For Claudel, man’s primacy rests on his mere sex, not achievement

Evidence

Yet woman’s and man’s roles are not exactly symmetrical. On the social level, man’s primacy is evident. Claudel believes in hierarchies and, among others, the family’s: the husband is the head. Anne Vercors rules over her home. Don Pelagio sees himself as the gardener entrusted with the care of this delicate plant, Doña Prouhèze; he gives her a mission she does not dream of refusing. The fact alone of being a male confers privilege. “Who am I, poor girl, to compare myself to the male of my race?” asks Sygne. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 564

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates how the category of ‘male’ operates as a pure privilege-conferring fact in Claudel’s hierarchy.
• XREF: Foreshadows Beauvoir’s later core argument that man is the Subject and woman the Other — this is the existentialist-feminist apparatus in miniature.