The girl resists feminization because it means mutilation, before accepting it.

Evidence

Games and dreams orient the girl toward passivity; but she is a human being before becoming a woman; and she already knows that accepting herself as woman means resigning and mutilating herself; while renunciation might be tempting, mutilation is abhorrent. … The girl’s spontaneous zest for life, her taste for games, laughter, and adventure, make her consider the maternal circle narrow and stultifying. … Rare are the cases in which she is as understanding and discreet as in this Sido that Colette painted with love. Not to mention the almost pathological cases—there are many31—where the mother is a kind of executioner, satisfying her domineering and sadistic instincts on the child; her daughter is the privileged object opposite whom she attempts to affirm herself as sovereign subject; this attempt makes the child balk in revolt. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 710

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the existentialist frame: self-acceptance as woman requires resignation and self-mutilation — a core concept in Beauvoir’s system.
• XREF: Mirrors Sartre’s concept of bad faith — the girl knows womanhood demands renouncing her transcendence — and echoes the ‘being for others’ theme central to Continental feminism. — connects to: A girl’s earlier temperamental choices shape how she responds to becoming feminine. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 844; Girls accept femininity as a free game before adult duty makes it binding — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 922

Broader Connections

• A girl’s earlier temperamental choices shape how she responds to becoming feminine. #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 844
• Girls accept femininity as a free game before adult duty makes it binding #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 922