In the time of St. Thomas, [femininity] appeared as an essence. . . . But conceptualism has lost ground: the biological and social sciences no longer believe in the existence of immutably fixed entities that define given characters such as those of the woman, the Jew or the Black; they consider character as a secondary reaction to a situation. . . . Does that mean that the word ‘woman’ has no content? That is what is vigorously affirmed by the partisans of enlightenment philosophy, of rationalism, of nominalism: women would be only those human beings arbitrarily designated by the word ‘woman.’ . . . But nominalism is a bit limited as a doctrine; and antifeminists delight in showing that women are not men. Assuredly woman is, like man, a human being: but such an affirmation is abstract. The fact is that every concrete human being is always singularly situated. Refusing notions of the eternal feminine, the black soul, the Jewish character is not to deny that there are today Jews, Blacks, and women. This negation does not represent a liberation for those concerned, but an inauthentic flight. It is clear that no woman can claim without bad faith to situate herself beyond her sex. (1949, 1:12–13)

------Simone de Beauvoir