The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, September 20, 2018 — 5

I have always considered myself 

a well-versed feminist. I have read 
Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine 
Mystique” 
and 
Kate 
Millett’s 

“Sexual Politics.” I point out toxic 
masculinity when I see fit, empower 
women as my go-to hobby and, 
the cherry on top, I am a Women’s 
Studies major.

But no feminist text or practice 

could prepare my modern-day 
feminist brain for Simone De 
Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex”: A 
psychoanalytic-existential 
hybrid 

that evaluates every angle of the 
female experience and humanity’s 
placement of women in relation to 
men.

Beauvoir’s feminist prose doesn’t 

just “go off,” it goes in — into the 
depths of the reader’s hard drive to 
rewire our preconceived notions 
of marriage, sex, menstruation 
and so forth. “The Second Sex” 
is 
the 
feminist 
encyclopedia 

that 
encompasses 
psychology, 

philosophy, biology, literature, law, 
traditions and ethics.

On a surface level Beauvoir’s 

standout 
progressive 
proposals, 

like her praise of open sexual 
relationships as the key to free 
love, may seem extreme to readers; 
however, Beauvoir may be playing 
with deeper psychological and 
social truths that many are not 
ready to admit because it’s not 
always easy. It’s not always easy 
to understand that marriage may 
be an oppressive institution that 
diminishes love or that women are 
confined to inferiority and men 
superiority.

On the other
Today I see physical signs of 

progress for women as they march 
through the streets equipped with 
signs demanding their liberation, 
computers 
across 
campus 
are 

adorned with “GRL PWR” stickers. 
And yet, women today are largely 
underrepresented, underpaid and 
without equal rights or authority to 
that of men. Beauvoir’s reasoning 
for this is as follows: “women have 
never formed an autonomous and 
closed society; they are integrated 
into the group governed by males, 
where they occupy a subordinate 
position.” Through man’s work 
and achievement he can progress 
further into the world while a 
“woman’s own successes are in 
contradiction with her femininity.” 
Women can bind together to create 
a 
“counter-universe” 
but 
they 

still cannot avoid the masculine 
universe by which they are forced to 
frame it. Beauvoir describes this as 
the paradox of the female situation: 
“Women belong both to the male 
world and to a sphere in which this 
world is challenged; enclosed in this 
sphere involved in the male world, 
they cannot peacefully establish 
themselves anywhere.” And these 
spheres grow tighter and tighter 
within marginalized groups of 
women based on sexual orientation, 
race or otherwise.

Beauvoir describes the feminist 

urgency to eradicate the patriarchy 
as “halfway between revolt and 
slavery.” We see the light at the end 
of the tunnel to women’s liberation 
but we lack the means to get there 
because we are the Other. Men 
today may include women and call 
us their “peer” but only as long as we 
remain “inessential,” as Beauvoir 
writes. For centuries women have 
been marginalized, silenced and 
othered by the masculine code 
society abides by.

And yet, as a woman of today, I 

am still othered. I am othered as 
soon as I step out into the world 
and am hit with the starving eyes 
of men or even worse derogatory 
“catcalls” that single me out in 
the street, making me aware 
that I am different. I become 
an object of desire. I am othered 
when I am told to cross my legs 
or cover my shoulders, while the 
boy sitting next to me in lecture 
spreads his legs wide apart without 
assessment of his body from the 
outside world. I am othered when 
people anticipate my future as a 
mother or wife based on my gender 
instead of future employer or goal-
setter. And as much as I feel I am 
othered as a woman today, my 
oppression doesn’t compare or 
even reflect that of women with 
different 
socioeconomic 
and/or 

racial status who are significantly 
more marginalized by society than 
myself.

On marriage and motherhood
Beauvoir casts off marriage 

as a mechanism that ruins love 
through the boredom of habituality, 
essentially 
diminishing 
the 

female’s individualized and free 
self. Beauvoir argues that because 
married women feel a deep sense of 
unfulfillment from her secondary 
place in public and private spheres 
she 
desperately 
turns 
toward 

motherhood to fill the abyss that 
is herself. The mother becomes 
devoted, enslaved by her vocation to 
the child only to be devastated when 
the child denies her throughout 
maturation. In Beauvoir’s words, 
“Maternity is a strange compromise 
of narcissism, altruism, dream, 
sincerity, bad faith, devotion and 
cynicism.”

