“The same vicious circle can be found in all analogous circumstances: when an individual or a group of individuals is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he or they are inferior. But the scope of the verb to be must be understood; bad faith means giving it a substantive value, when in fact it has the sense of the Hegelian dynamic: to be is to have become, to have been made as one manifests oneself. Yes, women in general are today inferior to men; that is, their situation provides them with fewer possibilities: the question is whether this state of affairs must be perpetuated.”
This quote establishes de Beauvoir’s perspective on the situation of women in society, and how they originally got to be in the position they currently occupy. She believes that, in general, keeping women—or, as she points out earlier, African Americans or Jews—in situations of inferiority does eventually make them inferior. For example, preventing access to education because women are believed to be inferior in the first place does, over time, make them demonstrably inferior to men because they come to lack the same academic skills. This is what she means by “the Hegelian dynamic”—women were not always inferior, but because they were assumed to be and were subjected to inferior conditions, they did become inferior with time. For de Beauvoir, this means that a change in circumstances could make women equal. However, we must choose to recognize and correct these circumstances in order to move forward.
“Here is an important fact that recurs throughout history: abstract rights cannot sufficiently define the concrete situation of woman; this situation depends in great part on the economic role she plays; and very often, abstract freedom and concrete powers vary inversely."
In this quote, de Beauvoir establishes the idea that the more involved in society a woman is, the less freedom she has. However, the less involved in society a woman is, the less ability she has to concretely change society from the inside. This is because society has built so many constraints around women that a woman who is involved in institutions such as marriage or upper class society will be more constrained than a woman who rejects society. Thus, a prostitute may have more “abstract freedom” than a rich woman. However, the prostitute’s “concrete powers,” meaning her wealth and ability to influence society from the inside, are more limited because she has no access through which to change society. This is a central dilemma for a woman who wants both freedom and power.
“This means that woman is necessary as long as she remains an Idea into which man projects his own transcendence; but she is detrimental as objective reality, existing for herself and limited to herself…Because she is faux Infinite, Ideal without truth, she is revealed as finitude and mediocrity and thus as falsehood."
In this quote, de Beauvoir analyzes the ways in which men depict women in art and mythology, and how this affects their perspectives on women in general. She points out that men feel ambivalent about women because they want to possess them, but also want to learn from them. In theory, a woman can help a man achieve his own transcendence by allowing him to connect with something other than himself. However, because in “objective reality” women do actually exist for themselves and are autonomous human beings, this kind of transcendence is impossible. Thus, because women are not actually “Infinite” but rather human, they lead to disappointment in men’s quest to transcend themselves.
“One is not born, but rather becomes, woman. No biological, psychic, or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female takes on in society; it is civilization as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the eunuch that is called feminine."
This is a central claim of de Beauvoir’s text. She does not believe that womanhood is defined by biology, religion, or psychoanalysis. Instead, she believes that societal values lead us to define women the way we do. In turn, these values lead people born female to define as “women” in a specific way. These values are shaped by “civilization as a whole” as opposed to a single factor such as biology, the economy, or even psychology.
“But the principle of marriage is obscene because it transforms an exchange that should be founded on a spontaneous impulse into rights and duties; it gives bodies an instrumental, thus degrading, side by dooming them to grasp themselves in their generality; the husband is often frozen by the idea that he is accomplishing a duty, and the wife is ashamed to feel delivered to someone who exercises a right over her.”
de Beauvoir does not approve of marriage as an institution because she believes it does not involve love, respect, or equality. Instead, she explains that it imposes structure on emotions that should naturally have no structure, like affection and love. More specifically, husbands tend to feel like they are doing a “duty” by taking care of wives who depend completely on them. On the other hand, wives are made to feel inferior because they know they must be taken care of and controlled by their husbands.
“We can now understand why, from ancient Greece to today, there are so many common features in the indictments against woman; her condition has remained the same throughout superficial changes, and this condition defines what is called the woman’s ‘character’: she ‘wallows in immanence,’ she is argumentative, she is cautious and petty, she does not have the sense either of truth or of accuracy, she lacks morality, she is vulgarly self-serving, selfish, she is a liar and an actress.”
In this quote, de Beauvoir summarizes many of the harsh judgments regarding the general personality traits attributed to women. She acknowledges that people blame women for focusing on unimportant details, for being deceptive, and for failing to succeed in any serious undertaking. However, she also argues that these personality traits only exist in women because of their disadvantaged position in society. As de Beauvoir notes, woman’s “condition has remained the same” throughout most of history, and it is this condition that has shaped women to possess these negative character traits.
“There have been and there still are many women who do seek to attain individual salvation on their own. They try to justify their existence within their own immanence, that is, to achieve transcendence through immanence. It is this ultimate effort—sometimes ridiculous, often pathetic—of the imprisoned woman to convert her prison into a heaven of glory, her servitude into sovereign freedom, that we find in the narcissist, the woman in love, and the mystic."
de Beauvoir believes that even woman who attempts to grasp her purpose in life independently of men end up trapped and incomplete anyway because of the many social limitations they face. Some women try to justify their existence not through their servitude to man, but through the glory of their own being. However, de Beauvoir believes this is simply an attempt to turn a "prison" into a "heaven of glory," meaning it does not represent a true break from women's limitations but rather an acceptance of these limitations as a positive thing. She goes on to explain, in three separate chapters, how women we consider to be narcissists, in love, or mystics tend to fall into this category of woman; all of them attempt to glorify themselves, either through appearance, love, or religion, but end up being trapped and limited, anyway.
“The curse on the woman vassal is that she is not allowed to do anything; so she stubbornly pursues the impossible quest for being through narcissism, love, or religion; when she is productive and active, she regains her transcendence; she affirms herself concretely as subject in her projects; she senses her responsibility relative to the goals she pursues and to the money and rights she appropriates.”
de Beauvoir refers to the recurring idea that women’s characters are shaped by their social situations. It is because women are not allowed to pursue creative work that they turn to less fulfilling but available outlets, such as narcissism, love, or religion. However, de Beauvoir believes that this condition is not permanent or inevitable. Women who are given more economic and social power are able to find different outlets. Their personalities are relative to the kinds of goals they can set for themselves. If these goals are more productive and fulfilling, they will have greater responsibilities and stronger personalities.
“The advantage man enjoys and which manifests itself from childhood onward is that his vocation as a human being in no way contradicts his destiny as a male."
This quote encapsulates de Beauvoir’s attitude regarding the core differences between men and women as they exist in society. For men, being a “man” does not limit one's creative goals, one's freedom, or one's interactions with other people. For women, however, being a “woman” means that they are expected to remain within certain limited spheres. So, for example, the condition of being a woman means being servile to one’s husband and family and thus makes it more difficult for women to pursue freedom or creative work because these are opposed to the traits expected of a woman.
“It takes belonging to the privileged caste to view the universe as one’s own, to consider oneself as guilty of its faults and take pride in its progress; those alone who are at the controls have the opportunity to justify it by changing, thinking, and revealing it; only they can identify with it and try to leave their imprint on it."
This quote explains why de Beauvoir believes that, so far, only men have produced works of artistic genius. Men are able to create “genius” because they feel a strong sense of possession over the world, and are confident in their ideas and abilities. They feel like they are a major part of both the problems and the solutions in the world. Thus, they feel compelled to try to change the fabric of society. Because women have never been accepted into society in this same way, they have not yet been able to produce works that are as innovative as those produced by male geniuses.
