Where patrimony dominates, women remain totally alienated as slaves

Evidence

When family and private patrimony incontestably remain the bases of society, woman also remains totally alienated. This is what has happened in the Muslim world. The structure is feudal in that there has never been a state strong enough to unify and dominate the numerous tribes: no power holds in check that of the patriarch chief. The religion that was created when the Arab people were warriors and conquerors professed the utmost disdain toward women. “Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God has gifted the one above the other, and on account of the outlay they make from their substance for them,” says the Koran; the woman has never held real power or mystic prestige. The bedouin woman works hard, she plows and carries burdens: this is how she sets up a reciprocal bond with her husband; she moves around freely, her face uncovered. The Muslim woman, veiled and shut in, is still today a kind of slave in most levels of society. I recall an underground cave in a troglodyte village in Tunisia where four women were squatting: the old, one-eyed, and toothless wife, her face ravaged, was cooking dough on a small brazier surrounded by acrid smoke; two slightly younger but equally disfigured wives were rocking children in their arms; one was breastfeeding; seated before a weaver’s loom was a young idol, magnificently dressed in silk, gold, and silver, knotting strands of wool. Leaving this gloomy den—realm of immanence, womb, and tomb—in the corridor leading up toward the light, I met the male, dressed in white, sparklingly clean, smiling, sunny. He was returning from the market, where he had bantered about world affairs with other men; he would spend a few hours in this retreat of his own, in the heart of this vast universe to which he belonged and from which he was not separated. For the old withered creatures, for the young bride doomed to the same degeneration, there was no other universe but the murky cave from which they would emerge only at night, silent and veiled. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 183

Categorization

• XREF: The cave/womb/tomb imagery anticipates Beauvoir’s general thesis on immanence vs transcendence and directly instantiates her argument from earlier chapters about woman’s confinement to home as species-bounded existence. — connects to: Black women under slavery were doubly enslaved by race and sex — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 26; Enslaved black women shared racial status with men but faced sexist subordination — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 150; Sexism made the black female slave’s lot harsher than the male’s — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 142 (+2 more)
• SHARE: The troglodyte village vignette—four women in a smoky cave while the man returns from market—is a haunting set-piece worth sending to anyone teaching or writing about Beauvoir.

Broader Connections

• Black women under slavery were doubly enslaved by race and sex #corroborates (0.92) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 26
• Enslaved black women shared racial status with men but faced sexist subordination #expands (0.88) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 150
• Sexism and racism were twin oppressive forces in black women’s slave experience #corroborates (0.85)
• Sexism made the black female slave’s lot harsher than the male’s #corroborates (0.82) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 142
• Sexual exploitation dehumanized black women more than labor exploitation did #complicates (0.75)