Women use bad faith to subvert the lies they have internalized

Evidence

The conflict is more conscious for Clélia; she hesitates between loyalty to her father and pity inspired by love; she is searching for a rationale; the triumph of the values in which Stendhal believes is all the more striking to him in that this triumph is experienced as a defeat by the victims of a hypocritical civilization; and he delights in seeing them use ruses and bad faith to make the truth of passion and happiness prevail against the lies in which they believe: Clélia, promising the Madonna to no longer see Fabrice, and accepting his kisses and his embraces for two years, providing she closes her eyes, is both laughable and heartbreaking. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 613

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete literary instance of the mystification/bad-faith mechanism — ties to the earlier chapter’s account of how women internalize their situation. — connects to: Women’s unique subordination rests on their failing to contest the One’s claim — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 55; Educated mulatto women shift their justifications for rejecting blackness when each is refuted.; Women’s oppression is distinct because their complicity is solicited — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 714 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Bad faith is making excuses from circumstance rather than acknowledging one’s own freedom #expands (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 507
• Sincerity reveals itself as a form of bad faith #contradicts (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 306
• Women’s oppression is distinct because their complicity is solicited #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 714
• Educated mulatto women shift their justifications for rejecting blackness when each is refuted. #exemplifies (0.80)
• Women’s unique subordination rests on their failing to contest the One’s claim #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 55