English subtitles for clip: File:Ikusgela – Simone de Beauvoir - ca.webm
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1 00:00:05,375 --> 00:00:08,166 One is not born: but becomes a woman. 2 00:00:08,191 --> 00:00:11,392 No biological, psychic or economic destiny 3 00:00:11,392 --> 00:00:14,933 defines the image of women in society: 4 00:00:14,933 --> 00:00:17,466 it is created by all civilization. 5 00:00:17,480 --> 00:00:19,735 This thought is still current. 6 00:00:19,802 --> 00:00:22,268 despite being from 1949. 7 00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:24,455 It was written by Simone de Beauvoir, 8 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:27,042 in a literary essay called "The Second Sex". 9 00:00:27,619 --> 00:00:30,435 Philosopher, essayist, novelist, 10 00:00:30,460 --> 00:00:32,235 writer, journalist... 11 00:00:32,279 --> 00:00:34,203 Beauvoir was all of that. 12 00:00:34,203 --> 00:00:37,105 Today we know her mainly because she developed 13 00:00:37,105 --> 00:00:41,187 some of the fundamental ideas of contemporary feminism. 14 00:00:41,202 --> 00:00:43,202 But who was Beauvoir? 15 00:00:43,227 --> 00:00:44,892 What do we know about her life? 16 00:00:44,894 --> 00:00:47,480 She was born in 1908, 17 00:00:47,494 --> 00:00:48,494 in Paris, 18 00:00:48,499 --> 00:00:51,489 within a rich and Catholic family. 19 00:00:51,489 --> 00:00:54,556 At the age of 15, she already knew that she wanted to be a writer, 20 00:00:55,010 --> 00:00:58,135 and by then she had lost her faith. 21 00:00:58,642 --> 00:01:02,602 She studied Philosophy at the Sorbonne University, Paris. 22 00:01:02,903 --> 00:01:05,961 There she met several intellectuals of the time, 23 00:01:05,961 --> 00:01:07,881 including Jean Paul Sartre: 24 00:01:07,881 --> 00:01:11,481 the thinker who would accompany her for the rest of her life. 25 00:01:12,128 --> 00:01:16,918 In 1949 she published the book "The Second Sex", 26 00:01:17,327 --> 00:01:20,592 and although she did not consider herself a feminist yet, 27 00:01:20,592 --> 00:01:22,316 it became the basis of the world struggle 28 00:01:22,316 --> 00:01:24,449 in favor of women. 29 00:01:25,224 --> 00:01:29,538 The Second World War had a great impact on the life of the thinker. 30 00:01:29,538 --> 00:01:31,685 Beauvoir set aside her apolitical stance 31 00:01:31,685 --> 00:01:34,018 and began her participation in the political conflicts of the time, 32 00:01:34,018 --> 00:01:37,862 as we would say today. 33 00:01:37,876 --> 00:01:40,342 In the 1970s, for example, 34 00:01:40,636 --> 00:01:42,851 she created a movement in favor of the decriminalization of abortion, 35 00:01:42,852 --> 00:01:45,216 called “Choisir”. 36 00:01:45,643 --> 00:01:48,576 "Choisir" means "to chose" in French. 37 00:01:49,117 --> 00:01:52,130 She died in 1986; 38 00:01:52,130 --> 00:01:53,018 but she left 39 00:01:53,019 --> 00:01:56,082 in her novels, essays and memoirs 40 00:01:56,269 --> 00:01:59,349 Reflections that continue to have repercussions up to date. 41 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:01,103 The intellectual current embodying 42 00:02:01,128 --> 00:02:03,725 Simone de Beauvoir's thought is existentialism. 43 00:02:05,629 --> 00:02:07,189 Or to be exact, 44 00:02:07,189 --> 00:02:09,001 atheistic existentialism, 45 00:02:09,002 --> 00:02:11,002 which has no theological foundation. 46 00:02:11,308 --> 00:02:12,641 According to this line of thought, 47 00:02:12,655 --> 00:02:14,775 the human being is not predetermined 48 00:02:14,789 --> 00:02:17,789 by any philosophical or moral doctrine. 49 00:02:18,379 --> 00:02:21,242 Life and the world have no intrinsic meaning, 50 00:02:21,256 --> 00:02:23,762 but each one can give their own. 51 00:02:23,762 --> 00:02:26,015 Furthermore, you have to give it a meaning, 52 00:02:26,015 --> 00:02:28,281 if you want to live an authentic life. 53 00:02:28,793 --> 00:02:31,393 The human being is free, and therefore, 54 00:02:31,393 --> 00:02:33,975 you are doomed to constantly make choices. 