Beauvoir’s account of the body is phenomenological, not biological or constructivist.

Evidence

In earlier works (Heinämaa, “ Women— Nature, Product, Style?”; “What Is a Woman?”), I have shown that Beauvoir’s concept of the human body is neither naturalbiological nor social-constructivist, but it is phenomenological and is based on the distinction between the lived body, on the one hand, and the physical thing, on the other hand. Moreover, Beauvoir distances herself from Sartre’s discourse in which the living body is primarily described as a tool and secondarily as fl esh. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 399

Categorization

• XREF: The lived-body versus physical-thing distinction echoes Husserl’s Leib/Körper split, which Beauvoir inherits via Merleau-Ponty rather than through Sartre’s tool-body framing. — connects to: Beauvoir argued womanhood is socially constructed, not innate — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 669; The body is a permanent structure of being, not a contingent addition. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 870; Beauvoir’s concept of sexual difference derives from Merleau-Ponty, not Sartre. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 399 (+5 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies what Beauvoir’s body concept actually is — neither essentialist nor constructionist — which is a recurring misreading worth pinning down.

Broader Connections

• Beauvoir argued womanhood is socially constructed, not innate #qualifies (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 669
• The body is a self-developable means, not passive imprint or natural expression #expands (0.85) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1210
• Beauvoir argued women become Other through history, not by nature #qualifies (0.85) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 265
• The body is a permanent structure of being, not a contingent addition. #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 870
• The body seen from another’s viewpoint is a thing, not lived #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 923
• Beauvoir pushes embodied consciousness further than Merleau-Ponty into gendered phenomenology #expands (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 108
• Beauvoir’s concept of sexual difference derives from Merleau-Ponty, not Sartre. #complicates (0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 399
• Beauvoir influenced Sartre broadly but failed on the sexed nature of embodiment #contradicts (0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 88