Man feminizes the ideal Other because woman is the tangible figure of alterity

Evidence

This truth buried in the night of things also shines in the heavens; perfect immanence, the Soul is at the same time the transcendent, the Idea. Not only cities and nations but also entities and abstract institutions are cloaked in feminine traits: the Church, the Synagogue, the Republic, and Humanity are women, as well as Peace, War, Liberty, the Revolution, Victory. Man feminizes the ideal that he posits before him as the essential Other, because woman is the tangible figure of alterity; this is why almost all the allegories in language and in iconography are women. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 383

Categorization

• DEFINE: Beauvoir’s definitional move: alterity — woman as the tangible figure of alterity — explains the gendering of all abstract ideals as feminine.
• XREF: Connects to the Hegelian master-slave dialectic and Levinas’s alterity, central to Continental feminist critique of the Other. — connects to: Levinas’s account of feminine alterity is actually a man’s point-of-view claim — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 68; Alterity is the fundamental category of human thought, original to consciousness itself — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 54; Men invented the feminine-immanence division to preserve masculine privileges — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 157 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Woman’s contradictory image stems from being man’s inessential Other #expands (0.92) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 413
• Both sexes implicitly center perspective on the male, making woman the object #corroborates (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 681
• Man elevates woman to personhood precisely because she remains his feared other #qualifies (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 366
• Woman’s otherness lets her serve as the privileged judge of men’s value #expands (0.70) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 398