A couple of days ago, I bravely went through another round of pain for half an hour, only to get a second piece inked on my arm that will last for the rest of my lifetime, however long that might be. I made the decision back in November last year, perhaps my birthday and the age pressure that always comes with it subconsciously pushing me to engrave a second daily reminder on my body as long as I'm still young and naïve enough to do so. In order to prove that I’m not so frustratingly forgetful that I decided to get my to-do list inked on my arms, I decided to justify my decision right here and now to spare me of any mildly deserved embarrassment. In case my future self will want to lynch me for my new tattoo, perhaps this post will at least make her forgive me and perhaps even laugh about the choices I made throughout my teenage years. In case you don’t, dear future self, I can only say: I’m sorry, but please just get over it. I’m sure you can think of worse mistakes that we have made that are still lying in front of me as I'm writing this.
Without consciously trying to stick to my philosophy theme or yet again contribute to my pseudo-intellectuality, I decided to get a quote by another French philosopher (real French this time) on my left forearm. Without going all Buzzfeed on this and thinking about it having to be a woman to reach some non-existent female tattoo quota, this time I honoured Simone de Beauvoir, like I'm almost certain so many others have done before me. Because after about forty minutes of pain (that I disguised with the widest and fakest grin in the history of facial expressions made throughout tattoo sessions), I could finally see the most generic quote that she’s known for written beautifully on my arm: On ne naît pas femme : on le devient.
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” – is an extract from her book The Second Sex, which was the first one of her books I had ever read. Having lived with a vacuum of female philosophers at the time, I only found out about her because I gradually read more about the existentialist Sartre, her sort-of-husband and sort-of-but-more-definitely-lover (it's complicated). They had an interesting relationship, which deserves more attention than just a paragraph in a blog post written by an armchair philosopher, but it was her views on the relationships between men and women, which made me develop an interest in her as a woman as well as a great thinker.
The Second Sex has been labelled as a feminist book, and is known for inspiring especially the second wave of feminism, as well as other waves that followed. Although I understand that members of this movement would claim the works of de Beauvoir as feminist literature, since it discusses society’s definition and therefore influence on women, what role their female bodies and attitudes play in this definition and their way of life, as well as the passivity of women, de Beauvoir didn't initially call herself a feminist. Despite having been defined as one, she was rather interested in the socialist development and movement, as well as class struggle. Although all the aforementioned movements share principles about fairness and increasing quality of life for members of society, de Beauvoir didn’t take feminist issues entirely seriously until she realised that the socialist movement didn’t necessarily improve women’s lives more than capitalism for example. It wasn’t until the 70s that she joined the feminist movement to address women’s need for work to gain independence and their existence as the “second sex” next to their male counterparts. She believed that in order to be liberated, women needed to support the working classes and fight in solidarity with the political left, as well as accepting their place in a world alongside men.
Before you accuse me of being a member of the radical part of the most recent wave of feminism, I would like to point out that I’m with de Beauvoir when she stated that “I do not believe that women are inferior to men by nature, nor do I believe that they are their natural superiors either." (1976) It’s never been about rejecting men, or the fact that we inevitably share lives together. “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” is addressing that what it means to be a woman is defined differently by societies, and is therefore also lived differently depending on for example environmental circumstances. Definitions and attitudes towards female beauty, participation and power in society, as well as responsibilities, can depend on social codes, hierarchies, and the way we've found ourselves in a group. Existentialists, as she and Sartre were, do not believe that we are anything at all until our environment and experiences, the choices we make and the resources we use and create, shape who we end up becoming.
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” can therefore be used as a reminder that one has the choice to reject the way we have been made to believe we should see ourselves, as there is more to our identity than our genetic and social structure. However, for me personally, it reminds me that we have the power to use the resources society gives us to shape the person we are or desire to be, without having to meet society’s objectives and expectations at the same time. I don’t need to feel what society and so-called oppressive structures want me to feel, and in a more specific case, there’s no need to convince myself that just because men have actively influenced and contributed to this world for longer than women, that I should feel oppressed or not get the chance to be as active and engaged as they are now. If there is anything stopping me from achieving exactly what others have achieved before me, regardless of gender and the societal perceptions and definitions that come with it, then I’d rather try to find a way to solve this problem and take the resources I need to fulfill my goals. Every time I will look at my new tattoo now, I will hopefully remind myself to take responsibility for who I am, who I want to be, and who I could be. Because as much as others might tell me otherwise, one is not born a woman, but rather becomes one, and I will do everything I can to be the main determining force behind shaping who that woman is going to be.
