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This is one of the most famous statements in feminist theory, made by the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1972 [1949]). Beauvoir was a writer and philosopher and her early ideas about the reasons for inequalities between women and men influenced what came to be known as the second wave feminist movement that developed in the 1970s. Beauvoir made the crucial argument that it was culture – in the form of western civilization – that delimited what women could become, and that this culture dictated the subordination of women to men through their exclusion from power, education, work and public life in general. Although Beauvoir was not a sociologist, her assertion that women are not ‘born’ resonates with sociological analyses of gender precisely because it summarizes the fundamental rejection of biological definitions. Moreover, this rejection of biological explanations by second wave feminist thinkers was based on the development of alternative, largely sociological, explanations for gender inequalities in western societies. Before we discuss those ideas in detail, it is worth reflecting on the radical implications of such a statement on women.

Cultural values and beliefs around men and women were still dominated by biological explanations not only when Beauvoir was writing in the 1940s, but also during the 1970s when the second wave of widespread feminist activism developed. Differences relating to genitalia, child- bearing, physical strength and mental and emotional capacities were all variously used to justify the social position of women as inferior to men in general, and subordinate to male counterparts in workplaces, education, politics and cultural life, and within the home as wives, mothers and daughters. Attitudes to and the regulation of homosexuality were even more oppressive, with homosexual acts illegal in Britain until 1967, and remaining so in many states of the USA, Canada (until 1969) and globally. Homosexuality was regarded as morally and psychologically deviant and above all as ‘unnatural’. These values and beliefs were apparent in individual attitudes and were also reflected in laws, in social policies such as those on education, health and welfare, in politics and in everyday life. In short, the whole realm of the social, from social structures and culture to identities and everyday activities, was dominated by biological explanation of the differences and inequalities between men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals. Indeed, the term ‘gender’ did not even exist as common cultural currency, with the biological term ‘sex’ used to contain and signify men and women (hence Beauvoir’s characterization of women as the second ‘sex’).

This understanding of both the ‘natural’ division between men and women and the ‘unnatural’ deviance of homosexuals had become culturally dominant across the western world during the era of industrialization and urbanization, from around the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. For example, take this best- selling marriage manual advising men about sex with their wives:

Woman is a harp who only yields her secrets of melody to the master who knows how to handle her … what both man and woman, driven by obscure primitive urges, wish to feel in the sexual act, is the essential force of maleness, which expresses itself in a sort of violent and absolute possession of the woman. And so both of them can and do exult in a certain degree male aggression and dominance – whether actual or apparent – which proclaims this essential force. (T.H. Van de Velde, Ideal Marriage, 1930, quoted in Jackson, 1989: 62)

It is clear that the woman is regarded as completely passive when it comes to sex, and that she is seen as ‘naturally’ unknowing until stimulated by ‘the essential force of maleness’, which enables her to re- connect to her own ‘primitive’ biological urges. Using this example, we can begin to define two key terms in sexuality and gender studies: those of essentialism and gender. These concepts will be developed later in the book but for now we offer working definitions. Essentialism literally means any form of thinking that characterizes or explains aspects of human behaviour and identity as part of human ‘essence’: a biologically and/ or psychologically irreducible quality of the individual that is immutable and pre- social, as demonstrated above when sexual urges are identified as ‘essential’ to ‘maleness’. Woman’s sexuality is seen as naturally passive, but also buried deep in her essential biological being, awaiting arousal by a man. Biological explanations are thus essentialist as they rely on reducing behaviour and identity to a biological basis, whether genetic, hormonal or physiological. These explanations are often referred to as ‘naturalist’ and/or ‘nativist’, since biology is equated with ‘nature’.

The idea of ‘natural development’ indicates that human conduct and attributes follow evolutionary and/or genetically programmed patterns, which are impermeable to social influence and are thus what we are born with – the literal meaning of ‘native’. Human ‘nature’ is common cultural shorthand for the biological aspects of our character. In such naturalist explanations, it is perfectly reasonable to state that women are ‘naturally’ maternal, and that homosexuality is against ‘nature’ since it is not reproductive, that (heterosexual) men are naturally sexually aggressive and, ultimately, that heterosexuality is the only ‘natural’ sexual behaviour. Essentialism can be understood in terms of a determinist equation: biological sex equals male or female equals sexual desire directed towards the opposite sex. Anatomy is most definitely destiny in this equation, so child- bearing is taken to define the natural role of women, and non- reproductive sex does not fit within the equation’s parameters.

Biology, however, is not the only basis of essentialism; spiritual or psychological essentialism has also been a significant feature of western thought. In this form of essentialism, gender and sexuality are often conceptualized in religious terms, as God- given (as in discussions of abortion and child- care during the 1960s and 1970s and homosexuality today), or in psychological terms, for example in ideas of love, romance and sex as central to personal fulfilment and emotional well- being. In both psychological and spiritual essentialism, social influences on gender and sexuality are either downplayed or ignored. In such explanations, sexually active women have been described as either spiritually ‘fallen’ or psychologically disturbed, and, of course, homosexuals have been similarly characterized as either sinful or perverted.

The simple statement that ‘one is not born a woman’ thus represents a considerable challenge to the essentialism that is deeply entrenched in western culture.