

























Abstract
This essay reects on Simone de Beauvoir's The Ethics of 
Ambiguity. In this work, Beauvoir examines the 
degrading human condition and shows how women can 
truly be free from oppression. She argues that women are 
subject like men; hence should not be reduced to 
immanence (object) at home, work, and society at large. 
This paper nds her idea thought-provoking in liberating 
women in Africa from political marginalization and 
domestic oppression. However, it rejects Beauvoir's 
supposition that it is only via labour that women's 
oppression can be resolved; while defending her 
existential conversion as a fundamental ideology for 
tackling women's oppression in Africa.

Keywords: Ambiguity, Immanence, Other, Reciprocity, Situation, 
Transcendence
 
Introduction
Reection on the moral philosophy of existentialists has been 
intensied today. When the term 'existentialism' is used, reference is 

RETHINKING BEAUVOIR'S ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY AS 

A PANACEA TO WOMEN'S OPPRESSION IN AFRICA

Icomewell Joseph UKPONG
Department of Philosophy,

University of Lagos, Akoka

chitete555@yahoo.com

Mohammed Akinola AKOMOLAFE, Ph.D
Department of Philosophy,

 Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos 

mohammed.akomolafe@lasu.edu.ng

and



usually made to the views of some thinkers such as Soren 
Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul 
Sartre, Albert Camus, among others. While there are other 
existentialists of high repute, the aforementioned philosophers' 
thoughts have occupied the discourses on existential ethics for 
decades. In this paper, however, we are interested in considering the 
philosophical thought of Simone de Beauvoir on ethics. Against this 
background, we consider it fundamental to ask: How is ethics 
construed by Beauvoir? In a bid to come to grip with this question, 
this paper considers, through an appeal to hermeneutics and critical 
methods, Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity with the aim of showing 
how her thought can address the moral challenges of today's world, 
especially such challenges as oppression, political marginalization 
and domestic violence against women in Africa. 
 To achieve this aim, we structure this paper into two sections. 
The rst section is a hermeneutical exploration of Beauvoir's ethical 
cogitation. The second section takes a critical look at the strengths 
and weaknesses of her position, as we identify its philosophical 
import to address the problems of oppression and marginalization of 
women in Africa. 

 
A Hermeneutic Exploration of Beauvoir's The Ethics of 
Ambiguity
There are clusters of issues that are discussed by moral exponents 
today. These include such questions as: are ethical norms absolute or 
situational? Does a human being have a given nature or not? Is man 
determined by forces outside him or not? In this section, we seek to 
expose existential ethics from the standpoint of Beauvoir as depicted 
in her text entitled, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Now we should ask: 
What is the nature of this ethics? Why does Beauvoir decide to call it 
'ethics of ambiguity'? And, what does ambiguity entail in Beauvoir's 
thought? 
 The foremost idea, to start with, is that Beauvoir's The Ethics 
of Ambiguity is a literary piece on existential ethics. Existential 
ethics, to be clear, focuses on human predicaments in the world with 
the hope of addressing hindrances facing human life. Thus, at the core 

96 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



of existential philosophy is the doctrine of liberation, which Beauvoir 
evaluates in her Ethics of Ambiguity. Before one could be said to have 
been liberated, it means one was initially constrained, either 
personally or socially. It may be a cultural, political, intellectual or 
economic constraint. Apparently, existentialists consider these 
limiting factors as hindrances that could be resolved through the 
recognition of one's freedom, responsibility as well as choice. This 
ethics, as Beauvoir presents it, seeks to address real (rather than 
ideological) human concerns. In the words of Claudia Card: “It was 
Beauvoir's view, in fact, that only existentialism could provide the 

1basis for ethics.” 
 Accordingly, Beauvoir declares that “From the very 
beginning, existentialism dened itself as a philosophy of 

2ambiguity.”  She then takes existence as being fundamental in the 
ethics of liberation. As Beauvoir puts it, “…we see that no existence 
can be validly fullled if it is limited to itself. It appeals to the 

3
existence of others.”  In other words, “In The Ethics of Ambiguity, 
Beauvoir declares the human condition to be ambiguous. According 
to her, we are both separate and connected to each other, a unique 
subject and an object for others, consciousness, and body, free and 

