Feminine mythmaking requires leisure and distance from material necessity

Evidence

Thus we see that myths are explained in large part by the use man makes of them. The myth of the woman is a luxury. It can appear only if man escapes the imperious influence of his needs; the more relations are lived concretely, the less idealized they are. The fellah in ancient Egypt, the bedouin peasant, the medieval artisan, and the worker of today, in their work needs and their poverty, have relations with the particular woman who is their companion that are too basic for them to embellish her with an auspicious or fatal aura. Eras and social classes that had the leisure to daydream were the ones who created the black-and-white statues of femininity. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 666

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s materialist/Continental framework — myth production as a class and leisure phenomenon echoes Marx’s base-superstructure and anticipates later analyses of ideology. — connects to: Prehistoric art centered female fertility first, then shifted to phallic imagery — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 178; Myth creation requires subject status women have never possessed — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 321; Marginalized position pushes women to seek self-realization in imagination rather than action — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1942 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Marginalized position pushes women to seek self-realization in imagination rather than action #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1942