xxxiv INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XXXV inine;and we are more concerned with such knowledge.I have said There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion that there are more pressing problems,but this does not prevent us into an indefinitely open future.Every time transcendeuce falls back from sceing some importance in asking how the fact of being women into immanence,stagnation,there is a degradation of existence into will affect our lives.What opportunities precisely have been given us the "en-soi"--the brutish life of subjection to given conditions-and and what withheld?What fate awaits our younger sisters,and what of liberty into constraint and contingence.This downfall represents a directions should they take?It is significant that books by women on moral fault if the subject consents to it;if it is inflicted upon him,it women are in general animated in our day less by a wish to demand spells frustration and oppression.In both cascs it is an absolute evil. our rights than by an effort toward clarity and understanding.As we Evcry individual concerned to justify his existence fecls that his ex- emerge from an era of excessive controversy,this book is offered as istence involves an undefined need to transcend himself,to engage one attempt among others to confirm that statement. in frcely chosen projects. But it is doubtless impossible to approach any human problem with Now,what pcculiarly signalizes the situation of woman is that she a mind free from bias.The way in which questions are put,the points -a free and autonomous being like all human creatures-nevertheless of view assumed,presuppose a relativity of interest;all characteristics finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the imply values,and every objective description,so called,implies an status of the Other.They propose to stabilize her as object and to ethical background.Rather than attempt to conceal principles more doom her to immanence since her transcendence is to be overshad- or less definitely implied,it is better to state them openly at the owed and forever transcended by another ego (conscience)which is beginning.This will make it unneccssary to spccify on every page in essential and sovereign.The drama of woman lies in this conflict be- just what seuse one uses such words as superior,inferior,better,worse, tween the fundamental aspiratious of every subject (ego)-who al- progress,redction,and the like.If we survey some of the works on ways regards the self as the essential-and the compulsions of a situa- woman,we note that one of the points of view most frequently tion in which she is the incssential.How can a human being in adopted is that of the public good,the general intcrest;and one al- woman's situation attain fulfillment?What roads are open to her? ways means by this the bencfit of society as one wishes it to be main- Which are blocked?Hlow can independence be recovered in a state tained or establishcd.For our part,we hold that the only public good of dependency?What circuinstances limit woman's liberty and how is that which assures the private good of the citizens;we shall pass can they be overcomc?Thcse are the fundamental questions on which judgment on institutions according to their effectiveness in giving I would fain throw some light.T'his means that I am interested in the concrete opportunities to individuals.But we do not confuse the idea fortunes of the individual as defined not in terms of happiness but in of private interest with that of happiness,although that is another terms of liberty. common point of view.Are not women of the harem more happy than Quite evidently this problem would be without significance if we women voters?Is not the housekceper happier than the working- were to believe that woman's destiny is inevitably determined by woman?It is not too clear just what the word happy really means and physiological,psychological,or economic forces.Hence I shall discuss still less what true values it may mask.There is no possibility of meas- first of all the light in which woman is vicwed by biology,psycho- uring the happiness of others,and it is always easy to describe as analysis,and historical matcrialism.Next I shall try to show exactly happy the situation in which one wishcs to place them. how the concept of the "truly fcminine"has bcen fashioned-why In particular those who arc condemned to stagnation are often woman has been defined as the Other-and what have been the con- pronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being at sequcnces from man's point of view.Then from woman's point of rest.This notion we rejcct,for our perspective is that of existentialist vicw I shall dcscribe the world in which woinen must live;and thus ethics.Every subject plays his part as such specifically through ex- we shall be able to envisage the difficulties in thcir way as,endeavor- ploits or projects that serve as a mode of transcendence;he achieves ing to make their escape from the sphcre hitherto assigned them,they liberty only through a continual reaching out toward other liberties. aspire to full membership in the human race