Economic change alone cannot produce the new woman

Evidence

But is it enough to change laws, institutions, customs, public opinion, and the whole social context for men and women to really become peers? … One must certainly not think that modifying her economic situation is enough to transform woman: this factor has been and remains the primordial factor of her development, but until it brings about the moral, social, and cultural consequences it heralds and requires, the new woman cannot appear; as of now, these consequences have been realized nowhere: in the U.S.S.R. no more than in France or the United States; and this is why today’s woman is torn between the past and the present; most often, she appears as a “real woman” disguised as a man, and she feels as awkward in her woman’s body as in her masculine garb. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1976

Categorization

• XREF: Rejects crude economism — economic factor is necessary but not sufficient, echoing Marx while insisting on moral/cultural mediation; connects to contemporary debates about liberal feminism vs. structural change. — connects to: Beauty work is a servitude whose costs trap women economically. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1568; Economic emancipation alone does not place women in a situation identical to men’s — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1920; Capitalist economic change, not feminism, drove women into the workforce — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 303 (+3 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: the ‘real woman disguised as a man’ figure — how empowerment rhetoric demands women carry their old femininity while performing masculinity, an awkwardness Beauvoir predicts in 1949.

Broader Connections

• Capitalist economic change, not feminism, drove women into the workforce #corroborates (0.80) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 303
• Historical materialism cannot explain woman’s oppression because it reduces man to the economic abstraction #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 145
• Economic change does not directly supply the content of capitalist ideas #corroborates (0.72)
• Women’s present situation results from ancient traditions surviving in new economic conditions #qualifies (0.70) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 297