4unfree.”  Hence, the issue of liberation is necessary for human affairs.
 Beauvoir contends, here, that no human being can live alone 
in the world. And as a being in the world, the human being is both free 
and unfree.  To further interpret this concept, Stacy Keltner posits 
that, “Ambiguity signals the tension between seemingly opposing 
experiences of oneself as both a free subject and an object for 

5
others.”  In this regard, Beauvoir thinks that it is ambiguous to 

1Claudia Card, “Introduction: Beauvoir and the ambiguity of 'Ambiguity' in Ethics” in 
Cambridge Companion Online, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006, 2.
2Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, Bernard Frechtman (Trans.), New 
Jersey: Citadel Press 1948, 3.
3Ibid., 67.
4E. Gothlin, “Beauvoir and Sartre on Appeal, Desire, and Ambiguity,” in The 
Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Critical Essays, Margaret A. Simons (ed.), 
Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2006, 133.
5S. Keltner, “Beauvoir's Idea of Ambiguity,” in The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: 
Critical Essays, Margaret A. Simons (ed.), Bloomington: Indiana University Press 
2006, 201.

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 97



describe humans as either a subject or an object. Rather, humans are 
both subjects and objects. Put differently, Tidd Ursula explains that, 
for Beauvoir, “…the human condition is ambiguous, or not xed, and 

6 therefore subject to history.” This means that human action cannot be 
explained without reference to history, that is, to a given situation the 
humans nd themselves. Thus, ambiguity, as used by Beauvoir, does 
not mean equivocation or vagueness. Rather it involves “…an 
irreducible indeterminacy, and multiple, inseparable signications 

7
and aspects.”  If that is the case, what then is the nature of ethics of 
ambiguity? 
 Beauvoir, like other existentialists, begins by rejecting the 

8
theory of human nature.  For clarity, a theory of human nature is one 
that proposes that human beings have certain traits that make them act 
the way they do in everyday life. For instance, Thomas Hobbes 
advances a theory of human nature whereby he argues that humans 
are naturally egoistic, and are conditioned by their desires and 

9
aversions.  For Beauvoir, the implication of holding a theory of 
human nature is that it hinders people from taking responsibility for 
their actions as well as inactions. For her, “The idea that denes the 
world is not a given world, foreign to man, one to which he has to 

10force himself to yield without. It is the world willed by man…”  As 
the foregoing suggests, humans are free moral agents who decide and 
will their actions. That is, people make choices even when it appears 
they have not chosen. Subsequently, she reiterates that:

One can start by saying that our earthly destiny has or has 
no importance, for it depends upon us to give it 

6Ursula Tidd, “The Self-Other Relation in Beauvoir's Ethics and Autobiography,” in 
The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Critical Essays, Margaret A. Simons (ed.), 
Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2006, 230. 
7M. Langer, “Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty on Ambiguity,” in The Philosophy of Simone 
de Beauvoir: Critical Essays, Margaret A. Simons (ed.), Bloomington: Indiana 
University Press 2006, 90.
8H. Rowley. Tete-a-Tete: The Tumultuous Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir and 
Jean-Paul Sartre, Australia: Harper Publishers 2005, 195.
9D. Baumgold. “Hobbes” in Political Thinkers: from Socrates to the Present, David 
Boucher & Paul Kelly (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009, 195.
10Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 4.

98 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



importance. It is up to man to make it important to be a 
man and he alone can feel his success or failure. And if it is 
again said that nothing forces him to try to justify his 
being in this way, then one is playing upon the notion of 

11
freedom in a dishonest way.

Beauvoir's excerpt quoted above suggests clearly that humans are 
necessarily free and that they are the choosers of their actions or 
inactions. While reecting on freedom, Beauvoir contemplates on the 
idea of ambiguity as well. She argues that 'others' can play two roles in 
our lives. They (people) can hinder our freedom in the same way that 
they can help in liberating us. Andrew notes that, “For Beauvoir, 
others are both obstacles to freedom and liberators. They attempt to 
block freedom by determining the world, and they liberate freedom 

12 by recognizing the meaning that one makes.” In this respect, 
Beauvoir explores many examples on how human freedom has been 
restrained by culture, traditions, patriarchal system, etc. 
 Having argued that freedom is fundamental in ethical 
reection, Beauvoir sees the concept of responsibility as fundamental 
to ethics. For instance, she posits that “In order for a liberating action 
to be a thoroughly moral action, it would have to be achieved through 
conversion of the oppressors: there would have to be a reconciliation 

