Woman is a historical situation, not an immutable essence

Evidence

When I use the word “woman” or “feminine,” I obviously refer to no archetype, to no immutable essence; “in the present state of education and customs” must be understood to follow most of my affirmations. There is no question of expressing eternal truths here, but of describing the common ground from which all singular feminine existence stems. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 675

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the anti-essentialist frame: ‘woman’ refers to a condition shaped by education and customs, not to a fixed nature.
• XREF: Connects to existentialist anti-essentialism (Sartre’s ‘existence precedes essence’) and sets up the ontological frame she’ll build the whole work on. — 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; Woman must be studied existentially within her total economic and social situation — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 131 (+20 more)

Broader Connections

• The human is a historical point of arrival, not a given starting point. #corroborates (0.85) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1268
• Women’s oppression derives from family and patrimony, not biological sex #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 190
• Bodies are historically constructed objects, not fixed essences #expands (0.80)
• Colonial women materialized as subjects through race, not gender. #expands (0.75) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 564
• Women’s otherness lacks the historical before that enables other groups to rebel #expands (0.70) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 58