IB Philosophy 10.11.3 Volume II, Part I: Childhood - Becoming Woman Notes

The Early Childhood of the Girl

1. As established in 10.11.2, de Beauvoir's concept of woman as Other explains the structural framework of women's oppression. Volume II traces how this structure is reproduced in individual lives through the concrete mechanisms of childhood socialisation, the everyday process of being taught who you are supposed to be. The result is that a free human child is gradually transformed into a gendered subject (a person whose sense of self is built around gender roles) who experiences her femininity as natural and inevitable.
2. De Beauvoir observes that in the earliest months of life, boys and girls are treated differently by parents, caregivers, and the wider social environment: girls are held more gently, spoken to in softer tones, dressed in particular colours and styles, and praised for different qualities (prettiness, gentleness, obedience) than boys, who are encouraged to be active, bold, and independent.
3. The relationship to the body diverges sharply in childhood: boys are encouraged to climb, run, fight, and take physical risks, developing a sense of the body as an instrument of action and mastery; girls are gradually taught to treat their bodies as fragile objects to be protected and displayed, developing a self-conscious, inhibited relationship to physical existence.
4. De Beauvoir argues that the freedom of early childhood is progressively curtailed for girls in ways that do not apply to boys: as girls grow older, they are increasingly restricted in their movements, activities, and ambitions, taught that their proper sphere is the home and their proper role is to please others rather than to pursue their own projects.
5. The concept of the doll is central to de Beauvoir's analysis of girls' socialisation: the doll serves as a mirror and rehearsal for the girl's future role, teaching her to project herself into an inert, passive object rather than into active engagement with the world; through doll play, the girl practises nurturing, decorating, and self-objectification rather than exploration and creation.
   1. De Beauvoir's point is not sociological but ontological (about the nature of existence and being, not just about social patterns): doll play conditions the girl to locate the source of meaning outside herself, in an object she tends and displays rather than a project she creates.
6. This is the experiential foundation of the adult woman's tendency to seek transcendence (the act of pushing beyond her present situation through her own choices and projects) through another person, a husband or child, rather than through her own freely chosen projects. It is also why the woman who fully inhabits femininity is in a structural form of bad faith (see 10.11.2).
   1. De Beauvoir observes that boys receive a penis not merely as a biological organ but as a social symbol of agency, independence, and transcendence; the girl's lack of this visible organ is experienced not as a neutral anatomical fact but as a social deprivation because the culture attaches privilege and freedom to masculinity, confirming the critique of penis envy offered in 10.11.1.
7. The father figure plays a crucial role in de Beauvoir's analysis: the father typically represents the world of public achievement, intellectual life, and authority; the girl learns to admire and defer to the father while identifying with the mother, who represents domesticity and immanence, establishing a pattern in which masculine transcendence is admired but feminine immanence is lived.
8. De Beauvoir argues that fairy tales, literature, and cultural narratives reinforce the girl's socialisation by presenting models of femininity in which women achieve their destiny through beauty, marriage, and self-sacrifice rather than through autonomous action; stories of princesses who wait to be rescued teach girls that passivity is rewarded while assertiveness is punished.
9. The cumulative effect of these socialisation processes is that by the time the girl reaches adolescence, she has internalised a set of gendered expectations so thoroughly that they feel like natural inclinations rather than imposed constraints; this is the mechanism through which the abstract structure of Otherness described in 10.11.2 becomes concrete lived experience.

Adolescence and the Crisis of Becoming Woman