13
of freedoms.”  She adds: “…if the oppressor was aware of the 
demands of his freedom, he himself should have to denounce 
oppression. But he is dishonest; in the name of the serious or of his 
passions, of his will for power or of his appetites, he refuses to give up 

14
his privileges.”  So, responsibility, in her contention, is signicant for 
the realization of authentic freedom. She then argues that each person 
has a choice either to accept or reject whatever happens to him/her. To 
feel that one is not free is to engage oneself in self-deception. From 

11Ibid, 6.
12B.S. Andrew. “Beauvoir's Place in Philosophical Thought,” in Cambridge Companion 
Online, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006, 27.
13Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 42.
 14Ibid.

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 99



Beauvoir's point of view, self-deception is a vice because it is a denial 
of one's responsibility and freedom. Hence, an act of self-deception 
makes us inauthentic. Langer clearly captures Beauvoir's view thus:

 
Self-deception attitudes are paradoxically ambiguous 
because we simultaneously know and do not know what 
we hide from ourselves. While remaining implicitly 
aware of our unfounded freedom and concomitant 
responsibility, we may try to perpetuate an undemanding, 
ready-made, infantile world by adopting an apathetic 
attitude. Or we may posit absolute values and endow 
ourselves with inalienable rights, though tacitly aware of 
our unfounded freedom and its preclusion of such values 
and rights. Then again, we may acknowledge that our 
freedom is unfounded, but refused to admit that we create 

15
values.

Having rejected self-deception as an inauthentic mode of existence, 
Beauvoir argues that, in many respects, women have accepted the 
marginalization of their freedom as natural. Still, she notes that 
women, over the years, have reluctantly accepted themselves as the 
'other' (object), hence they fail to liberate themselves. Consequently, 
women have denied their responsibility to be human. This leads her to 
make a distinction between concepts of 'Transcendence' and 
'Immanence.'
 What does Beauvoir mean by the terms: 'transcendence' and 
'immanence'? On the one hand, according to Andrea Veltman, 
“…transcendence encompasses activities that enable self-
expression, create an enduring artifact, or in some other fashion, 
contribute positively to the constructive endeavours of the human 

16
race.”  Of course, how Beauvoir uses the concept of transcendence is 

15Langer, “Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty on Ambiguity,”  98.
16Andrea Veltman,“Transcendence and Immanence in the Ethics of Simone de 
Beauvoir,” in The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Critical Essays, Margaret A. 
Simons (ed.), Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2006, 115.

|    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   100



well interpreted by Tidd, who asserts that by this term, Beauvoir 
means that, “…we are never entirely there, xed at the moment, but 
always somehow engaged in transcending the given state of 

17affairs.”  That is, all humans are transcendent given that they are free 
to alter their situation. In this respect, transcendental beings are 
subjects - active beings that accept the outcome of their situations as 
freely chosen by them. They are subjects who decide and avoid the 
manipulation/oppression of others. This, however, does not mean 
that transcendent beings are isolated beings from others or that they 
cannot be a means to others' happiness. For Beauvoir, though 
transcendent beings are both subject and object, they engage in real 
activities as actors. Beauvoir then identies labour that humans 
engage in as a means to realize this transcending value of freedom. 
For her, human dignity is tied to labour, since what one does shapes 
one's existence. 
 On the other hand, Beauvoir argues that immanence, unlike 
transcendence, is a restrictive condition, wherein humans do not 
actualize their essence where their will is repressed by the 'other' 
(other people) or by self-limitation. One existential treatment of this 
dichotomy is captured by Susan J. Brison, who quoted Beauvoir's 
words thus:

 
I'm the one who spoke of woman as immanence. But I did 
so in considering the role she has been made to play. It's 
not by nature that she is reduced to immanence; she is 
being reduced to it by men who prevent her from acting, 
creating, transcending herself, as we put it during the era 

18
of existentialism, as I would put it today.

To buttress the above citation, Catherine Wilson's explanation is 

17Ursula Tidd,  Routledge Critical Thinker: Simone de Beauvoir, London: Routledge 
2004, 30.
18Susan J, Brison“Freedom, Sex Work and Social Construction,” in The Cambridge 
Companion to Simone de Beauvoir, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006, 
193.

