Woman’s traits stem from her situation, not biology

Evidence

We can now understand why, from ancient Greece to today, there are so many common features in the indictments against woman; her condition has remained the same throughout superficial changes, and this condition defines what is called the woman’s “character”: she “wallows in immanence,” she is argumentative, she is cautious and petty, she does not have the sense either of truth or of accuracy, she lacks morality, she is vulgarly self-serving, selfish, she is a liar and an actress. There is some truth in all these affirmations. But the types of behaviors denounced are not dictated to woman by her hormones or predestined in her brain’s compartments: they are suggested in negative form by her situation. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1740

Categorization

• XREF: Anti-essentialism that parallels (and predates) later social-constructionist arguments; also directly engages her own biological-determinism chapters earlier in the book. — connects to: Woman’s apparent naturalness is itself a product of history; The famous becoming-woman sentence concerns socially determined woman, not individuals — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 35; Adler explains woman’s inferiority complex through her total situation, not anatomy — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 124 (+16 more)
• DEFINE: Defines ‘character’ as situation-produced rather than innate — a core piece of Beauvoir’s analytical apparatus.

Broader Connections

• Woman is made by civilization, not nature or biology #corroborates (0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1976
• Women’s alleged faults arise from their enclosed condition, not innate nature #corroborates (0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1745
• Biology shapes but does not determine woman’s situation or destiny #qualifies (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 102
• Woman is a historical situation, not an immutable essence #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 675