Post #4: Analysis of the "The Daughters of Beauvoir "

 Word Count: 372

The “Daughters of Beauvoir”, produced by Penny Foster, talks about various women’s experiences and how their lives were impacted by the numerous works and writings of Simone de Beauvoir.

Rather than an initial deep dive into the person and life of Simone de Beauvoir in the beginning of the documentary, the film instead looks into the lives of women who saw Simone as a sort of “mother”, or as someone who gave them not just somebody to look to. Something remarkable about each person interviewed was that most times, Simone did not just give them a new way of life but finally put into words the feelings and experiences most women had into form. All of a sudden, the various things they felt and thought were cemented as something not just prevalent in them themselves as personal issues but now had a name and could be more easily identified.

Marge Piercy, a writer herself, described her experience being an Existentialist, how certain things in her life, like her marriage, weren’t entirely right for her, put her in this state of pondering and reflection. She then read the Second Sex and described her view on it saying, (25:04) “She provided in the Second Sex an analysis for experiences, that were familiar to me but you cannot, if you do not have a vocabulary, you cannot handle your own experience”. This quote highlighted the importance of Simone’s writings and books giving the readers something to identify with. Marge too describes the importance of being able to define an experience at 25:25 in the film. She says “One of the things Feminism does for women is name things. So that once you name something it exits for you, you can handle it in your mind, you can turn it around, you can decide what to do about it, but if things have no names, all you can do is feel a sense of uneasiness, it’s a personal thing then, instead of being an issue it's your own problem”. Many saw Simone de Beauvoir as a woman who had so many tremendous experiences yet never gave up life as a woman and her writings greatly impacted many of the women who read and saw her example.

Works Cited

Penny Foster (Producer), & . (1990). Daughters of de Beauvoir. [Video/DVD] Filmakers Library. Retrieved from https://video.alexanderstreet.com/watch/daughters-of-de-beauvoir