Beauvoir’s concept of sexual difference derives from Merleau-Ponty, not Sartre.

Evidence

I have argued elsewhere (Heinämaa, Toward a Phenomenology; “Introduction”) that Merleau-Ponty’s concept of the human subject as a sedimented bodily formation is the basis of Beauvoir’s philosophical conceptualization of sexual diff erence in Th e Second Sex. In my understanding, Beauvoir distanced herself from Sartre’s Hegelian view in which the human subject is a “hole in being” (TM, 366; MT, 163; Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception/ Phenomenology of Perception, 249/215). She followed Merleau-Ponty in rejecting the opposition of being and nothingness and in arguing that, rather than opposing a pure nothingness to the fullness of being, the human being functions as a fold or hollow in the tissue of being. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 399

Categorization

• XREF: Directly overturns the standard Beauvoir-as-Sartre-disciple narrative central to this book’s historiographical thesis. The fold/hollow distinction is a precise, citable way to separate their ontologies. — connects to: Beauvoir synthesized Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, exceeding both, to write the Second Sex — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 63; Ambiguity is Merleau-Ponty’s concept, not Sartre’s or Beauvoir’s — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 66; Beauvoir’s transcendence concept is largely non-Sartrean, especially in The Second Sex — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 578 (+5 more)
• SEED: Angle: Beauvoir’s ‘fold’ vs Sartre’s ‘hollow’ as the moment the Second Sex breaks from Sartrean ontology via Merleau-Ponty’s genetic phenomenology.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: whether Beauvoir read Merleau-Ponty’s Phénoménologie in manuscript/early form, and the dating of her adoption of the fold concept relative to writing the Second Sex.

Broader Connections

• Beauvoir’s transcendence concept is largely non-Sartrean, especially in The Second Sex #corroborates (0.82) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 578
• Beauvoir may have misread Sartre through Merleau-Ponty’s interpretive lens #expands (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 212
• Beauvoir’s philosophical apprenticeship was shaped by intellectual humility before Merleau-Ponty #expands (0.78) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 370
• Beauvoir saw Sartre and Merleau-Ponty diverging on the subject by 1945 #corroborates (0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 501
• War’s arbitrary cruelty shaped Merleau-Ponty’s later emphasis on embodiment #expands (0.72) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 454