From “Brilliant study” to “One Woman’s outcry Against Her Nature”: “The Second Sex” in the 1950s American Scientific Journals

Abstract

Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex has been considered as one of the most crucial books that influenced the second wave feminists, who mobilized during the 1960s and 1970s new massive feminist movement in America. This article analyses reception of the book in the American scientific/academic journals, and in that way, contributes to the field of periodical studies. This article, first, analyses post-war American context with the focus on status and role of women in the society, and then, moves on to enquire into the reception of The Second Sex in five American scientific journals, published during 1953 and 1954. The political context is intertwined with the absence of the critical reflexion among the first American authors who wrote about The Second Sex regarding the role of women in the 1950s America. The article analyses the language, key topics for the authors of critiques (that the book is primarily French; that it cannot apply to American women and context; that the book is non-scientific, despite the publisher’s promotion, and that it does not provide directions for the social changes Beauvoir calls for; and finally, that the book has problematic arguments regarding motherhood and the status of married women).

Keywords

• the second sex
• beauvoir
• periodical studies
• women’s question
• scientific journals
• post-war america