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 101



crucial. For Wilson stresses that “Beauvoir's view is that women's 
lesser social status made it difcult for them to take part in the human 
world - not simply the world constituted by men and erroneously 
stipulated to be human, but the world of culture and manufacture to 

19 
which women paradoxically both belong and do not belong.”
Beauvoir says that, “Men have always possessed the concrete means 
of power; since the rst epoch of patriarchy, they have found it useful 
to keep women in a dependent state; their codes were set up against 

20
her.”  On her part, Sara Heinamma explains that, “When studying 
Beauvoir's notion of sexual difference, it is extremely important to 
notice the paragraph that describes women as 'other', it is not 
Beauvoir's last word on the subject. She adds a footnote to explain 

21
that this is a denition given by a man.”  In a real sense then, 
Beauvoir holds that:
 

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No 
biological, psychological, or economic fate determines 
the gure that human female presents in society; it is 
civilization as a whole that produces this creature, 
intermediate between male and eunuch, which is 
described as feminine. Only the intervention of someone 

22else can establish an individual as an 'other'.

Put differently, Beauvoir avers that, “The humanity is male and man 
denes woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not 
regarded as an autonomous being ... for him, she is sex - absolute sex, 

19C. Wilson, “Simone de Beauvoir and Human Dignity,” in The Legacy of Simone de 
Beauvoir, E.R. Groshloz (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press 2004, 99.
20M. Doeuff, “Towards a Friendly Transatlantic Critique of the Second Sex” in The 
Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir, E.R. Groshloz (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press 2004, 29.
21Sara Heinamma, “Simone de Beauvoir's Phenomenology of Sexual Difference,” in 
The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Critical Essays, Margaret A. Simons (ed.), 
Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2006, 32.
22Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, H.M. Parshley (Trans. & ed.), London: Jonathan 
Cape 1953, 273.

102 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



no less. She is differentiated with reference to man and not he with 
reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the 

23essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute - she is the 'other.'”  
Thus, Nancy Bauer asserts that, “The basic idea here is that the 
subject, man, in this case, needs an absolute 'other', a role the woman 
has historically played for him, in order to 'attain' himself in the wake 

24of his 'asserting' of himself.”  Beauvoir is not suggesting that it is 
immoral for humans to be an 'other', rather, what she is opposing is the 
fact that throughout history, men have made women an absolute 
other, whereas they enjoy the role of an absolute subject. This status, 
according to Beauvoir, makes man to become a dictator over and 
above a woman at home, working place, and in the society at large. 
The major concern here, for Beauvoir, is therefore that, “…women in 

25 the real world are, for the most part, never really free.”
Consequently, ethics (existential kind) is therefore aimed at 
liberating women. 
 One way of showing women's predicament is shown in her 
exploration of the roles of women in the family. She argues that the 
roles women play in the families (or marriages) put them at a 
disadvantaged end such that genuine freedom is repelled. So, 
Beauvoir's view on freedom and liberation in The Ethics of Ambiguity 
aims at refuting the oppression of women in marriages and patriarchy 
ordered societies. She employs the concept of mystication to stress 
the point that men (the oppressors), like other oppressors (such as the 
bourgeoisie in the capitalist economic system), have mystied 
women into thinking that their oppressive situations are natural. What 
does the situation entail here? According to Tidd:
 

In Beauvoir's thought, 'situation' refers to how a human 
being as an individual consciousness is engaged in the 

23Simone de Beauvoir, A History of Sex, H.M. Parshley (Trans.), London: Four Square 
Books 1961, 8.
24Nancy Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy, and Feminism, New York: Columbia 
University Press 2001, 185.
25C. Imbert. “Simone de Beauvoir: A Woman Philosopher in the Context of her 
Generation,” in The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir, E.R. Groshloz (Trans. & ed.), 
Oxford: Clarendon Press 2004, 11.

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 103



world with regard to people, to time, to space, and to other 
products of his/her facticity. My 'situation' is not 
something outside or around me, but the glue which binds 
my freedom and my facticity together. 'Facticity' refers to 
the necessary connection between consciousness 
between the world of inert matter and the past. Aspects of 
my facticity are aspects of my situation which I have 
chosen--for example, the facts of my birth, my body, the 
existence of other people, my death--and that I cannot 

26choose not to accept as part of my situation.

