Sexual difference cannot be reduced to the biology of gametes

Evidence

It would be rash to deduce from such an observation that woman’s place is in the home: but there are rash people. In his book Tempérament et caractère selon les individus, les sexes et les races (Nature and Character According to Individuals, Sex, and Race), Alfred Fouillée claimed he could define woman entirely from the ovum and man from the sperm; many so-called deep theories are based on this game of dubious analogies. It is never clear what philosophy of nature this pseudo-thinking refers to. If one considers laws of heredity, men and women come equally from a sperm and an ovum. I suppose that vestiges of the old medieval philosophy—that the cosmos was the exact reflection of a microcosm—are floating around in these foggy minds: it was imagined that the ovum is a female homunculus and woman a giant ovum. These reveries dismissed since the days of alchemy make a weird contrast with the scientific precision of descriptions being used at this very moment: modern biology does not mesh with medieval symbolism; but our people do not look all that closely. If one is a bit scrupulous, one has to agree that it is a long way from ovum to woman. The ovum does not yet even contain the very notion of female. Hegel rightly notes that the sexual relationship cannot be reduced to that of two gametes. Thus, the female organism has to be studied in its totality. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 88

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Beauvoir’s broader existentialist method of studying the body as a situation rather than a biological destiny — her argument against biological determinism here foreshadows the entire ‘lived experience’ framework. — connects to: Biological egg structure does not dictate the degree of female parental involvement; Sexual difference cannot be reduced to activity versus passivity — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 96; Biology alone cannot explain why woman is the Other — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 109 (+7 more)
• DEFINE: Establishes Beauvoir’s method: the female organism must be studied in its totality (as embodied situation), not derived from gamete-level biology.

Broader Connections

• Biological sex is a continuum rather than a strict binary #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1032
• Biology gives no basis for gendered immanence and transcendence allegories #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 87
• Biology refutes both the female-passivity bias and the male-effervescence bias at the gamete level #corroborates (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 85
• Biology does not condemn women to inferiority; meaning applied to differences does #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1978