For Work / Against Work
Debates on the centrality of work

The Second Sex

by De Beauvoir, Simone (2011)

Key Passage

to give birth and to breast-feed are not activities but natural functions; they do not involve a project,which is why the woman finds no motive there to claim a higher meaning for her existence;she passively submits to her biological destiny. Because housework alone is compatible withthe duties of motherhood, she is condemned to domestic labor, which locks her intorepetition and immanence; day after day it repeats itself in identical form from century tocentury; it produces nothing new. (p.68)

Keywords

Gender, Feminism, Feminist Theory, Women, Womens Work, Reproduction, Biology, Maternal Work, De Beauvoir, Socialism

Themes

De Beauvoir Citations, Mothering, Care Work

Citation

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