Beauvoir discovers that the self needs otherness to define itself as a subject. The category of otherness is therefore necessary for the constitution of the self as itself. Otherness is a fundamental category of human thought. The woman is constantly presented as the Other by the man who assumes the role of self. Beauvoir explains in his Introduction that the woman “is the accessory, the inessential, as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject; he is the Absolute, she is the Other” (Beauvoir 6). For an individual to describe themselves, they must also describe something opposite to themselves. There is also a negative connotation when you refer to yourself as a woman, whereas when you refer to a man it is positive because the man represents the totality of the human being. The woman is considered the Other. compared to men who are considered the Absolute. We therefore become a woman as defined by a man by virtue of her existence. In other words, one becomes a woman by existing as a woman and living as a woman. is as old as