I understand your objection, but I don’t think it engages with de Beauvoir’s arguments in The Second Sex. She is not claiming that women’s lot is universally terrible, she is claiming that there is a freedom to the life experience of boys and men in the mid-twentieth century that was denied to women by virtue of the role societies have created and maintained for them.

I find her argument compelling and timely, and not at all undermined by attempts to ‘weigh privileges’ and thus suggest that benefits were not all on one side. I read Janice Fiamengo's critique of de Beauvoir, but that also largely fails to engage with de Beauvoir - swiping instead at Andrea Dworkin. On this front, I am far more sympathetic.

I am finding the objections (from you and others) to this piece most curious... they seem to be akin to skimmed stones that leap and dance across the surface of the water. Perhaps this reflection has come out more obscurely than intended, or perhaps (and this seems to me likely) this is a topic about which discourse is doomed because it is ultimately metaphysical and thus each person comes to the table with incompatible frames of reference. This would, I suppose, not be much of a surprise if it were the case!