These 
ideals 
of 
Beauvoir’s 

are most critiqued as absurd 

and outdated, but I find them 
to be brilliantly audacious and 
interrogative. 
I 
recognize 
my 

mother’s irrational outbursts of 
anger, affection and bitterness as 
results of my deviation from her 
overbearing grips. I cannot berate 
motherhood or marriage for other 
women, but we should scrutinize 
the idea that motherhood, and the 
roles we attach with it, are natural 
for women.

On the housewife
It may seem outdated when 

Beauvoir addresses the oppression 
of the housewife as so many women 
today are receiving educations 
equal or greater to that of men and 
dispensing themselves throughout 
the workforce. Yet, there remains 
a significant gap between men and 
women partaking in household 
affairs. Polls reveal that working 
men overwhelmingly desire full 
time jobs while women with the 

highest earning potential preferred 
part time work by a 51 to 19 percent 
margin. In 1985 it was surveyed that 
only 10 percent of women said that 
husbands should turn down good 
employment in another city so the 
wife could continue working. In 
2014 a study on Harvard Business 
School graduates found that 40 
percent of Gen X and boomer 
women said their spouse’s careers 
took precedence over theirs, and 70 
percent of the men studied agreed. 
These studies reveal that women 
still hold the importance of their 
husband’s career above their own, 
and work at significantly lower rates 
to ensure time is retained for home 
centered duties. Despite how many 
hours a woman dedicates to her job, 
when she comes home, the majority 
of housekeeping and childcare 
are largely placed on the woman’s 
shoulders. This is a routine we may 
witness countless times in our life: 

Our mothers come home from work 
straight into the kitchen to clean 
and cook, while our fathers hang 
to the side letting gendered roles 
excuse their incompetence. This is 
not meant to say whether being a 
mother or housewife is good or bad, 
but rather to challenge and critique 
the way gendered roles influence 
women’s inferior place in society.

The 
economic 
and 
social 

inequality that favors privileged 
people isolate women on an island of 
inferiority that becomes an obstacle 
of her essence. A woman must 
first overcome the fact that she is a 
woman before she can move about in 
the world as a free agent. According 
to Beauvoir, “she needs to expand a 
greater moral effort than the male to 
choose the path of independence.” 
In bed, in kitchens, in workplaces: 
the woman still remains the Other, 
the secondary. Where and when can 
she be first and the only?

Modern day feminist on being ‘The Second Sex’ today

TESSA ROSE

For the Daily 

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

BOOKS NOTEBOOK

It has been some time since 

the name Norm Macdonald was 
relevant in the world of comedy. 
The veteran comic left “Saturday 
Night Live” in 1999 and since 
then has shown up on various 

talk shows and specials hosted by 
more contemporary comics. In 
2014, Macdonald unsuccessfully 
campaigned to be Craig Ferguson’s 
successor on “The Late Late Show.” 
Macdonald was once a prominent 
face in comedy, thought of as one 
of the great SNL cast members and 
perhaps the best “Weekend Update” 
host of all time. Now, he’s trying to 
reclaim that fame, with the sad 
attempt at relevance that is Netflix’s 
“Norm Macdonald Has a Show.”

“Norm Macdonald Has a Show” 

seeks to offer a laid-back alternative 
to the politicized, scripted talk 

shows that dominate airwaves. 
Each show starts with guests, 
including 
David 
Spade, 
Drew 

Barrymore and David Letterman, 
who are guided on set by staff and 
seated next to Macdonald. There is 
no monologue, no opening music, no 
sense of preparedness; guests come 
to offer career anecdotes and shoot 
the breeze with a seasoned comic.

This lack of preparation might be 

intentional, perhaps meant to add an 
endearing element to the otherwise 
dry show. Instead, it makes for an 
incredibly uncomfortable half an 
hour, leaving the viewers, guests and 
even Macdonald confused at what 
it is they are watching and taking 
part in. There are multiple lulls 
throughout the show, where neither 
Macdonald nor his guest quite 
know what to say. At one point in 
the premiere episode, David Spade 
asks Macdonald if he wants him to 
come back next week. It’s meant as 
a joke, but Spade’s recognition of the 
feeling of incompleteness isn’t far 
off. The deconstructed nature of the 
show falls flat, and feels more like 
an unfinished production that was 
rushed to air.

