Talk:The Second Sex

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Contents 1 translation 2 When was the first translation into English of _The Second Sex_ published? 3 Article needs cleanup 4 Did someone regurgitate the entire book? 5 Weasel Words and Unsourced Points

[edit] translation

Someone should mention something about the poor translation.

See this article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9402EED6163FF931A1575BC0A9629C8B63&pagewanted=all

It is rather puzzling to refer to Beauvoir's sexuality in the first sentence of the entry on her.

November 6, 2006: Is de Beauvoir's sexual preferences really relevant to this article?

[edit] When was the first translation into English of _The Second Sex_ published?

Was it still in the 1950s? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.173.230.154 (talk) 16:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

The oldest listed is the edition published by Jonathan Cape in 1953--Cailil ^talk 23:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, the male sex has proven to be the "other" sex. Biologically, the female sex is the default (if the fetus is unstimulated by the appropriate hormones) and the male sex arises as the non-default sex (when exposed to the appropriate hormones). For more information, see: Neil Carlson, Physiology of Behavior, 9th ed. Fuzzform 05:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't really see how that makes it "other", dozens of hormones interact in the formation of a foetus. And if you follow the "useless male nipples" theory, see Genital tubercle. EamonnPKeane (talk) 02:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article needs cleanup

Speaking as a general reader this article is overwhelming in its unchecked verbosity. I'm sure that it means something to specialists but the section Content of The Second Sex appears to be an essay or original research. It is hard to tell as its footnotes are extremely limited. RegardsTrilobitealive (talk) 01:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I agree that the article is dense, but I'm sure that it would be helpful to those who may not want to read the whole book. It seems somewhat in keeping with the intent of the WikiProject Books ("Mainly, we just want you to write articles!"), but really does seem like somebody pasted in their essay. N8mills (talk) 08:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC) It's completely overlong. A brief synopsis would be helpful to those (that cannot be bothered to read the book in its entirety) but this is not the place for a complete reiteration of all the themes included in the book. This article should be much more concise.Jatrius (talk) 11:02, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I have left word on User talk:TEKARNSIDE, who appears to be the author of the synopsis, asking for help in this regard. I wonder about the possibility of putting a smaller synopsis here and then having a separate page with the long synopsis. I would not want to tackle such a cleanup as I'm unfamiliar with the book. This was helpful to me when I read it but it just isn't short enough to be a good general article.Trilobitealive (talk) 14:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Did someone regurgitate the entire book?

This article seriously needs cleaning up! Please anyone with any knowledge of Beauvoir do so asap!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Natasha1985 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel Words and Unsourced Points

I noticed that the following phrases were weasel words and should either be changed or removed:

• is one of the best known works
• and often regarded as a major feminist work

Also, these phrases are unsourced:

• Beauvoir wrote the book after attempting to write about herself.
• The first thing she wrote was that she was a woman, but she realized that she needed to define what a woman was, which became the intent of the book.
  

Delduþling♦talk 00:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)