55 00:02:33,975 --> 00:02:37,674 And, consequently, you are also responsible for your own decisions. 56 00:02:37,675 --> 00:02:40,155 You decide what kind of person you want to be, 57 00:02:40,155 --> 00:02:42,250 and what kind of society you want to build, 58 00:02:42,250 --> 00:02:44,982 through your choices and actions. 59 00:02:45,402 --> 00:02:47,428 No more looking for excuses in tradition, 60 00:02:47,439 --> 00:02:49,866 in biology or whatever! 61 00:02:50,420 --> 00:02:52,739 Therefore, Simone de Beauvoir drank 62 00:02:52,790 --> 00:02:54,257 from existentialism. 63 00:02:54,550 --> 00:02:56,937 Here experiences were very present 64 00:02:56,937 --> 00:02:58,758 in the development of her thought, and for this, 65 00:02:58,785 --> 00:03:03,575 she merged philosophical, scientific thought and literary gift. 66 00:03:04,295 --> 00:03:06,629 Her contributions can be summarized in five main ideas: 67 00:03:07,716 --> 00:03:09,850 1- In order to be free, you need to want it and act for it. 68 00:03:10,553 --> 00:03:12,986 According to Simone de Beauvoir, freedom is always 69 00:03:12,986 --> 00:03:14,519 located and established: 70 00:03:14,921 --> 00:03:17,721 it occurs in each individual, 71 00:03:17,747 --> 00:03:20,347 conditioned by a given context. 72 00:03:20,460 --> 00:03:22,373 So people don't have 73 00:03:22,387 --> 00:03:23,920 the same opportunities to develop their freedom 74 00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:28,173 and carry out their own life projects. 75 00:03:28,214 --> 00:03:30,250 For example, the slave does not have 76 00:03:30,285 --> 00:03:32,085 the same opportunities as the lord, 77 00:03:32,138 --> 00:03:34,805 and the woman does not have those of the man either. 78 00:03:35,415 --> 00:03:36,482 Against this, 79 00:03:36,508 --> 00:03:39,733 human beings have to build, expand and fight for 80 00:03:39,746 --> 00:03:42,147 their and others freedom at all times. 81 00:03:42,159 --> 00:03:43,559 In Beauvoir's words, 82 00:03:43,639 --> 00:03:48,014 to reject freedom is to renounce to humanity. 83 00:03:48,900 --> 00:03:51,779 2- Humanity is ambiguous. 84 00:03:51,952 --> 00:03:54,757 Contradiction is essential to the human being. 85 00:03:55,205 --> 00:03:57,871 It is the animal that does not want to be an animal. 86 00:03:58,312 --> 00:04:00,749 The human lives in the present, 87 00:04:00,749 --> 00:04:03,416 as between the past and the future. 88 00:04:03,822 --> 00:04:06,382 It is an individual, but also, part of a collective, 89 00:04:06,382 --> 00:04:09,048 since the human is formed through relationships with the others. 90 00:04:09,616 --> 00:04:13,771 Beauvoir declares and thinks about these duplicities, 91 00:04:13,771 --> 00:04:16,921 and seeks to bring up and gather 92 00:04:16,921 --> 00:04:19,534 the typical binary ideas within European thought. 93 00:04:19,654 --> 00:04:21,096 Life and death, 94 00:04:21,096 --> 00:04:22,804 the body and the mind, 95 00:04:22,817 --> 00:04:24,324 nature and culture, 96 00:04:24,376 --> 00:04:25,643 the man and the woman. 97 00:04:26,215 --> 00:04:29,003 Beauvoir paved the way to review and rethink 98 00:04:29,030 --> 00:04:31,830 those binary schemes. 99 00:04:33,595 --> 00:04:35,395 3- The woman is built. 100 00:04:36,221 --> 00:04:39,376 She discarded the attempts to predefine 101 00:04:39,376 --> 00:04:41,909 the human being, the man or the woman: 102 00:04:42,149 --> 00:04:45,816 be it from economics, be it from psychology, be it from biology. 103 00:04:46,189 --> 00:04:50,828 Life, and therefore concepts, are given meaning by acting, 104 00:04:50,882 --> 00:04:53,936 according to one's own specific or social frameworks. 105 00:04:54,163 --> 00:04:56,096 The meaning comes from outside, and inside. 106 00:04:56,533 --> 00:04:58,999 There is no natural, intrinsic essence. 107 00:04:59,359 --> 00:05:02,359 There is no oppression or natural privilege. 108 00:05:02,756 --> 00:05:06,756 And therefore, as those power structures and positions 109 00:05:06,781 --> 00:05:10,291 are cultural, they are variable. 