Motherhood In Beauvoir's The Second Sex

adolescence followed by late adolescence, the stages in a girl’s development because, even during these initial years when a woman’s body is being prepared for motherhood, through a variety of changes, she is affected biologically, psychologically, socially, culturally and in a number of other ways. The biological aspect of motherhood deals with the changes that develop purely as an outcome of biological determinism. As defined by Wikipedia, “Biological determinism is a term used in some literatures to describe the belief that human behaviour is controlled solely by an individual's genes or some component of physiology.” ( reference?) Therefore the genetic prototype that a body contains prompts it to function in a pre-determined way and this

The role of the female body as a biological essential came in for sharp criticism. Beauvoir recognizes that “to be present in the world implies strictly that there exists a body which is at once a material thing in the world and a point of view towards the world” (Beauvoir 39). What is centrally implied here is the intertwining of the physical and cultural self that is, one may naturally exist as a male or a female but this mere fact that one is born a woman does not physically impose her to the type of limitations that have been culturally imposed on women. Therefore Beauvoir says, that “woman is a social construct”. Nevertheless her account provides the starting point for contemporary work on the relation between bodies and selves, where bodies represents the biological aspect and self represents the psychological, socio-cultural, economic and various other

The woman during the period of gestation faces multiple issues –physically she undergoes bodily changes like weight gain, loss of shape and becomes inactive and restricted. She might in some situations suffer on account of her profession as well, she might have to forego it on account of her pregnancy, which leads her to financial and other insecurities, and makes her totally dependent on her husband. These accounts even though they cannot be rejected out rightly; have been a source of criticism, particularly when later feminists sought to celebrate the female body as a source of pleasure, fertility, and empowerment. However it is important to recognise that what Beauvoir was offering was a descriptive phenomenology of female bodies as lived in specific situations. As she explicitly says “if the biological condition of women does constitute a handicap, it is because of her general situation … It is in a total situation which leaves her few outlets that her peculiarities take on their importance” (356–7). It is this situation which Beauvoir’s writings hoped to highlight and change. Here Beauvoir could be referring to the institutional perspective of