Quotation
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“The body is not a thing, it is a situation.”
Simone de Beauvoir · Existentialism · Modern · 1949
What does it mean?
The body is not a thing, it is a situation: our grasp on the world and the sketch of a project. She refuses both a biology that is destiny and a freedom that has no body. A rival reading hears a denial of sexed bodies, as if situation meant 'mere idea'. Situation means the body is lived, interpreted, and constrained, not that it is optional. Another reading, materialist in a flat sense, says a body is a thing, and her sentence is existentialist fog.
Did Simone de Beauvoir really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Parshley continues: it is our grasp on the world and the sketch of our project. The card keeps the contrast she is known for. Borde and Malovany-Chevallier should be compared before the short clause is treated as the only English.
Where it comes from
The Second Sex, volume I, part 1, chapter 1, 'Biological Data', in H. M. Parshley's translation (echoing Merleau-Ponty)
Approximate date: 1949.
How to use it
A pregnant employee in a Leeds office is treated as a medical object or as a disruption. The sentence says her body is a situation, which includes the job, the myth of the mother, and the project she is still allowed to have. HR policy that only says 'thing' or only says 'choice' has missed the word she thought was the accurate one.
A mindset reading
Situation is the existentialist term that saves the sentence from both essentialism and from 'the body is a social construct' as a complete story. She is closer to the first correction than to a slogan she did not write.
Understand the philosophy
The introduction places the body before the long study of myths. Parshley is the translation. The clause is incomplete without 'grasp on the world', which is why the attribution note keeps it even though the card's quotation stops.
- self
- freedom
- society
FAQ
What does it mean?
The body is not a thing, it is a situation: our grasp on the world and the sketch of a project. She refuses both a biology that is destiny and a freedom that has no body. A rival reading hears a denial of sexed bodies, as if situation meant 'mere idea'. Situation means the body is lived, interpreted, and constrained, not that it is optional. Another reading, materialist in a flat sense, says a body is a thing, and her sentence is existentialist fog.
Did Simone de Beauvoir really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Parshley continues: it is our grasp on the world and the sketch of our project. The card keeps the contrast she is known for. Borde and Malovany-Chevallier should be compared before the short clause is treated as the only English.
Which work is it in?
The Second Sex, volume I, part 1, chapter 1, 'Biological Data', in H. M. Parshley's translation (echoing Merleau-Ponty) Approximate date: 1949.