Men turn to women to be recognized in their singular exceptionality

Evidence

Except for Claudel, who finds a perfect witness in God, all the writers we have considered expect, in Malraux’s words, woman to cherish in them this “incomparable monster” known to themselves alone. In collaboration or combat, men come up against each other in their generality. Montherlant, for his peers, is a writer, Lawrence a doctrinaire, Breton a leader of a school, Stendhal a diplomat or a man of wit; it is women who reveal in one a magnificent and cruel prince, in another a disturbing animal, in still another a god or a sun or a being “black and cold … like a man struck by lightning, lying at the feet of the Sphinx,” and in the other a seducer, a charmer, a lover. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 621

Categorization

• DEFINE: Beauvoir’s account of why woman’s gaze uniquely confirms man’s singular self: only the woman in love opens her heart to shelter his “incomparable monster” of private selfhood.
• XREF: connects to: Individualized men recognize women as free individuals they desire recognition from — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 367; Men are judged by actuality while women are loved for unrealized possibility.; Man feminizes the ideal Other because woman is the tangible figure of alterity — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 383 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Man feminizes the ideal Other because woman is the tangible figure of alterity #exemplifies (0.88) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 383
• Each man shapes the myth of woman to reflect his own self-positioning #expands (0.85)