More so than any other oppressed group, it could be argued that women have historically been the most compliant in their own oppression and subjugation. This compliance is evident in three ways: first, in responses to overt discrimination, where women have demanded equal rights and education in order to potentially become men’s equals; second, in the celebration of femininity, which—while reliant on an ideology of gender constructivism—appears to be the primary means through which women claim and maintain personhood; and third, in the willingness to compromise autonomy and ‘humanness’ for trivial pleasures and superficial social advantages.

In examining these patterns, it’s necessary to engage critically with relevant theorists while remaining aware of the power imbalance created by the historical over-representation of male voices in theory.

Accordingly, this article draws on the work of Olympe de Gouges, 18th-century activist and author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen; Mary Wollstonecraft, her contemporary and author of Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Julia Kristeva, author of Approaching Abjection; Judith Butler, author of Critically Queer; and Simone de Beauvoir, particularly the conclusion of The Second Sex. Taken together, these theorists show that women’s acceptance of their own oppression contradicts the very ideals of rational autonomy and universal subjecthood that underpin modern political and philosophical systems. It is historically out of place, internally inconsistent, and sustained only through the selective application of those ideals.

To begin, we must consider reactions to overt discrimination, such as those surrounding the French National Assembly’s ratification of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1791. This document was foundational in articulating human rights, defining for the first time rights that could not be taken away by the state, God, or other individuals. However, the term “citizen” did not apply universally. Rather, it referred exclusively to white, French-born, adult men who owned property (National Assembly of France 1791). These individuals were deemed the most rational and were seen as actively contributing to the nation’s success. In contrast, so-called “passive” citizens (women, children, immigrants, and the elderly and disabled) were considered beneficiaries of the system without meaningful contribution.

Many women in the late 18th century accepted this classification, aligning themselves with male legislators whose authority was seen as both unquestionable and traditional. To understand this compliance, one should imagine living in a society where all positions of power—government, public life, commerce—are occupied entirely by men, and where women are told throughout their lives that they are not equal.

This belief became reinforced not only by men but, crucially, by the collaboration of mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and friends, who enabled a system that had been operating unchallenged for centuries. In such a context, even intelligent and scholarly women who resisted discrimination often did so by asking merely for the same rights as men, hoping that equality might eventually be achieved.

When an entire gender is deemed subservient by another based on the latter’s authority, rationality, and perceived superiority, the resulting isolation renders demands for equality made by that gender less credible than similar claims made by the dominant group. Nevertheless, in 1791 Olympe de Gouges challenged this structure by publishing the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen. In it, she argued for women’s suffrage, equal marriage rights, the right to divorce, and the right to own property. She wrote that “woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum” (i.e., podium or dais), arguing that women could attain the same ‘rationality’ and ‘maturity’ as men if given equal opportunities and education (de Gouges 1791).

Similarly, Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argued that women are human beings entitled to the same natural and inalienable rights as men, including education, freedom of speech and occupation, and property ownership (Woolstonecraft 1792). Although Wollstonecraft maintained that men were naturally more virtuous, rational, and strong (a belief likely shaped by the patriarchal society in which she lived), her central claim remained uncompromised. Women, she argued, appear frivolous, ignorant, and overly emotional not by nature, but because they have been raised within restrictive social conventions that cultivated these traits.

Julia Kristeva’s distinction between the semiotic and the symbolic, developed in response to Sigmund Freud, helps explain why women’s compliance with oppressive social norms is so persistent.

Kristeva argues that human subjectivity is shaped by two interacting forces. The semiotic refers to bodily impulses, emotions, rhythms, and forms of expression that exist before or outside formal language. It is closely associated with the maternal and with what society traditionally labels as feminine. Because the semiotic resists control, clarity, and fixed meaning, it is treated as disruptive and is therefore pushed to the margins of social life, permitted expression only in limited and socially acceptable forms such as art, mysticism, or what is pathologised as hysteria (Kristeva 1982).

By contrast, the symbolic refers to language, law, social rules, and cultural norms: the structures that define what is rational, acceptable, and meaningful within society. Kristeva associates the symbolic with a paternal and historically masculine order that prioritises reason, stability, and authority.

The symbolic regulates social life by determining which forms of expression are legitimate and which must be suppressed. The semiotic exists at the boundary between the conscious and unconscious, continually pressing against this symbolic order, even as it is denied recognition.

