In The Second Sex, Chapter 14 The Independent Woman, Simone de Beauvoir offers a devastating critique of the problems facing women who want to be artists and writers. Much has changed since she wrote it in 1949, but also much has stayed horribly familiar.

In earlier posts, I’ve shared how I’ve worked with her words since first encountering them, constructing ‘turnings’ from her original. These turnings are not statements of ‘how it is’ but rather motivations/values/desires. In this summary, I group my turnings under four themes. Her critique turns into something like a personal manifesto and/or set of affirmations.

*Speech Flowers,* acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100cm, Lynne Cameron, 2018

the woman, the work, the world, and transcendence

My wings are not clipped

I go beyond the given through artistic expression

I throw prudence to the wind to try to emerge beyond the given world

I dare bold flights towards goals, and thereby risk setbacks.

I do not lack audacity to break through the ceiling

I adopt in front of the whole world, the disinterested attitude that opens up wider horizons.

I can be counted on to blaze new trails

I dissipate mirages and do not exhaust my courage - I do not stop in fear at the threshold of reality

I penetrate other shadows beyond clarity

I go beyond the pretext

I traverse the given in search of its secret dimension

I project my spirit with all its riches in an empty sky that is its to fill

the woman, the work, the world

I fully assume the agonising tête-à-tête with the given world

I abandon myself to the contemplation of the world: I am capable of creating it anew

I set the world apart. I question it. I denounce its contradictions. I take it seriously.

I approach nature in its inhuman freedom, try to decipher its foreign meanings and lose myself in order to unite with this other presence

I feel responsible for the universe

I think myself authorised to work out the fate of all humanity in my particular life

I make my history, my problems, my doubts and my hopes those of humanity

I attempt to discover in my life and my works all of reality

I enrich our vision of the world

the woman and the work

truth itself is ambiguity, depth, mystery: I acknowledge the presence of this enigma, and then I rethink it, re-create it

I passionately lose myself in my projects

I commit myself entirely to my enterprise. I am not tempted to give it up

I do not settle for a mediocre success. I dare to aim higher

I forget myself and generously aim for a goal

I aim for an object rather than my subjective success

I envisage art as serious work

I do not consider it to be a simple ornament of my life

I acquire technique. I do not balk at the thankless solitary trials and errors of work that is never exhibited, that has to be destroyed and done over again a hundred times. I do not cheat or hope to get by with a few ruses

I work

I do not attach too much importance to minor failures and modest successes

I have the courage to displease

I dare to irritate, explore, explode

I disown reasonable modesty

I refuse to orchestrate the mystification intended to persuade women to ‘remain women’

I can be a creator

the independent woman

I may feel alone within the world: I stand up in front of it, unique and sovereign

I posit myself as a freedom

I refuse to be object and prey

I will not waste my time on shopping and dress fittings and such

I do not deny my intelligence... or my age

I will not repudiate everything in me that is ‘different’

I have this madness in talent called genius

I will not stifle my originality; I trust it

I am solidly sure that I have already found myself

When the struggle to claim a place in this world gets too rough, there can be no question of tearing myself away from it; I emerge within it in sovereign solitude to try to grasp it anew

I learn from the practice of abandonment and transcendence, in anguish and pride

I dare to construct myself (and cherish myself)

When I read The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir seemed to unroll my life experience like a map of the world, pointing out continents and oceans, showing how routes across this world of my life were somehow predictable. She showed me centuries of history and myth that made this inevitable. She gave me words to describe my experience, and a new way to own my experience.

The little pink book is a thin slice of The Second Sex, containing the Introduction, Chapter 14 The Independent Woman, and the Conclusion. Over several years now, it has kept me coming back, repeatedly pummelled my mind, made me sit up and take notice.

Chapter 14 holds the real challenge for me as a painter and writer. Her words about women and their creative work hurt. I wish they were less accurate. Here’s just one example out of nearly 50 pages:

extract from p63, *The Second Sex,* Simone de Beauvoir, 1949.

I am brought up abruptly by the truth and relevance of her words. They make me want to throw prudence to the wind and to try to emerge beyond the given world. I’d even like to claim a bit of the madness in talent called genius.

This kind of energising effect points to how we can respond to her words. Take this for example:

“She may feel alone within the world: she never stands up in front of it, unique and sovereign. ”

— Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

One way I respond to her statements about what holds back women is to feel how they apply to my own art practice/life, then turn them around, and affirm the reversal:

i stand up in front of the world, unique and sovereign.

I have found reversed statements like this both bracing and encouraging. They have given me courage on days when being an artist feels so hard, such a waste of effort and precious time.

i throw prudence to the wind and

try to emerge beyond the given world

I can even try:

i have this madness in talent called genius

and if that sounds too much, I can still ‘try on’ the statement or ‘hold it against me to see how it might fit’.

This OWN-TURN-OWN practice of working with de Beauvoir’s words has been very formative for me. It has given me energy to continue on bad days, and to place my work in a larger perspective. It moves beyond a reprimand into spine-strengthening encouragement.

Next time: Themes and metaphors in Chapter 14, all the words