Women’s skepticism of all principles stems from seeing male morality as a mystifying facade

Evidence

The woman does not positively think that the truth is other than what men claim: rather, she holds that there is no truth. It is not only life’s becoming that makes her suspicious of the principle of identity, nor the magic phenomena surrounding her that ruin the notion of causality: it is at the heart of the masculine world itself, it is in her as belonging to this world, that she grasps the ambiguity of all principles, of all values, of all that exists. She knows that when it comes to her, masculine morality is a vast mystification. The man pompously drums his code of virtue and honor into her; but secretly he invites her to disobey it: he even counts on this disobedience; the whole lovely facade he hides behind would collapse without it. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1757

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is a subtle extension of the Other-concept: the woman’s epistemological position is defined by exclusion from the subject who posits truth.
• XREF: Connects to the master-slave dialectic in Hegel and to Nietzsche’s genealogy of morality as a power instrument. — connects to: Woman’s supposed intuition is prized because it asks nothing of man’s ego. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 397; Women’s reverence for masculine law stems from powerlessness rather than judgment — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1743; Male-authored justifications of female subordination reflect self-interest, not truth — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 59

Broader Connections

• Women’s reverence for masculine law stems from powerlessness rather than judgment #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1743
• Male-authored justifications of female subordination reflect self-interest, not truth #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 59