This framework helps clarify how women’s compliance is produced rather than freely chosen. Because femininity is associated with something outside fixed meaning, women are socialised to suppress aspects of themselves that are deemed excessive, irrational, or disruptive in order to be recognised as legitimate subjects within the symbolic order. Compliance, in this sense, becomes a survival strategy: women learn to regulate their bodies, emotions, and desires to fit within structures that define value and authority in masculine terms. Kristeva encourages us to question the foundations of social norms that present themselves as natural or inevitable, revealing instead how they actively shape and constrain the ways women are permitted to exist.

A second way in which women struggle to undo their oppression lies in the requirement to perform a recognisable gender identity in order to occupy social and political space at all. In this sense, femininity functions as both a resource and a constraint; it allows women to be seen and heard, but only insofar as they conform to an accepted norm.

Judith Butler’s work in Critically Queer implies that femininity is not a natural or essential trait but a learned performance, adopted under social pressure in much the same way as masculinity. However, this system remains deeply heteronormative; it assumes and reinforces a male-female binary and assigns value based on one’s ability to conform to it. Within what Butler calls the “heterosexual matrix", gender expression, biological sex, and heterosexual desire are aligned and treated as natural. Women operating within this matrix are compelled to present a “properly feminine” self in order to participate in social life at all. In continually citing this gender norm, women become complicit in their own subordination—not because they freely choose it, but because recognition, legitimacy, and safety are conditioned on compliance. While this system constrains all genders, its power is sustained in large part through women’s ongoing adherence to its expectations (Butler 1993).

Julia Kristeva argues that the formation of an individual requires a process of abjection: a rejection of what is perceived as threatening to the self (Kristeva 1982). In Western thought, this abjected figure is often the mother, who comes to represent excess, dependency, and the loss of individual boundaries. Although separation from the maternal is a universal stage in the development of subjectivity, it is the female, maternal, or feminine figure that is persistently framed as corrupting or destabilising.

This persistent abjection of the maternal reveals the deeper logic of the heteronormative matrix: social order is maintained by producing gendered bodies that conform to norms built on the rejection of femininity itself. As a result, women are positioned as both necessary to social reproduction and perpetually threatening to individual autonomy. Refusing to occupy the role of the abject (or refusing to appropriately perform femininity) therefore destabilises the system as a whole. Such refusal exposes the matrix not as natural or inevitable, but as an artificial structure that depends on women’s continued compliance in order to function.

A final form of women’s complicity in their oppression appears in the willingness to trade autonomy and full personhood for limited pleasures or socially rewarded forms of security.

In the conclusion of The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that women living under patriarchy are largely denied the possibility of transcendence—the ability to act freely, shape the world, and define oneself beyond prescribed roles. Instead, women are encouraged to remain in a state of immanence, confined to repetitive, dependent, and socially sanctioned forms of existence. Across the stages of a woman’s life, de Beauvoir identifies how social norms systematically restrict women’s freedom, making authentic autonomy difficult to attain (de Beauvoir 2011).

As a gender constructivist, de Beauvoir locates this restriction not in biology but in social organisation. However, she also warns that attempts to escape oppression often reproduce its logic. When women assert their personhood by adopting traits culturally coded as masculine (for example, rationality, productivity, and decisiveness), they risk reinforcing the very hierarchy that devalues femininity. Rather than dismantling the system that associates women with frivolity and vanity, this strategy just shifts the terms of recognition. Women are left with a false choice: abandon feminine identity to gain social legitimacy or retain it while accepting subordination.

De Beauvoir nevertheless insists that this condition is neither natural nor permanent. Because women’s oppression is produced by social structures rather than biological inferiority, it can be undone through collective action and structural change. Expanding women’s freedom, she argues, does not diminish men’s autonomy but enhances it, loosening the constraints imposed by rigid gender roles on everyone. In this sense, compliance is revealed not as a failure of will, but as a response to a system that rewards submission and penalises refusal. Recognising this exposes the fragility of the structures that depend on women’s participation in their own limitation and opens the possibility of imagining social relations beyond them.

References

Butler, Judith. “Critically Queer.” In Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge, 1993.
de Beauvoir, Simone. “Conclusion.” In The Second Sex, translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, 753–766. New York: Vintage Books, 2011.
de Gouges, Olympe. Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. Paris, 1791.
Kristeva, Julia. “Approaching Abjection.” In Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
National Assembly of France. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Paris, 1791.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 1st ed. Philadelphia: William Gibbons, 1792.