[100 Challenge] Roberta Gattel_68

The second sex, Simone De Beauvoir, 1949

I heard of Simone De Beauvoir for the first time during the 18th birthday party of one of my classmates. The birthday invitation arrived by post, with a cursive font on the golden cardboard: “Evening dress required.” And then an English word I had never heard before, “dress code,” next to which “strictly in black” was underlined. The party was on the top floor of a building in the town center where I went to school, "it's my grandmother's birthday present," the birthday girl told me as soon as I arrived. “What?” I asked. “The attic,” she replied, rolling her eyes and looking incredibly proud. “Attic” was a word I had never heard, even though it had been said to me in Italian and not in English.

I didn't have time to tell her that I didn't understand because she had already started a long story: "In reality,she didn't give it to me: she died, my parents inherited it and gave it to me. Let's pretend it's her gift. Do you see this instead?” and pointed me to three strings of pearls that served as a necklace and which held ten centimeters of a pendant studded with diamonds in the shape of an S, the initial of her name. The jewel, worthy of the Tsarina of Russia, was presented to me in detail (weight, carat, purity of the stone) before describing the dress she was wearing: "It's a Valentino, do you see? Valentino red. That's why you had to dress all in black; otherwise, I wouldn't stand out."

She told me that she had bought two dresses because she would surprise the guests by changing her clothesin the middle of the evening. And that she had spent 15 thousand euros just on the two dresses. If she had continued talking to me, perhaps I would have learned the exact estimate for the whole party. However, she disappeared before finishing the list because other guests had arrived, or maybe because I wasn't the person she wanted to surprise. “There is a catering service,” she told me before leaving. “Ask for whatever you want. And try the caviar; it's excellent."

Like a robot, wholly uncomfortable and stunned by all the information I had received, I went to the catering table and said: "Can I have some caviar, please?" "Would you like some Champagne with it?" "Yes, please," I replied, appearing nonchalant but utterly ignorant of caviar and Champagne. So, I was given a glass of wine that looked like a regular prosecco and a saucer with a spoonful of something similar to black olive pâté. I sank into the first free sofa, hoping to become invisible and waiting for the magical moment when I would stop feeling uncomfortable. I swallowed the caviar like a pill, helping myself with the wine: whatever that black pate was, it was truly disgusting. On the sofa next to mine, the birthday girl's cousin held an intellectual rally in front of her friends. They were a few years older than the rest of the guests and had no desire to mix with them. There, I heard of Simone de Beauvoir for the first time, the cousin of the birthday girl who had a copy of one of her books with her: a tome as hefty as a Bible with the winking face of a middle-aged woman on the cover. She was waving it over the heads of his audience as Moses had done in his time with the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Sipping my Champagne in that provincial apartment, I had just decided I could never like that book, which inflamed a relatively dry soul.

I sent a little message to my friends who already had their driving licenses and lived nearby, begging them to come and pick me up with any excuse. Thanking my classmate so much for the lovely party, I left that place of unknown words, names, and rituals, bringing with me, however, and for a long time, a sense of great inadequacy.

When, years later, having tea with my room-mates, I tried to talk about my complicated relationship with Simone De Beauvoir, their reaction surprised me: "You don't like Simone De Beauvoir?" they shouted at me in shock, without letting me finish; as if by dipping the biscuit in the tea I had just uttered my latest heresy. “You know we're feminists, right?” they asked me threateningly, making me understand that there was a clear connection between the French author and the Feminist movement and that by taking a stand against her, I was also taking a stand against them.

One of them, speaking about The Second Sex in a controversial and bombastic tone, began to list the problems that still afflict women; she argued that women are little aware of their condition, but she treated not being informed as an unjustifiable lack of her, culture, nowadays, was something easy to access for anyone and not wanting to tap into it implied guilt. From her point of view, informing, reading, and studying were ethical imperatives that everyone had to fulfill to be a good citizen. In arguing this to me, I don't know how, she went so far as to tell me that her father had bought a ticket to New York to see a theatre premiere, in case it didn't arrive in Europe.

She said it with pride as if it were an example that everyone should follow to be cultured people and,therefore, active in their rights and those of others. I was left with half a biscuit between my fingers; the rest had decomposed in the cup of tea that had already been served during the premiere in New York. Scraping the bottom of the cup with the spoon, without saying another word, I had just decided that I could have nothing to do with Simone De Beauvoir and Feminism.

Simone De Beauvoir and Feminism were mysterious subjects for people who spoke a different language than mine, for people who refer to parallel universes where no one finds tickets to the Cinema near their home expensive, and where eating caviar like the divas in 60s films wearing the jewels of the Tsars is entirelynormal. They were subjects for those who spent fifteen thousand euros to change their clothes twice during a party at their dead grandmother's house.

It took me several years before I decided to buy - and read - "The second sex" and understand why it is still so talked about: “Refusing to be the Other, refusing complicity with man, would mean renouncing all the advantages an alliance with the superior caste confers on them. Lord-man will materially protect Liege-woman and will be in charge of justifying her existence. Along with the economic risk, she eludes the metaphysical risk of freedom that must invent its goals without help”.