Abstract

Much maligned for deeply problematic language describing female physiology and its peculiar use of "data," Simone de Beauvoir's chapter on biology from The Second Sex appears to be an unusual entry point into the question of woman as Other. In "Biological Data," Beauvoir traces a relationship between the female animal and the species that becomes more alarming as she moves from unicellular organisms to complex mammalian life. By the time she reaches human beings, we are bombarded with passages emphasizing woman's "enslavement" to the species, the tyranny of her hormonal and reproductive life, and the impeding effects of physical limitations. Such claims lead commentators to accuse Beauvoir, for example, of adopting...