In any given situation, Beauvoir thinks that one needs to exercise 
his/her freedom in social interaction. Women's situation, therefore, 
demands that they see themselves as individuals. As she puts it, “If 

27every man is free, he cannot will himself free”  and as such, Beauvoir 
notes that, “This individualism does not lead to the anarchy of 

28
personal whim”  therefore advancing a theory of reciprocity in 
social relation.
 Briey conceived, 'reciprocity' suggests that no individual 
can live alone in the world. Humans cannot communicate alone; 
hence they need others for the realization of their authentic freedom. 
She maintains that, “Individual is dened only by his relationship to 
the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending 
himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom 

29of the others.”  Hence, Tidd observes that for Beauvoir, “The Self-
Other relation is therefore necessary and potentially reciprocal, 
experienced as it is with, All Men Are Mortal, in a dialectical 

30
framework of history.”  This can also be logically expressed thus: 

26Ursula Tidd. Routledge Critical Thinker: Simone de Beauvoir, London: Routledge 
2004, 30.
27Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity 31.
28Ibid, 70.
29Ibid, 70.
30Ursula Tidd. Routledge Critical Thinker: Simone de Beauvoir, (London: Routledge 
2004), 230.

104 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



“…a person must acknowledge himself and the other as objects as 
31 

well as subjects in order for reciprocal recognition to be achieved.”
Again, Andrew makes Beauvoir's idea of reciprocity more vivid thus: 
“One is alone in choosing. But one chooses amongst actions that 

32
involve others who may hinder or facilitate one's freedom.”  And 
Langer maintains that, “Other's conrmation requires that we seek 

33their freedom and happiness, rather than enslaving them.”  In short, 
man is a being unto others. People have a duty to protect the interest 
and dignity of others when they choose. In this case, Catherine 
Wilson asserts that: “Beauvoir believed that dignity depended both 
on how one was regarded by others and on one's relations to the 

34
material and intellectual world.”  Hence, The Ethics of Ambiguity 
refutes moral doctrines such as aestheticism, which demands the 
withdrawal of people from society. She recounts her experience of 
such mode of acting and, as such describes withdrawals from 
political and social life as an escapist approach:
 

I was really indulging in escapism, putting myself into 
blinkers so as to be safeguarding my peace of mind. For a 
long while, I stuck obstinately to this 'rejection of 
humanity' which was also the inspiration of my aesthetic 

35view.

Beauvoir proposes that when humans pursue their individual good, 
they should acknowledge that all humans are both subject and object, 
face the responsibility of their choices, recognize the transcendence 
of others as well as engage in a reciprocal relationship with them 
rather than attempting to escape from the world. She believes that 
when we reject absolute moral codes, oppression of others as mere 
objects (means) as well as a rejection of self-deception and the theory 

31Nancy Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy, and Feminism, 186.
32B.S. Andrew. “Beauvoir's Place in Philosophical Thought,”  27.
33Langer, “Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty on Ambiguity,”   97.
34Wilson, “Simone de Beauvoir and Human Dignity,”  91.
35Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life, Peter Green (Trans.), Middlesex: Penguin 
Books Ltd 1960, 148.

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 105



of human nature; ethics will concretely serve us more.
 So far, we have engaged in an interpretative exposition of 
Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity. The following section seeks to 
adopt Beauvoir's view in confronting the challenges of oppression 
and marginalization of women in Africa. 

Implications of Beauvoir's Theory for Women's Liberation in 
Africa
This section explores the issue of women's oppression in Africa, and it 
shows how this concern can be addressed through Beauvoir's idea of 
freedom, choice, responsibility, authenticity and reciprocity. While it 
is our opinion that her work has some merits, we think there are some 
fundamental aws in Beauvoir's thesis; hence this section is 
reective. This section begins with a critical evaluation of her 
positions with the hope of avoiding certain problems in her views 
prior to the adoption of her work to address women's marginalization 
and oppression in Africa.
 What are the shortcomings that lie unresolved in The Ethics of 
Ambiguity? We will look at three shortcomings in this text, and 
therefore show how they threaten Beauvoir's thesis.
 Firstly, Beauvoir makes a claim, which would likely affect 
one of the tenets of her ethics of ambiguity. What is this claim? In her 
discourse on the distinction between transcendence and immanence, 
she makes an exploration of the principle of reciprocity. While this 
exploration is impressive, the claim that it is when women take part in 
productive or intellectual labour that they can attain transcendent 
seems supercial. What is the problem with Beauvoir's supposition? 
The problem in this contention is that Beauvoir assumes, wrongly we 
think, that human dignity rests or depends on the work people do. She 
contends that when women are allowed to do the same kind of jobs 
that men do, then they are free. And if they are free to choose their 
occupations, then oppression at home would end. This conclusion 
can easily be noticed when one considers her claim that:
 

