Women become immoral by embodying an inhuman ideal imposed on them.

Evidence

Woman is doomed to immorality because morality for her consists in embodying an inhuman entity: the strong woman, the admirable mother, the virtuous woman, and so on. As soon as she thinks, dreams, sleeps, desires, and aspires without orders, she betrays the masculine ideal. This is why so many women do not let themselves “be themselves” except in their husbands’ absence. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1352

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A dense structural claim: the moral command to embody a stereotype makes any spontaneous life (sleep, dreams, desire) transgressive — a paradox at the heart of Beauvoir’s ethics.
• XREF: Connects to her earlier analysis of woman as immanence defined by male transcendence, and to the later feminist ‘double-bind’ literature on virtue as trap. — connects to: Bourgeois ‘honor’ of women functions as a trap that relieves them of all responsibility. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 255; Society coopts the mother’s influence by sanctifying her as guardian of morality — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 369; Men transform woman from flesh into an ethereal ideal, denying her body — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 383 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Idealizing women can itself breed misogyny through backlash. #expands (0.80) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 93
• External surveillance becomes internalized and self-imposed discipline on women’s bodies. #expands (0.75) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 371
• The new morality condemns marriage and prostitution as forms crushing erotic life #exemplifies (0.70) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 862