From Objects to Equals

This piece is from the art museum, and it immediately reminded me of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir.

I'm not sure if both sculptures are of women, but for my purposes they will be. This is a great representation of what de Beauvoir described society's view of women as: beings with mishaped minds and bereft of arms or hands to help themselves out of the pit of submission they were thrown into. That's a lot of words, but basically there is a common portrayal of women being less intelligent than men and helpless in the matter of promoting themselves in the world. There is a stigma that women cannot serve in a political office simply because they are women who go through P.M.S. and cannot be relied upon to make important decisions. There are a lot of stigmas like that, and I like to think that this sculpture is ironically mocking those misconceptions. I like to think that the way they are descending the steps in the sculpture means that they are taking themselves off the pedastals they were put on by men as objects to look at and immersing themselves in the world as equals.