Girls’ revolt against femininity stems from meager social compensations, not lesbian predisposition

Evidence

This revolt by no means implies a sapphic predestination; most little girls feel the same indignation and despair when they learn that the accidental conformation of their bodies condemns their tastes and aspirations; Colette Audry angrily discovered at the age of twelve that she could never become a sailor; the future woman naturally feels indignant about the limitations her sex imposes on her. The question is not why she rejects them: the real problem is rather to understand why she accepts them. Her conformism comes from her docility and timidity; but this resignation will easily turn to revolt if society’s compensations are judged inadequate. This is what will happen in cases where the adolescent girl feels unattractive as a woman: anatomical configurations become particularly important when this happens; if she is, or believes she is, ugly or has a bad figure, woman rejects a feminine destiny for which she feels ill adapted; but it would be wrong to say that she acquires a mannish attitude to compensate for a lack of femininity: rather, the opportunities offered to the adolescent girl in exchange for the masculine advantages she is asked to sacrifice seem too meager to her. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1040

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Beauvoir’s broader existentialist framework of situation: the body’s meaning is socially conferred, a theme running through the whole book’s analysis of woman as Other. — connects to: Menstruation horrifies girls because it signifies a descent into subordinated femininity — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1977
• DEFINE: Clarifies that the adolescent rejection of femininity is a response to situation and inadequate social rewards, not an inherent or predestined identity.