The Other Sex: Facts and Myths

Author's name: Simone de Beauvoir

How can we find in her boldness, ardor, detachment, and greatness? These qualities only appear when a certain freedom throws itself into an open future, springing beyond all givens. We confine women to the kitchen or the bedroom, and we wonder why their horizons are limited. We clip their wings, and we regret that they cannot fly. Let us open the future to them, and they will no longer have to remain in the present.

We show the same contradiction when we confine her within the confines of her ego or her home, and blame her for her narcissism and selfishness and what goes with them: vanity, impetuousness, evil, etc. We deprive her of all possibility of tangible contact with others. We do not feel within her experience the call of solidarity nor its benefits, since she is entirely devoted to her family, separate, and therefore cannot be expected to transcend herself towards the common good. She resolutely remains in the only sphere to which she is accustomed, where she can exert influence over things and within which she finds a fleeting mastery.