Enslaved to the Species: The Confluence of Animality, Immanence, and the Female Body in Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex

• Main Author: Brown, Lori Jean, 1968-
• Language: en_US
• Published: University of Oregon 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1794/8704

ix, 105 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. === In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir uses enslavement to the species to shape her concepts of animality, the female body, and immanence. The connection of these ~oncepts to reproductive processes links them together in problematic ways. Beauvoir responds by diminishing the ontological force of the female body. I begin this thesis by showing how varying degrees of enslavement to the species detennine sexual difference and the position of organisms on the evolutionary ladder. Next, I illustrate how animality, immanence, and the female body are closely linked together by their similar relationship to the species. I follow with the claim that Beauvoir's notion of the human existent requires a distancing from the realm of immanence and the power of reproduction through the risking of one's life. Finally, I demonstrate how Beauvoir downplays the ontological weight of the female body in her positing of early woman as an existent. === Ted Toadvine, Chair of the Examining Committee