Female bodily disadvantage only matters within a closed social situation

Evidence

It is clear that if woman’s biological situation constitutes a handicap for her, it is because of the perspective from which it is grasped. Nervous frailty and vasomotor instability, when they do not become pathological, do not keep her from any profession: among males themselves, there is a great diversity of temperament. A oneor two-day indisposition per month, even painful, is not an obstacle either; in fact, many women accommodate themselves to it, particularly women for whom the monthly “curse” could be most bothersome: athletes, travelers, and women who do strenuous work. Most professions demand no more energy than women can provide. And in sports, the goal is not to succeed independently of physical aptitudes: it is the accomplishment of perfection proper to each organism; the lightweight champion is as worthy as the heavyweight; a female ski champion is no less a champion than the male who is more rapid than she: they belong to two different categories. It is precisely athletes who, positively concerned with their own accomplishments, feel the least handicapped in comparison to men. But nonetheless her physical weakness does not allow the woman to learn the lessons of violence: if it were possible to assert herself in her body and be part of the world in some other way, this deficiency would be easily compensated. If she could swim, scale rocks, pilot a plane, battle the elements, take risks, and venture out, she would not feel the timidity toward the world that I spoke about. It is within the whole context of a situation that leaves her few outlets that these singularities take on their importance, and not immediately but by confirming the inferiority complex that was developed in her by her childhood. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 838

Categorization

• XREF: This is the heart of Beauvoir’s ‘one is not born, but becomes, a woman’ — biological fact is always mediated by situation. Parallels Sartre’s situation-projection freedom and anticipates the ADDENDUM on sacrifice/stratified societies only tangentially. — connects to: Female passivity is socially imposed, not biologically determined, and self-reinforces through a vicious circle — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 691; Observed male-female differences reflect social situation, not fixed essence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 608; Social norms constitute the subject rather than merely constraining her
• DEFINE: Defines Beauvoir’s anti-essentialist method: biology is grasped only through perspective, never in isolation.
• DEEPTHINKING: The counterintuitive claim that sports champions of different weight classes are ‘not less champions’ — excellence being category-relative — is a genuinely paradigm-shifting way to dissolve the handicap comparison.

Broader Connections

• Observed male-female differences reflect social situation, not fixed essence #corroborates (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 608
• Social norms constitute the subject rather than merely constraining her #corroborates (0.75)