Moral standing depends on access to the universal, which women lack

Evidence

An anecdote illustrates this state of mind: at the end of the last century, the police discovered two little girls of twelve or thirteen in a bordello; a trial was held where they testified; they spoke of their clients, who were important gentlemen; one of them opened her mouth to give a name. The judge abruptly stopped her: Do not sully the name of an honest man! A gentleman decorated with the Legion of Honor remains an honest man while deflowering a little girl; he has his weaknesses, but who does not? However, the little girl who has no access to the ethical region of the universal—who is neither judge nor general nor a great French man, nothing but a little girl—gambles her moral value in the contingent region of sexuality: she is perverted, corrupted, depraved, and good only for the reformatory. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1758

Categorization

• SHARE: The ‘Do not sully the name of an honest man’ trial anecdote is devastatingly specific — for someone working on the history of prostitution or sexual double standards.
• XREF: The ‘contingent region’ vs ‘ethical region of the universal’ recapitulates Hegel’s master/slave and the public/private split that girds all of Part II. — connects to: Women use divine authority to justify power they cannot claim as persons — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1766; Women’s otherness lacks the historical before that enables other groups to rebel — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 58; Women’s inferior status relative to men is universal across societies — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3177

Broader Connections

• Women’s otherness lacks the historical before that enables other groups to rebel #expands (0.78) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 58
• Women use divine authority to justify power they cannot claim as persons #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1766
• Women’s inferior status relative to men is universal across societies #qualifies (0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3177