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Depends with each individual cases I presume.

“Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Reading The Second Sex right now. I need a bit of brush up on some history and philosophy.

Interesting that The Second Sex is included in this list, given that its author believed that women are generally too stupid to choose what's best for them in life.

> No woman should be authorized to stay home to raise her children. Women should not have that choice, because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.

— Simone de Beauvoir

For the record, I'm not criticizing Nietzsche. I'm saying Simone de Beauvoir criticized Nietzsche in a manner I found interesting enough to remark upon.

"This Simone person" pretty much invented second wave feminism with her book "The Second Sex", and is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. Her work changed the course of history. So yes, she's definitely up to something.

Eric Zemmour, a French political writer and polemist (he has controversial views on immigration and such, but is right on other topics), speaks about this in great detail in his book "The First Sex" (a reference to Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex") He explains how capitalism has taken the "useful idiots" of feminism and used them to first turn women into workers (hence doubling the amount of consumers as it created a population with a newfound salary) and then feminised men to turn them into passive materialists. Men are no longer the authority, they are less and less the breadwinner, they are encouraged to be more feminine, to be more passive than aggressive, to be sensitive and open with their feelings, all emasculating them even further. Then he cites studies of the sharp rise of men who have trouble getting an erection, of the sharp rise in divorces and people no longer wanting to have a family of their own. He connects, in a somewhat Marxian manner (without the communist solution that Marx proposes) that unbridled capitalism destroys the nuclear family under the false kings of individualism and liberty. If you're interested in this stuff, Freud also talks about this: he claims Civilisation should channel men's aggressive tendencies, not suppress them (as we are doing now). The result in doing the latter will mean men will find other ways to rebel, and it will be against civilization instead of being used to enhance it.

"The Second Sex" by Simone De Beauvoir is on here twice. I'd recommend if you're looking to read an existentialist book by the same author - check out "The Ethics of Ambiguity" which is an attempt to form an existentialist ethics, and is short, and good. Tbqh "The Second Sex" is a bit dry for modern tastes - even though it is important. I'd recommend reading something like Judith Butler's "Gender Trouble" if you want a better feel for modern feminism.

You left out the next sentence, so in context it reads “ ... because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction.“

> “ ... women are generally too stupid to choose what’s best for them in life.”

Those are your words, not Simone de Beauvoirs.

I haven’t read “The Second Sex” yet but I have read “The Ethics of Ambiguity” by her.

I would bet a dollar though that Beauvoir considers stupidity an individual human trait generously distributed across all genders.

Here are some other quotes from The Second Sex.

"Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it."

"To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue nonetheless to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles – desire, possession, love, dream, adventure – worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us – giving, conquering, uniting – will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form."

The first book that changed my life was "The Second Sex" by Simone De Beauvoir. Is not an easy book to read, with many philosophical and historical references, but it really shaped me. It changed my perception of women and also my awareness as a man.
Another thing that changed my life was not a book by a record. It's not the same thing, I know, but I must name it because I was influenced more by its literary part (the lyrics) than by its music. The album is "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" by Genesis.

It was my understanding that the author is not disputing that culture is important. What I got he's trying to say is:
- Culture is not always the reason something happens
- Culture is not used as an explanation when something happens related to some countries.
I think this point is valid. I'm reading 'The Second Sex' and Simone de Beauvoir talks about how machism is a way to turn the women into the _Other_, to put men into the center, as something neutral. I think it's the same thing with culturalism; it's not that somethings may be caused by culture but it's turning other cultures into Other, it's putting our culture as if it were something neutral, the standard.