Women’s oppression differs from class oppression because women share solidarity with their oppressors

Evidence

Nor does Engels account for the specific character of this oppression. He tried to reduce the opposition of the sexes to a class conflict: in fact, he did it without real conviction; this thesis is indefensible. True, the division of labor by sex and the oppression resulting from it bring to mind class division in some ways: but they should not be confused; there is no biological basis for division by class; in work the slave becomes conscious of himself against the master; the proletariat has always experienced its condition in revolt, thus returning to the essential, constituting a threat to its exploiters; and the goal of the proletariat is to cease to exist as a class. We have said in the introduction how different woman’s situation is, specifically because of the community of life and interests that create her solidarity with man, and due to the complicity he encounters in her: she harbors no desire for revolution, she would not think of eliminating herself as a sex: she simply asks that certain consequences of sexual differentiation be abolished. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 147

Categorization

• XREF: Draws directly on the introduction’s analysis of woman’s complicity with man, central to Beauvoir’s whole account. — connects to: Women’s defenselessness functions as the legal title of their oppression; Women’s oppression is distinct because their complicity is solicited — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 714; Women’s isolation from each other blocks recognition that their subjectivity struggles are shared — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 73 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Women’s oppression is distinct because their complicity is solicited #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 714
• The oppressed are inside the oppressive structure, not marginal to it. #contradicts (0.80) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 212
• Women’s isolation from each other blocks recognition that their subjectivity struggles are shared #corroborates (0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 73