It was senseless to try to change anything in the world or in life; things were bad enough even if one did not meddle with them...Better to accept everything than to make an abortive effort, doomed in advance to failure.
De Beauvoir rejected the idea that women's historical subjection was in any way natural-'in the depths of our being.' Instead, her analysis faulted the very institutions Marcel defends: patriarchy, marriage, capitalist exploitation.
He asks De Beauvoir about one of her most quoted lines: 'One is not born a woman, one becomes one.' Her reply shows how far in advance she was of post-modernism.
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