Description
Women’s status in patriarchal societies, as explored in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex where women are defined and differentiated in relation to men, constituting norms; they are inessential (the Other), in opposition to the essential (a Man as the Subject, the Absolute, the One).
Additional notes and information
In this relation, there is no (balanced) reciprocity.
Sources
Pilcher, J., and Whelehan, I. (2004), Fifty Key Concepts in Gender Studies, London, Thousand Oaks.