BÁRBARA DE PINA CABRAL

The project aims to explore modern Western binary thought, using Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex as its central reference. The primary focus is to understand how the hierarchical categories of male/female, mind/body, and civilization/nature intertwine within "modernity." The analysis seeks to comprehend how modern dualism is reflected in contemporary binarism in an even more pronounced way. To achieve this, the study adopts a phenomenological-existential methodology, enabling the investigation of how these binary categories are lived and perceived by individuals, alongside a feminist critical analysis that examines the structures of power and oppression perpetuated by these dualities. This study is justified by the need to examine the binary experience as a limitation of existence, which imposes rigidity between opposing poles. This binary system not only rejects the possibility of an "in-between" but also hinders the acknowledgment that the negative aspect of this model might hold value in other circumstances, thereby disallowing transformation.