It doesn’t help that just a week 

before the show was released 
on Netflix, Macdonald gave a 
controversial interview in which he 

discussed the downfall of two of his 
friends, Louis C.K. and Roseanne 

Barr. Macdonald was quoted 

saying that the victims of Barr and 
C.K.’s actions and words “didn’t 
have to go through” the shame 
and backlash the performers did. 
His attempt to apologize on “The 
Howard Stern Show” just made 
matters worse, as he claimed that 
to lack sympathy for sexual assault 
victims, one would have to “have 
Down’s Syndrome.”

These horrific comments cast a 

shadow over an already lackluster 
show, but they embody the essence 
of Macdonald’s routine. “Norm 
Macdonald Has a Show” has the 
aura of a group of lonely dads 
sitting in a basement, drinking 
a couple beers and wondering 
where the good ol’ days went. It’s 
not funny enough to make up for 
the visible lack of preparation nor 
is it innovative enough to make 
up for the apparent lack of care. 
Macdonald and Netflix may be 
trying to conjure comedic nostalgia 
with the former SNL cast member’s 
return to center stage, but there is 
a reason the world of comedy has 
moved on from Norm Macdonald. 
One can only wish he would stop 
making attempts to claw his way 
back in.

‘Norm Macdonald Has a 
Show’ but someone should 
take it away

SAMANTHA DELLA FERA

Daily Arts Writer

TV REVIEW

For half a decade, Lana Del 

Rey has been working on a 
fully realized fantasy for her 
listeners. The extravagance and 
excess ambition of Born to Die 
fed directly into the selfishness 
and moodiness of Ultraviolence, 
which led to the simultaneously 
sedated and anxious Honeymoon. 
2017’s Lust for Life felt like a clear 

departure from the iterative sad-
girl personas Del Rey donned 
every year or two. A smile and 
a few deliberate, happy (by her 
standards) songs were all it 
took. What Lust for Life really 
meant, though, was that Del Rey 
had fulfilled some sort of deep 
creative niche for herself. There 
was no longer a need to languish 
in that dangerous living-fast-and-
dying-pretty feeling that defined 
some of her classics: “Ride,” 
“West Coast,” “Florida Kilos” 
and “Honeymoon,” for example. 
Instead, Del Rey cultivated an 
inner strength and purpose. Songs 
like “High by the Beach” exemplify 

the cool self-assuredness that 
has developed, while “Love” and 
new track “Mariners Apartment 
Complex” 
demonstrate 
her 

willingness to share her strength. 
Del Rey recently announced her 
fifth major-label record Norman 
Fucking Rockwell, due out in 2019, 
and monolithic new single “Venice 
Bitch” pushes Del Rey’s evolution 
even further forward.

“Venice Bitch” opens with 

verses 
that 
have 
become 

increasingly abbreviated as Del 
Rey’s lyrical language has evolved: 
“Fear fun, fear love, / Fresh out of 
fucks, forever.” It’s a couplet that is 
almost comic in its alliteration and 
semi-serious usage of “fresh out of 
fucks.” The words wouldn’t make 
sense coming from the mouth of 
anyone else. The rest of the first 
few minutes feel like a traditional 
Lana love song, as she begs “Oh 
God, miss you on my lips” and 
“One dream, one life, one lover,” 
but the song patiently opens 
into a 9’36’’ expanse of pining 
and cooing for love. An anxious, 
warbling synth steals the melody 
from the fingerpicked guitar in 
the beginning, followed by guitar 
and drum feedback, until Del 
Rey asserts herself over the track 
once more, repeating “Crimson 
and clover, honey” and “Over and 
over, honey.” The short lines are 
not only a reference to the 1968 
song “Crimson and Clover” by 

Tommy James and the Shondells, 
but also another demonstration 
of Del Rey’s ability to weave the 
perfect cultural reference into 

her work. Over the years, Del 
Rey has created an impressive 
musical 
vocabulary, 
at 
once 

vintage and totally her own, that 
has commanded the attention of 
millions for a few years. “Venice 
Bitch” is an absolute flex of a single 
that proves that Del Rey knows 
exactly what she’s doing — and 
that she isn’t doing it for anybody 
but herself.

‘Venice Bitch’ is a sweet 
Southern Calif. expanse

JACK BRANDON

Daily Film Editor

MUSIC REVIEW

“Norm 

Macdonald Has 

a Show”

Series Premiere

Netflix

“Venice Bitch”

Lana Del Rey

Polydor

POLYDOR
NETFLIX

Del Rey knows 

exactly what 

she’s doing — 

and that she 

isn’t doing it for 

anybody but 

herself