It is through gainful employment that woman has 
traversed most of the distance that separated her from the 

106 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



male; it is employment alone that guarantees her concrete 
freedom. Once she ceases to be a parasite, the system 
based in her dependence crumbles; between her and the 
universe there is no longer any need for a masculine 
mediator…When she is productive, active, she conquers 
her transcendence; in her projects, she concretely afrms 
as a subject; in connection with the aim she pursues, with 
the money and the right she takes possession of, she tests 

36
and experiences her responsibility  

Her argument can simply be summarized as follows: Premise 1: 
women are free to the extent that they are gainfully employed. 
Premise 2: women are free if they make personal decisions. 
Therefore, if women are gainfully employed, then they make 
personal decisions. In the above citation, Beauvoir commits herself 
to two fundamental claims that are not compatible with her 
existential project. Existentialism, either in her view or not, deals 
with real-life situations. Solutions to social problems, though differ 
from person-to-person, place-to-place, or from time to time, they 
must, however, attend to concrete human conditions. But does her 
position, as cited above, reect the condition of all men and women? 
First, is it correct to say, as she seems to argue, that it is employment 
alone that can guarantee women concrete freedom? Would this not 
translate to the claim that if women are not working, then they are not 
free and they are necessarily exploited? Would it not translate to the 
claim that if women are working, no matter the kind of job, then they 
are transcendent beings, even when they are exploited at work? The 
above contention of Beauvoir also suggests that those who are 
women, who by nature of their birth - let us say, handicapped, insane, 
physically challenged, etc., who cannot take any gainful employment 
due to their medical challenge(s), are necessary immanent. The 
above quotation could also be read to mean that Beauvoir assumes 
that all men are transcendent simply because they engage in gainful 
employments. 

36Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex,  755-6.

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 107



 One needs to ask: Are all men truly transcendent? Or, how 
could her view that suggests that when a woman 'is productive, active, 
she conquers her transcendence…' be interpreted? Another issue 
arises when one asks whether all productive engagements (works) 
done by women would make them qualify as transcendent? Our take 
here is that although productive activities give rise to the development 
of inner capacity, it is erroneous, to sum up that every productive 
engagement necessitates human development. Therefore, to submit 
that labour would automatically transform women to the level of 
transcendence is to underrate the issue of exploitation, alienation, and 
other oppressions at home, workplace, and society at large. Second, 
still, on the issue of labour, it is erroneously assumed by Beauvoir that 
men's conditions are improved upon by the works that they do; she 
therefore unjustiably believes that women's dignity, status and 
respect would increase in the same proportion if they too engage in 
such jobs. The problem with this view is that Beauvoir assumes that 
all labours are alike. As we shall show shortly in this paper, women in 
Africa (in Nigeria, for example), do engage in active labours, 
however, their conditions are precarious. 
 Secondly, there is a logical problem in Beauvoir's two 
fundamental concepts: the idea of authenticity and reciprocity. These 
logical problems are not obvious; hence we need to establish our 
claim. To do this, there is a need to clarify the nature of the logical 
error Beauvoir commits. This requires that one explains a logical 
relation called asymmetrical relation. For a relation (say 'A') to be 
asymmetrical, it must have a relation to another thing (say 'B'); and it 
must be such that 'B' itself cannot have the same relation to 'A' in a 
given circumstance. For instance, if 'A' is the father of 'B', then 'B' 
cannot be the father of 'A' if the notion of a father is used literally. If it 
is true that 'A' is the father of 'B', then to say the latter is the father of 
the former is to commit a logical error. Beauvoir appears to have 
committed this kind of error in the manner she explores the notion of 
authenticity and reciprocity in her work. 
 How does the logical error arise in her work? An individual, 
she says, must live an authentic life to be free. In her relationship with 
the other, an individual must be authentic such that, he/she must assert 

