Gendered adolescence routes girls toward inward distress and boys toward outward aggression

Evidence

Adolescence brings a more heightened self-consciousness, and this is the age in which some girls become prone to self-harming, while troubled boys are more likely to pick fights with others. Sexuality develops, but small boys are already aware of the penis as something important, while the girl’s genitals are never mentioned and seem not to exist. Early female sexual experiences may be embarrassing, painful or threatening; they may bring more self-doubt and anxiety. Then comes the fear of pregnancy. (This was written well before the Pill.) Even if young women enjoy sex, female sexual pleasure can be more overwhelming, and thus more disturbing, says Beauvoir. It is generally linked to marriage, for most women, and with this comes the repetitive and isolating labour of housework, which accomplishes nothing out in the world and is no real ‘action’. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 672

Categorization

• QUESTION: Beauvoir associates housework with ‘no real action’ — worth exploring how her existentialist framework devalues domestic labor.
• XREF: connects to: Boys outpace girls in moral disengagement due to gendered aggression socialization. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 257; The source of gendered conflict is situational dependence, not personal perversity — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1974; Evolution shaped male but not female psychologies for intergroup aggression (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Boys outpace girls in moral disengagement due to gendered aggression socialization. #expands (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 257
• Early divergence between boys and girls is socially imposed, not instinctual #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 676
• Gender differences are learned developmental outcomes, not natural expressions #expands (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 668
• Evolution shaped male but not female psychologies for intergroup aggression #contradicts (0.80)
• Observed male-female differences reflect social situation, not fixed essence #corroborates (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 608
• The source of gendered conflict is situational dependence, not personal perversity #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1974
• Self-perceived inferiority in girls arises from destined subordination, not vice versa #qualifies (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 842
• Adolescent girls’ attributed faults express their passive dependent situation, not biology #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 902