Biologizing women’s inferiority is scientifically baseless and ethically vacuous

Evidence

Equality is the result. But what removes much of the interest of these careful debates is that no relation has been established between brain weight and the development of intelligence. Nor could one give a psychic interpretation of chemical formulas defining male and female hormones. We categorically reject the idea of a psychophysiological parallelism; the bases of this doctrine have definitively and long been weakened. I mention it because although it is philosophically and scientifically ruined, it still haunts a large number of minds: it has already been shown here that some people are carrying around antique vestiges of it. We also repudiate any frame of reference that presupposes the existence of a natural hierarchy of values—for example, that of an evolutionary hierarchy; it is pointless to wonder if the female body is more infantile than the male, if it is closer to or further from that of the higher primates, and so forth. All these studies that confuse a vague naturalism with an even vaguer ethic or aesthetic are pure verbiage. Only within a human perspective can the female and the male be compared in the human species. But the definition of man is that he is a being who is not given, who makes himself what he is. As Merleau-Ponty rightly said, man is not a natural species: he is a historical idea. Woman is not a fixed reality but a becoming; she has to be compared with man in her becoming; that is, her possibilities have to be defined: what skews the issues so much is that she is being reduced to what she was, to what she is today, while the question concerns her capacities; the fact is that her capacities manifest themselves clearly only when they have been realized: but the fact is also that when one considers a being who is transcendence and surpassing, it is never possible to close the books. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 104

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the existentialist premise that man is not a natural species but a historical idea, with woman as becoming rather than fixed reality.
• XREF: Connects to Merleau-Ponty and Sartre/Heidegger sources the reader is reading for sense-making of the Continental tradition. — connects to: Biology alone cannot explain why woman is the Other — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 109; Biology does not condemn women to inferiority; meaning applied to differences does — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1978; Women’s so-called inferiority complexes stem from real, objective restrictions — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1037 (+7 more)
• QUESTION: Beauvoir’s assertion that no relation exists between brain weight and intelligence — worth checking what the century of research since has established.

Broader Connections

• Biology does not condemn women to inferiority; meaning applied to differences does #corroborates (0.92) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1978
• Biology shapes but does not determine woman’s situation or destiny #corroborates (0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 102
• Women’s alleged faults arise from their enclosed condition, not innate nature #corroborates (0.88) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1745
• Women’s so-called inferiority complexes stem from real, objective restrictions #corroborates (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1037
• Women’s exclusion from authority stems from learned passivity, not innate inferiority #corroborates (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 673
• Biological determinism is used to excuse structural inequality. #expands (0.80)
• Superiority, inferiority, and equality frames distort gender discussion. #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 62