What Problem Does Somine de Beauvoir Think Is Preventing Genuine Love Between Men and Women? Is She Right?

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What problem does Somine de Beauvoir think is preventing genuine love between men and women? Is she right? “Humanity is male and a man defines female not in her self but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being(De Beauvoir 1983, p. 16).This statement itself presents the nature of male and female inequalities which in de Beauvoir’s view determines the genuine love they experience for one another. De Beauvoir suggests that because of the influence of gender stereotypes, men and women have historically had very different attitudes toward love. She continues to argue that as a result such difference presents inequality and has made genuine love between man and women doubtful. Genuine love in de Beauvoir’s recognition would be an equal relationship between man and woman comprising of “the mutual recognition of two liberties” in which “the lover would than experiences themselves both as self and as the other: neither would give up transcendence, neither would be mutilated; together they would manifest values and aims in the world” (De Beauvoir 1983, p. 677). In consideration to her statement she therefore believes that there exists a problem which is preventing the genuine love between man and woman, the problem of inequality. A woman she states is defined and differentiated in accordance to man and not he in reference to her (De Beauvoir 1983, p. 16). Thus a woman’s existence and recognition is dependent on a man’s acknowledgement. De Beauvoir argued that men and women approach love differently due to social and economical inequalities. Because man is the Subject and women is the Other (De Beauvoir 1983, p. 16), women’s freedom is socially forbidden, “but women, not being able to fulfil herself through projects and objectives, is forced to find her reality in the immanence of her person” (641). Thus if the woman is denied the
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