9th of March

Chandrika Kumaratunga

The 8th of March is the International Women's Day, therefore we dedicated this class speaking about this day in general and about Simone de Beauvoir in particular.

To begin the class, Meghan dealt every person a paper with information about women in different countries. We had to read papers aloud. In my case, the country was Sri Lanka and my information was about Chandrika Kumaratunga, the first women president of this country.

After that Meghan showed us a presentation about International Women's Day, Simone de Beauvoir and Existentialism.

The main information about the day is the next:

1. International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.
2. This day is a national holiday in some countries like China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Moldova, Russia...
3. This celebration started in Germany in 1911 thanks to Clara Zetkin.
4. In each country, people celebrate this day in a different way.

The most important information about existentialism is:

1. The existentialism is a school of thought that explores the nature of existence and the human condition.
2. It's based on facticity, trasendence, act, freedom and ban faith.
3. Some existentialists were Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, —Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.
4. We read some questions that applied the existentialism to feminism, like "Are there women really?" and "What are some factifical conditions specific of women?"

Some interesting information about Simone de Beauvoir are:

Simone de Beauvoir

1. She's a French Existentialist Philosopher.
2. She was born in Paris in 1908. She studied mathematics, language and literature, and philosophy. She has a relationship with Sartre during all of their life.
3. Her main works are The second sex, Ethics of ambiguity, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, She came to stay, The Mandarins...
4. She relates existentialism to feminism.
5. Some quotes by Simone de Beauvoir are —“Human freedom is the ultimate, the unique end to which man should destine himself.”, "To will oneself free is to effect the transition from nature to morality by establishing a genuine freedom on the original upsurge of our existence.” and “One is not born, but becomes a woman.”

We discuss about this topics. In think that the body is only a part of oneself, the soul is more important.

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