Economic emancipation alone does not place women in a situation identical to men’s

Evidence

However, there are quite a lot of privileged women today who have gained economic and social autonomy in their professions. They are the ones who are at issue when the question of women’s possibilities and their future is raised. While they are still only a minority, it is particularly interesting to study their situation closely; they are the subject of continuing debate between feminists and antifeminists. The latter maintain that today’s emancipated women do not accomplish anything important, and that besides they have trouble finding their inner balance. The former exaggerate the emancipated women’s achievements and are blind to their frustrations. In fact, there is no reason to assume that they are on the wrong track; and yet it is obvious that they are not comfortably settled in their new condition: they have come only halfway as yet. Even the woman who has emancipated herself economically from man is still not in a moral, social, or psychological situation identical to his. Her commitment to and focus on her profession depend on the context of her life as a whole. And, when she starts her adult life, she does not have the same past as a boy; society does not see her with the same eyes; she has a different perspective on the universe. Being a woman poses unique problems to an autonomous human being today. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1920

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘situation’ concept throughout Beauvoir and the immanence/transcendence apparatus; also echoes the intro’s framing of woman as Other persisting despite formal equality. — connects to: Fromm read gender roles as socially and economically determined, not essential — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 336; Abstract legal recognition of rights fails to overturn women’s concrete economic inferiority — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 57; Historical materialism cannot explain woman’s oppression because it reduces man to the economic abstraction — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 145 (+13 more)
• DEFINE: Establishes ‘halfway’ emancipation as the chapter’s core problem: professionals still lack men’s moral, social, psychological standing.

Broader Connections

• Female emancipation will not produce uniformity between the sexes #corroborates (0.95) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1981
• Economic change alone cannot produce the new woman #corroborates (0.92) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1976