Society conflates the free woman with the promiscuous woman

Evidence

The scandal of Rusva’s early-twentieth-century text is its proposition that since such a woman depends upon no one man, and because many men depend on her, she is the only relatively free woman in our society. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 198 (#expands, via linked claim)

So as to tear woman from nature, so as to subjugate her to man through ceremonies and contracts, she was elevated to the dignity of a human person; she was granted freedom. But freedom is precisely what escapes all servitude; and if it is bestowed on a being originally possessed by malevolent forces, it becomes dangerous. … And all the more so as man stopped at half measures; he accepted woman into the masculine world only by making her a servant, in thwarting her transcendence; the freedom she was granted could only have a negative use; it only manifests itself in refusal. Woman became free only in becoming captive; she renounces this human privilege to recover her power as natural object. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 406 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A courtesan dependent on no single man may be society’s only free woman — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 198; Granting woman freedom while denying her transcendence yields only negative freedom — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 406

Broader Connections

• A courtesan dependent on no single man may be society’s only free woman #expands (0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 198
• Granting woman freedom while denying her transcendence yields only negative freedom #qualifies (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 406