few tomes from the shelf, came home, and read half, the second half, of The Second Sex—with such mounting horror I was sure I was going to have nightmares. Good God. I have always recognized my debt to past human misery, whether the misery of my immigrant forebears or the misery of women in past centuries, but no one really paints that misery quite like Simone de Beauvoir.
The book, as a whole, hardly seemed relevant to my life, though a few sentences did jump out at me—some for being right on the money, still, and others for being way, way off base.
For example, Simone de Beauvoir did not think highly of home cooking. She did not think cooking was a way to acquire a sense of grandeur (grandeur evidently being very important to her). She writes, of the housewife: “It is her duty to assure the monotonous repetition of life in all its mindless factuality. She is absorbed in producing or caring for things that are never more than means, such as food, clothng and shelter. These things are inessential intermediaries between animal life and free existence.”
Huh? I suppose you can run around naked and unsheltered—and still live a free, if uncomfortable, existence, but food is rather an essential intermediary towards any sort of existence at all!
Then she turns around and says things like: “Only the woman who is well balanced, healthy and aware of her responsibilities is capable of being a good mother.”
And where does she suppose health comes from?
I suppose my bottom line is that a great deal of human misery has sprung from poor nutrition—especially if we consider the effect of nutrition upon the brain, and if there isn’t any grandeur in attempting to eradicate human misery, then I don’t know what I am about.
I don’t mean to be flippant about The Second Sex; it’s both a cautionary tale (because even though women today have many choices, they need to be careful about what they choose and why) as well as a fascinating historical document. I like to pay attention to the words of those who have gone before me, and she does write some inspiring sentences, especially about motherhood:
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She cannot consent to bring forth life unless life has meaning; she cannot be a mother without endeavoring to play a role in the economic, political, and social life of the times.
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The woman who enjoys the richest individual life will have the most to give her children and will demand the least from them; she who acquires in effort and struggle a sense of true human values will be best be able to bring them up properly.
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Even when the child seems a treasure in the midst of a happy, or at least a balanced life, he cannot represent the limits of his mother’s horizon.
Yes. Expand your horizons. Endeavor to play a role. Struggle. But make sure the child has the proper nutrients in his belly!
10:57:25 AM 
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