Men invented the feminine-immanence division to preserve masculine privileges

Evidence

But this relationship differs from the relationship of oppression because woman herself aspires to and recognizes the values concretely attained by males. It is the male who opens up the future toward which she also transcends; in reality, women have never pitted female values against male ones: it is men wanting to maintain masculine prerogatives who invented this division; they wanted to create a feminine domain—a rule of life, of immanence—only to lock woman in it. But it is above and beyond all sexual specification that the existent seeks self-justification in the movement of his transcendence: the very submission of women proves this. Today what women claim is to be recognized as existents just like men, and not to subordinate existence to life or the man to his animality. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 157

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that women never formulated rival values, and that female submission itself proves gender division was man-made — the inversion of the ‘separate spheres’ argument — is the chapter’s central and most demanding move.
• XREF: Directly anticipates the central question dramatized throughout the book — why women do not mount a counter-attack like other oppressed groups — answered here via complicity rather than oppression. — connects to: Witchcraft trials celebrated male society’s triumph over matriarchal nature; Patriarchy triumphed through men’s biological privilege, not accident or revolution — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 166; Male bonding is how patriarchy confers and preserves male power. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 282 (+4 more)
• QUESTION: Beauvoir says ‘women have never pitted female values against male ones’ — worth probing whether historical counter-examples (e.g. matrifocal societies, goddess cults) really contradict this or are themselves male-codified.

Broader Connections

• Male supremacy functions as a political strategy maintaining gendered power relations #expands (0.90) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 928
• Citizenship functioned historically as an instrument of male domination #exemplifies (0.82) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 831
• Male bonding is how patriarchy confers and preserves male power. #expands (0.80) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 282
• Patriarchy triumphed through men’s biological privilege, not accident or revolution #qualifies (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 166
• Lesbianism is tolerated because it preserves masculine dominance #exemplifies (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1035
• Man feminizes the ideal Other because woman is the tangible figure of alterity #qualifies (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 383