Women’s economic dependence makes them define themselves through men’s desires.

Evidence

Men’s economic privilege, their social value, the prestige of marriage, the usefulness of masculine support—all these encourage women to ardently want to please men. They are on the whole still in a state of serfdom. It follows that woman knows and chooses herself not as she exists for herself but as man defines her. She thus has to be described first as men dream of her since her being-for-men is one of the essential factors of her concrete condition. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 298

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘being-for-men’ (pour-autrui) as a structural factor in woman’s concrete condition.
• XREF: Connects to Sartre’s pour-soi/pour-autrui distinction and Hegelian master-slave dialectic, foundational for the Continental tradition the reader is grounding. — connects to: Greater male wealth produces greater female servitude, while shared poverty equalizes the marriage bond. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 210; Men want women to exist but refuse to be women themselves — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 319; Exploiting femininity to the extreme can paradoxically grant women near-masculine independence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1684 (+13 more)

Broader Connections

• Woman’s dependence is interiorized while man’s is only external. #expands (0.88) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1370
• Women who implicitly idealize men show reduced interest in personal power. #corroborates (0.85)
• Women self-select away from the highest-reward positions, sustaining gender hegemony #corroborates (0.80) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 767
• Economic emancipation alone does not place women in a situation identical to men’s #qualifies (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1920
• Exploiting femininity to the extreme can paradoxically grant women near-masculine independence #complicates (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1684
• Self-deceiving generosity lets women pursue desire while preserving pride. #complicates (0.75)
• Social ‘representing’ falls to women because men are bound by productive labor. #expands (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1550