Important Quotations Explained
1. If her
functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline
also to explain her through “the eternal feminine,” and if nevertheless
we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face
the question: what is a woman? . . . The fact that I ask it is in itself
significant. A man would never get the notion of writing a book
on the peculiar situation of the human male. But if I wish to define
myself, I must first of all say, ”I am a woman”; on this truth must
be based all further discussion.
2. [T]he
whole of feminine history has been man-made. Just as in America
there is no Negro problem, but rather a white problem; just as anti-Semitism
is not a Jewish problem, it is our problem; so the woman problem
has always been a man problem.
3. One is
not born, but rather becomes, a woman.
4. If the
definition provided for this concept [of the eternal feminine] is
contradicted by the behavior of flesh-and-blood women, it is the
latter who are wrong: we are told not that Femininity is a false
entity, but that the women concerned are not feminine.
5. [W]oman
enjoys that incomparable privilege: irresponsibility.
