Heterosex and Becoming Woman

Abstract The question of precisely what Simone de Beauvoir means when she asserts in The Second Sex that “[o]ne is not born, but rather becomes, woman” continues to be the subject of scholarly debate ( TSS , 283). The more traditional view sees Beauvoir referring to a process whereby female human beings are socialized according to, and subsequently internalize and constitute themselves in terms of, prevailing norms of femininity. An alternative perspective asserts that the act of engaging in heterosexual intercourse marks the point at which human females “become” Woman. I see The Second Sex presenting a hybrid of these two theories. On my reading, the initial experience of heterosexual intercourse crystallizes the relation of self-to-self Beauvoir refers to as se faire objet —making oneself into an object generally and into a sexual object for men more specifically. Subsequent experiences of heterosex entrench this distinctively feminine mode of self-relation. I support my reading through analyzing the situations of Paula Mareuil and Anne Dubreuilh, two of the main characters in Beauvoir's novel les Mandarines .