Even independent women remain divided between career and feminine success, obstructing accomplishment

Evidence

If she is absorbed by studies, sports, a professional training, or a social and political activity, she frees herself from the male obsession; she is less preoccupied by love and sexual conflicts. However, she has a harder time than the young man in accomplishing herself as an autonomous individual. I have said that neither her family nor customs assist her attempts. Besides, even if she chooses independence, she still makes a place in her life for the man, for love. She will often be afraid of missing her destiny as a woman if she gives herself over entirely to any undertaking. She does not admit this feeling to herself: but it is there, it distorts all her best efforts, it sets up limits. In any case, the woman who works wants to reconcile her success with purely feminine successes; that not only requires devoting considerable time to her appearance and beauty but also, what is more serious, implies that her vital interests are divided. Outside of his regular studies, the male student amuses himself by freely exercising his mind, and from there emerge his best discoveries; the woman’s daydreams are oriented in a different direction: she will think of her physical appearance, of man, of love, she will give the bare minimum to her studies to her career, whereas in these areas nothing is as necessary as the superfluous. It is not a question of mental weakness, of a lack of concentration, but of a split in her interests that do not coincide well. A vicious circle is knotted here: people are often surprised to see how easily a woman gives up music, studies, or a job as soon as she has found a husband; this is because she had committed too little of herself to her projects to derive benefit from their accomplishment. Everything converges to hold back her personal ambition while enormous social pressure encourages her to find a social position and justification in marriage. It is natural that she should not seek to create her place in this world by and for herself or that she should seek it timidly. As long as perfect economic equality is not realized in society and as long as customs allow the woman to profit as wife and mistress from the privileges held by certain men, the dream of passive success will be maintained in her and will hold back her own accomplishments. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 930

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘vicious circle’ mechanism — parallels the double-bind logic in social-capital work on how external constraints become internalized as self-limitation. — connects to: Marriage and career are structurally harder to combine for women than for men — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1932; Conflicting expectations of equality and otherness produce women’s lack of balance — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 668; Women self-select away from the highest-reward positions, sustaining gender hegemony — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 767 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: The ‘superfluous is necessary’ claim about free play in male study vs. female daydreams — worth chasing the empirical literature on whether this asymmetry persists.

Broader Connections

• Conflicting expectations of equality and otherness produce women’s lack of balance #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 668
• Economic and social structures still subordinate women despite overturning the femininity myth #corroborates (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 675
• Marriage and career are structurally harder to combine for women than for men #expands (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1932
• Women self-select away from the highest-reward positions, sustaining gender hegemony #complicates (0.75) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 767