Proposal Psychoanalytic Feminism: Simone de Beauvoir and The Second Sex Claudia Meadows March 16, 2020 "The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is: "What does a woman want?" Sigmund Freud In her book, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir describes Freud's psychoanalytical view of the so-called "second sex" which refers to the female gender. She criticizes his misunderstanding of women's psychic and takes a strong stand against his monistic understanding of the "Oedipus Complex". She doesn't try to infuse feminist theories in his psychoanalysis, and so doesn't rewrite history of psychology because she is not a feminist psychoanalyst. Simone de Beauvoir was an existentialist philosopher which means humans are not seen as just a thinking subject but as a being with feelings and motions. The theory is less based on rationalism and reason what might would think of philosophy. Since Sigmund Freud was a philosopher and psychoanalyst, feminist philosophers and psychologists simultaneous are concerned about his interpretation of the Oedipus complex. Female individualism doesn't play a big role, and combining male and female needs in the early developmental stages of childhood together is the failure of Freud's theory, according to Simone de Beauvoir. "Nature does not define woman: it is she who defines herself by reclaiming nature for herself in her affectivity." Simone de Beauvoir