110 00:05:10,291 --> 00:05:12,702 You are not born Jewish, black, Basque, 111 00:05:12,702 --> 00:05:14,835 you come to be. 112 00:05:15,394 --> 00:05:19,590 The process is done by society, the context and one's own decisions. 113 00:05:19,590 --> 00:05:21,190 So happens with the woman. 114 00:05:22,376 --> 00:05:25,710 4- The philosophy of otherness. 115 00:05:25,727 --> 00:05:29,174 Beauvoir uses the category of "otherness" 116 00:05:29,212 --> 00:05:32,545 to explain the role of women in this masculine world. 117 00:05:33,223 --> 00:05:36,823 Oneself is not enough to develop a free project. 118 00:05:36,835 --> 00:05:40,702 Human beings develop ourselves through relationships with others. 119 00:05:41,417 --> 00:05:45,950 The relationship between oneself and the other can be of two types. 120 00:05:46,023 --> 00:05:47,857 If the relationship develops wide open, 121 00:05:47,898 --> 00:05:50,057 respect will be bidirectional, 122 00:05:50,111 --> 00:05:51,844 and it will enrich both. 123 00:05:52,280 --> 00:05:54,347 If, on the contrary, comes from the otherness, 124 00:05:54,347 --> 00:05:58,280 like that of the owner and the slave, there will be no respect. 125 00:05:58,882 --> 00:06:02,682 The Other will always be defined in the relationship towards the One, 126 00:06:02,684 --> 00:06:06,484 and the Other will know the world and themself through the One's eyes. 127 00:06:06,751 --> 00:06:09,698 The owner will be the "who", the subject; 128 00:06:09,699 --> 00:06:12,859 the slave, on the other hand, the "other", the object. 129 00:06:13,353 --> 00:06:15,392 In Beauvoir's words, 130 00:06:15,392 --> 00:06:17,112 that's what happens with women. 131 00:06:17,272 --> 00:06:21,304 The man is the subject, the woman, instead, the otherness. 132 00:06:21,664 --> 00:06:25,864 We can find an example of this in today's sports news. 133 00:06:25,910 --> 00:06:28,137 Men's sport is sport. 134 00:06:28,137 --> 00:06:30,003 Women's sport, on the other hand, 135 00:06:30,003 --> 00:06:34,128 a lower category, the otherness, women's sport. 136 00:06:35,259 --> 00:06:41,249 5- Diversity of thought: differences in equality. 137 00:06:41,521 --> 00:06:43,321 Regarding diversity, 138 00:06:43,574 --> 00:06:46,307 Beauvoir counterpointed two ideas: 139 00:06:46,360 --> 00:06:49,627 on the one hand, the oppressive and imperialist logic: 140 00:06:49,813 --> 00:06:52,106 “equality in difference”. 141 00:06:52,718 --> 00:06:54,385 Some kind of theoretical equality is given 142 00:06:54,411 --> 00:06:57,678 to those who are different, 143 00:06:57,930 --> 00:07:02,263 but as far as the actual conditions are concerned, they are relegated. 144 00:07:03,047 --> 00:07:07,014 On the other hand, the thinker claims the inversion of the phrase, 145 00:07:07,081 --> 00:07:09,948 becoming "difference in equality". 146 00:07:10,420 --> 00:07:12,473 Starting from that idea, 147 00:07:12,473 --> 00:07:14,406 countering the differences, 148 00:07:14,449 --> 00:07:20,217 she developed a thought-line that would take them into account as equals, from the very root. 149 00:07:20,217 --> 00:07:22,625 In essence, that could be the basis for current understanding 150 00:07:22,625 --> 00:07:25,038 of various domination-relationships 151 00:07:25,105 --> 00:07:28,972 and the intersectional struggle. 152 00:07:29,430 --> 00:07:32,296 We still use those concepts 153 00:07:32,326 --> 00:07:35,394 to understand and analyze the current world. 154 00:07:35,394 --> 00:07:37,660 That is the reason why Simone de Beauvoir 155 00:07:37,703 --> 00:07:40,835 is among the most significant thinkers of the 20th century. 156 00:07:41,133 --> 00:07:44,866 And also for her ability to look to the future: 157 00:07:45,641 --> 00:07:48,549 "new carnal and affective relations of which we cannot conceive 158 00:07:48,549 --> 00:07:53,498 will be born between the sexes." 159 00:07:53,803 --> 00:07:56,594 70 years later, 160 00:07:56,595 --> 00:07:58,462 Could we say that she was right? 161 00:07:58,999 --> 00:08:03,495 Or do we still need to develop relationships that we cannot imagine?