Meika Scott-Brown

Chapter 5: 179-192
  
In Chapter five, Tong examines how woman's place as the "other" has subordinated her role in society.  She uses Sartre's definitions of "being-in-itself" and "being-for-itself" to describe interactions with ourselves and others.  Being-in itself is the material, bodily form we each take as humans and animals.  Being-for-itself is the human consciousness and its obligation to make choices.  With the existence of a self, there comes naturally an "other".  In our Western society, women have taken the role of the "other".  Drawing from the work of Simone de Beauvior, the meat of this chapter explores how women may have become the "other" that is constructed to be inferior to men.  Tong also proposes various ways in which women can escape this construction and rediscover their authentic selves (188).

The beginning assertion is that man maintains his freedom by subordinating women.  Unlike conflicts of race and class, Beauvoir argues, women have always been subordinate to men.  They themselves have internalized this role and reinforced a system of oppression.  Although she acknowledges some of their validity, Beauvoir ultimately rejects biological, socialist and Freudian explanations for women's inequality.  The idea that women are subordinate because they carry babies, do not control the means of production, or do not have a penis simply do not suffice (180).  She asserts that social roles ascribed by the subject (man), are at the root of women's otherness.  This socialization carries on past puberty to wife and motherhood, where she is in the service of others and restricted from developing her own self.

In her conclusion, Tong proposes that woman gain her power by embracing her ability to create herself by becoming workers, intellectuals and socialist proponents.