The nineteenth-century bourgeoisie intensified antifeminism in reaction to Enlightenment license and progressive threats.

Evidence

Balzac expresses the same ideal in more cynical ways: woman’s destiny, and her only glory, is to make the hearts of men beat, he writes in La physiologie du mariage (The Physiology of Marriage). “Woman is a possession acquired by contract; she is personal property, and the possession of her is as good as a security—indeed, properly speaking, woman is only man’s annexe.” Here he is speaking for the bourgeoisie, which intensified its antifeminism in reaction to eighteenth-century license and threatening progressive ideas. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 255

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to later chapters where Beauvoir analyzes class-dimensioned antifeminism and to Engels/class analysis of women’s subordination. — connects to: Authoritarianism predicts hostile backlash against feminists. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 471; Colonial women’s-rights rhetoric coexisted with active antifeminism at home.

Broader Connections

• Colonial women’s-rights rhetoric coexisted with active antifeminism at home. #expands (0.78)
• Authoritarianism predicts hostile backlash against feminists. #exemplifies (0.72) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 471