Blocked transcendence leaves woman unable to be defined by her acts

Evidence

For many women, the roads to transcendence are blocked: because they do nothing, they do not make themselves be anything; they wonder indefinitely what they could have become, which leads them to wonder what they are: it is a useless questioning; if man fails to find that secret essence, it is simply because it does not exist. Kept at the margins of the world, woman cannot be defined objectively through this world, and her mystery conceals nothing but emptiness. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 662

Categorization

• DEFINE: The immanence/transcendence pairing’s payoff: a being denied transcendence has no acts to be measured by, so mystery is a structural void, not a hidden essence.
• DEEPTHINKING: The final line — woman’s mystery ‘conceals nothing but emptiness’ — is a dense synthesis of economy, existential phenomenology, and the eroticization of the Other, worth sitting with.
• XREF: connects to: Granting woman freedom while denying her transcendence yields only negative freedom — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 406; Exalting woman spiritually sanctions her earthly subordination rather than liberating her — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 591; Traditional marriage confines woman to immanence and denies her transcendence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1196 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Passivity is dangled as a temptation that girls yield to as transcendence is blocked #expands (0.88) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 714
• Traditional marriage confines woman to immanence and denies her transcendence #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1196