Simone de Beauvoir
Not Born Knowing How to Please
Some of what we call nature was taught, again and again
The Second Sex (1949), Book II, 'Childhood' and 'The Girl'; English quotation from H. M. Parshley's 1953 translation
Reading faces comes so easily it feels like a gift. Beauvoir asks how much of what feels like temperament was taught.
What actually happened?
Book Two of The Second Sex opens with a sentence that went round the world: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." She goes on to say that no biological, psychological or economic fate fixes the figure a woman cuts in society; it is civilisation as a whole that produces what is called feminine. Then she follows a girl growing up: praised for looking pretty, told how to sit, handed a doll to look after. Each time, she learns to look at herself first, through someone else's eyes.
What she is arguing against
She does not say men and women are the same. She says that much of what gets called temperament, being gentle, anxious to help, quick to give way, grows from how a child is brought up rather than arriving with her.
One child grabs food at the table and is told she is badly brought up; another waits and is praised for being sensible. Both are being taught.
The watched child learns to watch herself
A child who is always looked at and judged learns to stand where the onlooker stands and ask: is this the right smile, will that remark upset someone? Done long enough, it stops feeling like a habit and starts feeling like character.
Before you speak, you run the other person's likely reaction in your head, so fast you no longer notice doing it.
What was taught can be taken apart
To say we become something is to leave a door open. If it was learned, it can be examined piece by piece: which parts do I actually want, and which am I keeping up to avoid being thought badly of?
This week, each time you are about to say whatever you like, pause for a second and ask which one you would pick.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: You read people very well; others call you considerate and you are increasingly tired.
Ask first: Who taught me this "that is just how I am", and when? If I can name it, I can choose again.
Where it goes wrong: Using it to say it is all someone else's fault, or to hand your own choices to your upbringing. She wants you to see a route, not to find someone to blame.
Lines to keep
Most "that is just how I am" has a history.
Looking at yourself first through others' eyes is learned.
What was learned can be taken apart, piece by piece.
Same situation, other people are asking
I say yes, then spend the week regretting it.I keep managing other people's moods and calling it kindness.I say 'anything's fine,' and it isn't.I read faces so well. Was I born like this?I can't stop pleasing people · all 4 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.