A girl first learns her subordinate destiny through male-authored stories and culture.

Evidence

Everything helps to confirm this hierarchy in the little girl’s eyes. Her historical and literary culture, the songs and legends she is raised on, are an exaltation of the man. Men made Greece, the Roman Empire, France, and all countries, they discovered the earth and invented the tools to develop it, they governed it, peopled it with statues, paintings, and books. Children’s literature, mythology, tales, and stories reflect the myths created by men’s pride and desires: the little girl discovers the world and reads her destiny through the eyes of men. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 700

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the general framework of woman as Other via cultural myth — echoes what later emerges in the chapter on Myths. — connects to: The girl learns to view herself through an imagined collective male gaze; Fairy tales encode gendered roles of active seeker and passive captive. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 706; Feminine romantic fantasy scripts the girl as pursued object of another’s desire — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 709
• SEED: Essay angle: the gendered canon of children’s literature as an early infrastructure of Othering.

Broader Connections

• The girl learns to view herself through an imagined collective male gaze #expands (0.85)
• Fairy tales encode gendered roles of active seeker and passive captive. #exemplifies (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 706
• Feminine romantic fantasy scripts the girl as pursued object of another’s desire #exemplifies (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 709