For actresses, professional success and femininity reinforce rather than conflict.

Evidence

Their great advantage is that their professional successes contribute—as for males—to their sexual worth; by realizing themselves as human beings, they accomplish themselves as women: they are not torn between contradictory aspirations; on the contrary, they find in their jobs a justification for their narcissism: clothes, beauty care, and charm are part of their professional duties; a woman infatuated with her image finds great satisfaction in doing something simply by exhibiting what she is; and this exhibition requires sufficient amounts of both artifice and study if it is to be, in Georgette Leblanc’s words, a substitute for action. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1940

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates Beauvoir’s argument that the male/female split is not biological but structural: here the very activities coded feminine (narcissism, beauty care) become productive labor.
• XREF: Resonates with today’s influencer economy where self-exhibition is literal paid labor — a contemporary echo of Beauvoir’s insight. — connects to: Woman’s subordinate situation makes her lovable but not genuinely equal in man’s eyes. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1930

Broader Connections

• Woman’s subordinate situation makes her lovable but not genuinely equal in man’s eyes. #complicates (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1930