**womanhood is a journey, different for everyone who embarks on it.** - not all women were assigned female at birth. the journey to accepting and embracing womanhood will be different for trans women but equally valid and important. this statement affirms and validates the fact that trans women are women, being born and assigned female does not mean you are a woman. - socialisation plays a large role in how women are assumed to behave, since women are not one entity. every woman is different and no woman is born liking things, rather she discovers who she is throughout the course of her life. these ideas are in part shaped by society and its expectations, meaning that womanhood is defined by each woman for herself based on her experience as well as the construct of gender we are all prescribed. - [this article](https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/one-is-not-born-but-becomes-a-woman) poignantly explains that 'it is not nature that defines women, rather she defines herself by dealing with nature on her own account in emotional life.'

**Commentary** This commentary will provide an interpretation of Simone De Beauvoir's famous quotation. The elongated section of this quotation reads, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychic, or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female takes on in society; it is civilization as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the eunuch that is called feminine." (De Beauvoir, _The Second Sex_) - It can be interpreted that De Beauvoir is first emphasising that femininity is a social construct, developed from civilisation rather than something innate in biology or behaviour. - In _The Second Sex_'s exploration of what it means to be a woman, De Beauvoir recognises that situations shape character, rather than character determines situation. - This means that the stereotype of femininity arises from a reflection of differences in the situations and experiences of different genders, and not of “essential” differences between men and women. - A person is born and shaped into a woman by societal expectations and upbringing. - She differentiates between sex and gender. Gender is the social construct, and sex is biologically determined. - Infant girls and boys apprehend the world in similar ways; through their senses, not their sexual organs, which De Beauvoir states later in the same paragraph: "For girls and boys, the body is first the radiation of a subjectivity, the instrument that brings about the comprehension of the world: they apprehend the universe through their eyes and hands, and not through their sexual parts." - Hence when we are born we are in a sense genderless, until it has been imposed on us by others. We do not yet perceive ourselves, and the world, according to the conceptions and stereotypes of gender that we are later exposed to. - These ideas are not something present in us from birth, or based on any biological, psychic or economic predestined account of womanhood.

**Society's expectations of women define womanhood to an extent - but what about the trans women who are _not_ experiencing society's expectations of women?** - In the context of the rest of de Beauvoir’s book, this quotation is used to talk about how gender, specifically being a woman, is constructed by society, and that it is not the biological difference of women, but their [situation and role in society that makes them how they are.](https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/one-is-not-born-but-becomes-a-woman) - While this quotation is used as a basis for the theory that gender and biological sex are different, which validates the identities of trans people, I think it is limited. Surely this quotation also invalidates trans women, especially those who do not situate themselves as women in society and are perceived as men? If being a woman is all down to how society treats you, this excludes women who are not perceived as women by society. (Trans writer Jackson Bird articulates this issue about calling gender a social construct very well in his article, [‘If Gender’s a Social Construct, Is Being Trans Just a Construct Too?’](https://medium.com/@jackisnotabird/if-genders-a-social-construct-is-being-trans-just-a-construct-too-f9740bb9f6f), and his thoughts are well worth a read.) - I don’t think there is a clear answer to this, except to suggest that perhaps womanhood is even more complex and mysterious than we think. Many trans people feel that they have always been the opposite gender to the gender which they have been perceived as since birth. Perhaps then, there is something more spiritual about gender that is not socially constructed and that we don’t fully understand, which this quote does not express.