Before The Women's Liberation Movement By Simone De Beauvoir

I. Intro Paragraph
Imagine having little to no access to a higher education, being abused by your significant other and having nowhere to go, being expected to stay home all day, and have children, or if you were able to work, imagine making less money than another for doing the same work. This was the life and these were the challenges for women before the Women’s Liberation Movement. Because of Simone de Beauvoir’s: The Second Sex, and many other influences, women were empowered to rise above these expectations and inequalities and fight for their rights

II. Background: The Women’s Liberation Movement in America was an empowering movement for women, bringing newfound freedoms and a new sense of independence.
A. The Women’s Liberation Movement
Women were seeking basic civil rights, such as economic equality, proper treatment for victims of domestic violence and abuse, and better, easier access to academic opportunities such as college.
a. Women made only 60 cents for every dollar a man made at the time.
C. The women of the Women’s Liberation Movement fought for other more controversial issues in addition to basic civil rights.
a. Women were fighting for access to birth control and other “family planning” methods, greater acceptance and equal rights for lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women, and more representation and recognition for women of color both in pop culture and our average lives.
D. Besides Civil and human rights, the Women’s Liberation Movement was about changing the way women are viewed by society, to stop the constant objectification of women, and to change the idea that women cannot have a career and be a mother.
a. There was an increase in the number of women with careers in the 1960s, due to this idea and this movement.
III. Background: The Women’s Liberation Movement in France, while liberating, did not have quite the same amount of fiery passion as the movement in America.
A. French women did not get the right to vote and run for office until
Therefore, one could argue that The Second Sex did not have very much influence on The Women’s Liberation movement, if the book had little influence on it’s own country.
B. In addition to her slight lack of interest in France, some France feminists even dislike her type of feminism, some going to far as to say she is not a feminist.
a. A book written by Suzanne Lilar in 1970 stated “it is a high time to loose respect for Simone de Beauvoir, it is a high time to desecrate The Second Sex.”
b. Tristan and Annie de Plsan responded to Simone de Beauvoir’s activism at a Paris meeting in 1970 with “We don’t want that kind of feminism here.”
c. In addition to the foul remarks made by these feminists, de Beauvoir was called “every infamy; frigid, priapic, neurotic, she had trampled underfoot everything that was good in the world.”
C. Analysis
a. With all of this negativity towards her image and the disregards for The Second Sex, the argument that Simone de Beauvoir did not have a great impact of The Women’s Liberation Movement is well founded.
b. Although the counter-argument does raise a good point, ultimately de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex had a great impact on The Women’s Liberation Movement in America, and her views and philosophy were read by women all across America in the 1960s and 70s.

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