Simone de Beavoir

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So, Simone de Beauvoir!  She was a 1960's feminist (also a bit of a existentialist).  She's typically associated with the novel "The Second Sex" which is dense to the point of being a nightmare.  She also did "Ethics of Ambiguity," hence her existentialist lean, but we'll maybe talk about that later since....  this is the feminism section.

The focus of this text is that Woman has always been treated as an "other" to Man and this treatment is unjust.  However, de Beauvoir goes on excruciatingly long tangents as to why this is, only really making an argument in the last chapter.  But, writing reviews aside, the book does cover some major points.

Men are fortunate and have transcended the ambiguity of existence.  Women are, necessarily, shoved into the dirt as a way of maintaining the Male position in society as the entitled gender.  This arises from the simple biological fact that women, should they have a baby, are forced to sit idly during their pregnancy and men have to provide for the family.  This persists, and man becomes the "working" gender while the woman becomes the "idle" gender, or the Other.  In a society based on work for gain, this will always be the case.

That's the gist, anyway.  She also goes into the process that a baby goes through in becoming woman... which is a large part of the argument, really.  Here it goes:

Baby boys and baby girls all start out the same.  However, a baby girl is treated differently than a boy as she grows up, being given gentler things to play with such as dolls and teddy bears, while a boy is given sport-balls and a B-B Gun.  The conditioning of a girl to be jealous of a boy's toy (one is way more fun) makes the girl feel inferior.  The boys toys are also all designed to make the boy more macho, while the girl toys are made to make her feel more motherly.  This will begin the process.  During puberty, things happen to further the divide and make girls absolutely miserable once a month whilst boys have no such... issues.  And other things that de Beauvoir talks about.  Yadda yadda.

Short section... sorry.  It's really no fun.