Freedom can break the circle of imposed inferiority

Evidence

People will say that all these considerations are merely utopian because to “remake woman,” society would have had to have already made her really man’s equal; conservatives have never missed the chance to denounce this vicious circle in all analogous circumstances: yet history does not go round in circles. Without a doubt, if a caste is maintained in an inferior position, it remains inferior: but freedom can break the circle; let blacks vote and they become worthy of the vote; give woman responsibilities and she knows how to assume them; the fact is, one would not think of expecting gratuitous generosity from oppressors; but the revolt of the oppressed at times and changes in the privileged caste at other times create new situations; and this is how men, in their own interest, have been led to partially emancipate women: women need only pursue their rise, and the success they obtain encourages them; it seems most certain that they will sooner or later attain perfect economic and social equality, which will bring about an inner metamorphosis. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1979

Categorization

• XREF: Sits against the ‘vicious circle’ objection to emancipation that Beauvoir dismantles here; connects to Sartre’s conception of freedom creating itself through situations, and to later feminist critiques of liberal gradualism. — connects to: The supposed intuition of freedom is a constructed evasion of anguish; Sadism fails because the victim’s transcendent freedom fundamentally escapes capture — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 999; Chosen inferiority is not contentment but assumed rebellion and despair (+4 more)
• DEFINE: The ‘vicious circle’ objection is named and refuted — Beauvoir’s method of answering the conservative circularity charge is core to her situation-based framework.