The Second Sex

Hetaera is an ancient Greek word meaning courtesan. Beauvoir uses it to refer to women who make a living by becoming the lovers of a wealthy man. While these women are technically independent, they are still dependent on lovers in much the same way that women rely on their husbands and male relatives. Also, Beauvoir argues that hetaerae (plural) adopt the culture and ideas of the bourgeoisie (615).

Developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, historical materialism is the theory that economics and labor shape history. Specifically, history is driven by how labor is organized and by conflict between economic classes.

As defined by Beauvoir, narcissism is excessive attention to oneself. She writes, “[N]arcissism is a well-defined process of alienation: the self is posited as an absolute end, and the subject escapes itself in it” (667). This prevents an individual from achieving true freedom, which consists of endlessly engaging with the wider world through projects with defined, concrete goals. She also refers to this tendency as “the cult of the self” (351).

Beauvoir’s main argument in The Second Sex is that women have been made the Other. Beauvoir sees the Other as part of a primordial dualism in human thought between the Other and Self (6). In the context of Beauvoir’s argument, women are the Other because they are defined in relation to men, who are considered the default for humanity.