Women’s unique subordination rests on their failing to contest the One’s claim
Evidence
But the other consciousness has an opposing reciprocal claim: traveling, a local is shocked to realize that in neighboring countries locals view him as a foreigner; between villages, clans, nations, and classes there are wars, potlatches, agreements, treaties, and struggles that remove the absolute meaning from the idea of the Other and bring out its relativity; whether one likes it or not, individuals and groups have no choice but to recognize the reciprocity of their relation. How is it, then, that between the sexes this reciprocity has not been put forward, that one of the terms has been asserted as the only essential one, denying any relativity in regard to its correlative, defining the latter as pure alterity? Why do women not contest male sovereignty? No subject posits itself spontaneously and at once as the inessential from the outset; it is not the Other who, defining itself as Other, defines the One; the Other is posited as Other by the One positing itself as One. But in order for the Other not to turn into the One, the Other has to submit to this foreign point of view. Where does this submission in woman come from? — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 55
Categorization
- QUESTION: Beauvoir poses the book’s central question — why women, alone among subordinated groups, do not claim reciprocity — which needs answering through situation rather than nature.
- XREF: Contrasts the sex relation with class/nation/colonial relations where reciprocity is at least formally acknowledged — resonates with later chapters on women’s historical lack of collective revolt. — connects to: Woman’s defining situation is being forced to assume herself as Other — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 64; Female professional competition unsettles male claims over the world; The woman’s perpetual complaint expresses dependence, since she holds others responsible for her lot — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1748 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Woman’s defining situation is being forced to assume herself as Other
#corroborates(0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 64