Quotation
Last reviewed:
“She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute — she is the Other.”
Simone de Beauvoir · Existentialism · Modern · 1949
What does it mean?
She is defined with reference to man, not he with reference to her. She is the incidental, the inessential. He is the Subject, the Absolute. She is the Other. A rival reading hears a claim that every man wakes up intending this, or that no woman can be a subject. She is describing a structure of definition, myth and law, in which the neutral human is silently male. Another reading thinks later equality has retired the sentence. The sentence is about who gets to be the default, which does not vanish when a statute changes.
Did Simone de Beauvoir really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Parshley's English of the introduction. Borde and Malovany-Chevallier revise the tone of the book. The claim is hers: woman is positioned as Other against a male Subject that does not notice it is a position. The capitals are part of the English argument.
Where it comes from
The Second Sex, introduction, in H. M. Parshley's translation
Approximate date: 1949.
How to use it
A job advert in Manchester says 'the candidate' and then 'his team', and no one in the meeting hears it. The introduction is about that not-hearing. It is not a claim that the meeting is full of villains. It is a claim that the default has a history. Correcting the pronoun is not the whole of The Second Sex. It is a place the structure shows, which is why it is a fair example and an incomplete one.
A mindset reading
Other is a philosophical word from Hegel and from Sartre, put to a feminist use. If you only hear the insult, you miss the mechanism. If you only hear the mechanism, you miss that she is talking about women, not about otherness in general.
Understand the philosophy
The introduction of The Second Sex, 1949, sets the question. Volume 1 is facts and myths. Volume 2 is lived experience, and it opens with the sentence about becoming. Parshley is the English this card uses, with the caveat the becoming-card already states.
- society
- self
- power
FAQ
What does it mean?
She is defined with reference to man, not he with reference to her. She is the incidental, the inessential. He is the Subject, the Absolute. She is the Other. A rival reading hears a claim that every man wakes up intending this, or that no woman can be a subject. She is describing a structure of definition, myth and law, in which the neutral human is silently male. Another reading thinks later equality has retired the sentence. The sentence is about who gets to be the default, which does not vanish when a statute changes.
Did Simone de Beauvoir really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Parshley's English of the introduction. Borde and Malovany-Chevallier revise the tone of the book. The claim is hers: woman is positioned as Other against a male Subject that does not notice it is a position. The capitals are part of the English argument.
Which work is it in?
The Second Sex, introduction, in H. M. Parshley's translation Approximate date: 1949.