Nature temporarily abolishes male supremacy for the independently-minded woman

Evidence

Slave to her husband, children, and home, she finds it intoxicating to be alone, sovereign on the hillside; she is no longer spouse, mother, housewife, but a human being; she contemplates the passive world: and she recalls that she is a whole consciousness, an irreducible freedom. In front of the mystery of water and the mountain summit’s thrust, male supremacy is abolished; walking through the heather, dipping her hand in the river, she lives not for others but for herself. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1763

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the Byronic/Romantic solitary-sublime trope from Goethe and Rousseau that Sartre and Beauvoir both draw on. — connects to: In lower animals only the male gains individual existence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 92; Woman embodies Nature, whose ambivalence makes her both ally and enemy to man — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 324; Women’s exclusion from authority stems from learned passivity, not innate inferiority — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 673

Broader Connections

• Women’s exclusion from authority stems from learned passivity, not innate inferiority #qualifies (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 673