XX INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION xxi But conceptualism has lost ground.The biological and social sci- different.Perhaps these differences are superficial,perhaps they are ences no longer admit the existence of unchangeably fixed entities destined to disappear.What is certain is that right now they do most that determine given characteristics,such as those ascribed to woman, obviously exist. the few,or the Negro.Science regards any characteristic as a reaction If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman,if we dependent in part upon a situation.If today femininity no longer decline also to explain her through "the etemal feminine,"and if exists,then it never existed.But does the word woman,then,have no nevertheless we admit,provisionally,that women do exist,then we specific content?This is stoutly affirmed by those who hold to the must face the question:what is a woman? philosophy of the enlightenment,of rationalism,of nominalism; To state the question is,to me,to suggest,at once,a preliminary women,to them,are merely the human beings arbitrarily designated answer.The fact that I ask it is in itself significant.A man would by the word woman.Many American women particularly are pre- never get the notion of writing a book on the peculiar situation of the pared to think that there is no longer any place for woman as such; human male.But if I wish to define myself,I must first of all say: if a backward individual still takes herself for a woman,her friends "I am a woman";on this truth must be based all further discussion. advise her to be psychoanalyzed and thus get rid of this obsession.In A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a cer- regard to a work,Modern Woman:The Lost Sex,which in other tain sex;it goes without saying that he is a man.The terms mdscu- respects has its irritating features,Dorothy Parker has written:"I line and feminine are used symmetrically only as a matter of form,as cannot be just to books which treat of woman as woman....My on legal papers.In actuality the relation of the two sexes is not quite idea is that all of us,men as well as women,should be regarded as like that of two electrical poles,for man represents both the positive human beings."But nominalism is a rather inadequate doctrine,and and the neutral,as is indicated by the common use of man to desig- the antifemininists have had no trouble in showing that women sim- nate human beings in general;whereas woman represents only the ply are not men.Surely woman is,like man,a human being;but such negative,defined by limiting criteria,without reciprocity.In the a declaration is abstract.The fact is that every concrete human being midst of an abstract discussion it is vexing to hear a man say:"You is always a singular,separate individual.To decline to accept such no- think thus and so because you are a woman";but I know that my tions as the eternal feminine,the black soul,the Jewish character,is only defense is to reply:"I think thus and so because it is true," not to deny that Jews,Negroes,women exist today-this denial does thereby removing my subjective self from the argument.It would be not represent a liberation for those concerned,but rather a flight out of the question to reply:"And you think the contrary because you from reality.Some years ago a well-known woman writer refused to ure a man,"for it is understood that the fact of being a man is no permit her portrait to appear in a series of photographs especially de peculiarity.A man is in the right in being a man;it is the woman who voted to women writers;she wished to be counted among the men. is in the wrong.It amounts to this:just as for the ancients there was an But in order to gain this privilege she made use of her husband's in- absolute vertical with reference to which the oblique was defined,so fluence!Women who assert that they are men lay claim none the less there is an absolute human type,the masculine.Woman has ovarics, to masculine consideration and respect.I recall also a young 'Trotsky- a uterus;these peculiarities imprison her in her subjectivity,circum- ite standing on a platform at a boisterous meeting and getting ready scribe her within the limits of her own nature.It is often said that she to use her fists,in spite of her evident fragility.She was denying her thinks with her glands.Man superbly ignores the fact that his anat- feminine weakness;but it was for love of a militant male whose equal omy also includes glands,such as the testicles,and that they secrete she wished to be.The attitude of defiance of many American women hormones.He thinks of his body as a direct and normal connection proves that they are haunted by a sense of their femininity.In truth, to go for a walk with one's eyes open is enough to demonstrate that The Kinsey Report [Alfred C.Kinsey and others:Sexual Behavior in the humanity is divided into two classes of individuals whose clothes, Human Male (W.B.Saunders Co.,1948)]is no exception,for it is limited to faces,bodies,smiles,gaits,interests,and occupations are manifestly describing the sexual characteristics of American men,which is quite a different matte红