Woman’s status as privileged Other depends on specific social and political conditions

Evidence

In various periods, she has been eclipsed by other idols. When the city or the state devours the citizen, he is no longer in any position to deal with his personal destiny. Dedicated to the state, the Spartan woman has a higher station than that of other Greek women. But she is not transfigured by any masculine dream. The cult of the chief, be it Napoleon, Mussolini, or Hitler, excludes any other. In military dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, woman is no longer a privileged object. It is understandable that woman is divinized in a country that is rich and where the citizens are uncertain about what meaning to give to their lives: this is what is happening in America. In contrast, socialist ideologies, which call for the assimilation of all human beings, reject the notion that any human category be object or idol, now and for the future: in the authentically democratic society that Marx heralded, there is no place for the Other. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 320

Categorization

• XREF: Meshes with existentialist accounts of how collective projects (nation, cult of the leader) absorb individual concern — connects to a general theory of Otherness as socially situated rather than fixed. — connects to: Woman must be studied existentially within her total economic and social situation — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 131; To act upon history one must first be anchored in society, which subjugates women. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 289; Cross-racial colonial intimacies licensed women’s relative privilege and power — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1325 (+7 more)
• DEFINE: Introduces the claim that the Other can be eclipsed by the State or the cult of a leader — a key qualifier to woman-as-Other that reader should retain while building the analytical apparatus.

Broader Connections

• Cross-racial colonial intimacies licensed women’s relative privilege and power #exemplifies (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1325
• Western women’s emancipated status depends on representing Oriental women as devalued others #exemplifies (0.80)
• Socioeconomic and political conditions affect women’s rights far more than Islam itself #expands (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 289
• Women of color hold some identities that relatively privilege them #expands (0.78)
• Women’s inferior status relative to men is universal across societies #contradicts (0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3177