Oppressed groups become Subjects by saying ‘we,’ which women have failed to do.
Evidence
If woman discovers herself as the inessential and never turns into the essential, it is because she does not bring about this transformation herself. Proletarians say “we.” So do blacks. Positing themselves as subjects, they thus transform the bourgeois or whites into “others.” Women—except in certain abstract gatherings such as conferences—do not use “we”; men say “women,” and women adopt this word to refer to themselves; but they do not posit themselves authentically as Subjects. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 56
Categorization
- DEFINE: This is core definitional content for the book: the ‘we’ of self-positing subjects is the lever that converts one group into Other.
- XREF: Echoes the master-slave dialectic in Hegel’s Phenomenology and anticipates identity politics debates about self-naming. — connects to: An oppressed class becomes a We-subject only by objectifying its oppressors as Them. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1031; 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 oppression is distinct because their complicity is solicited — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 714 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Women’s unique subordination rests on their failing to contest the One’s claim
#expands(0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 55 - The oppressed must reach conviction as Subjects, not receive it as objects
#expands(0.85) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 171 - Women’s oppression is distinct because their complicity is solicited
#expands(0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 714 - Women’s oppression differs from class oppression because women share solidarity with their oppressors
#expands(0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 147 - Antidialogical conquest reduces persons to things; dialogue keeps them Subjects
#expands(0.80) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 534 - Human beings are Subjects whose vocation is transforming the world
#expands(0.80) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 66 - Women’s struggle has shifted from imprisonment to demanding equal transcendence
#expands(0.75)