108 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



him/herself as a subject. If an individual does not realize her freedom, 
then such a human is inauthentic. Given that ethics of authenticity is 
the real moral justication for human action if one is to be responsible 
for one's action, then authentic selfhood begins if a person defends her 
freedom in all public interactions. This is the conclusion which 
Beauvoir reaches. We shall show how logical error emerges in this 
conclusion as follows: the problem begins to take shape if one realizes 
that everyone is also willing to establish his/her own choice. Beauvoir 
assumes that the solution to the conict of interest lies in the 
recognition of the fact that we are both subject and object. This, in her 
view, would resolve the problem. In actual sense, however, it does 
not. The logic of Beauvoir's argument can be expressed as follows: 
Authentic actions are those which are not inuenced by one's 
relationship with the other. And decisions that arise from reciprocity 
are inauthentic. The problem can be noticed if one reads into her work 
another mode of thought which Beauvoir seems to allude to Premise 
1: All actions that are freely taken are those that arise from individual 
actions. Premise 2: Women freely take action if their decisions are 
personal. Therefore, all freely chosen actions which are authentic 
arise without the inuence of others. In a more practical sense, we are 
sceptical that such kind of action is possible. The major misnomer 
here is that Beauvoir stresses the notion of authenticity too far that it 
somewhat weakens the spirit of reciprocity such that the existence of 
one appears to rule out the existence of the other. It is the notion of 
individuality that creates this tension in her work.
 To demand reciprocal action in a scenario where an individual 
is conscious that others see her as a means to an end is a difcult 
matter which Beauvoir addresses. This matter, however, cannot be 
fully addressed if all human persons seek authenticity at the detriment 
of reciprocity. The lacuna in Beauvoir's position is that she does not 
show which of the two issues women should pursue rst. On this 
ground, therefore, we consider it fundamental that human freedom 
ought to be limited not only by law but by custom and tradition insofar 
as human dignity is not repelled by these institutions. 
 Thirdly, while Beauvoir recognizes the need to respect the 
dignity of others when acting; there is a contending issue as to how 

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 109



women are to act if the prevailing social order marginalizes them. She 
does not provide any moral code on how women should address their 
circumstances other than her claim that they should seek for freedom 
against patricianly ordered societies and cultures by engaging in 
labour. This ethics appears to be empty unless women are told what to 
do if certain events occur. For instance, what should happen if this or 
that happens to women in Africa, Asia, or Europe, considering that 
women's circumstances defer all over the world? Since situations 
differ as she rightly observes, we nurse the belief that unless ethics of 
women's oppression is made universal, cases of oppression and 
marginalization of women would be treated differently in different 
climes. If unlike cases are treated alike in different parts of the world, 
existential injustice in the treatment of women across the world would 
then be the case.  It could be claimed that ethics aims to address anti-
social actions against humans and nonhuman, whereas women and 
children are the most vulnerable. 
 Despite the challenges in Beauvoir's work, it has some 
signicant merits. While the above analysis is strong enough to create 
doubt regarding the thorough-going posture of her work, Beauvoir's 
idea has re-awoken the consciousness to confront the existential 
situation of women in Africa. First, the strength of her idea of 
responsibility and reciprocity cannot be overemphasized. This, to be 
certain, complements other perspectives on ethics such as medical 
ethics, bioethics, and environmental ethics that address the condition 
of women, among other species at the workplace, environment, and 
in the world. As our hermeneutical exploration of her idea has shown, 
there is an urgent need to develop practical ethics which cares for all 
humans, regardless of their sex. Of course, her ideas show how 
people can both care for others as they care for themselves, and how 
this can be extended to the world at large. 
 Again, The Ethics of Ambiguity resolves the problems of 
exploitation, marginalization and/or oppression not only of women 
but of all mankind. Exploitation of women does hinder the growth of 
individuals who are oppressed, which could later have negative 
implications on the society if not addressed. Having confronted this 
issue using the notions of transcendence and immanence, Beauvoir 

110 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



reopens a perennial philosophical problem that has pummelled many 
societies in Africa. