From “Brilliant study” to “One Woman’s outcry Against Her Nature”: “The Second Sex” in the 1950s American Scientific Journals
Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex has been considered as one of the most crucial books that influenced the second wave feminists, who mobilized during the 1960s and 1970s new massive feminist movement in America. This article analyses reception of the book in the American scientific/acade...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institute of Ethnography, SASA, Belgrade
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-0861/2022/0350-08612201223L.pdf |
| Summary: | Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex has been considered as one of the most
crucial books that influenced the second wave feminists, who mobilized
during the 1960s and 1970s new massive feminist movement in America. This
article analyses reception of the book in the American scientific/academic
journals, and in that way, contributes to the field of periodical studies.
This article, first, analyses post-war American context with the focus on
status and role of women in the society, and then, moves on to enquire into
the reception of The Second Sex in five American scientific journals,
published during 1953 and 1954. The political context is intertwined with
the absence of the critical reflexion among the first American authors who
wrote about The Second Sex regarding the role of women in the 1950s America.
The article analyses the language, key topics for the authors of critiques
(that the book is primarily French; that it cannot apply to American women
and context; that the book is non-scientific, despite the publisher’s
promotion, and that it does not provide directions for the social changes
Beauvoir calls for; and finally, that the book has problematic arguments
regarding motherhood and the status of married women). |
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| ISSN: | 0350-0861 2334-8259 |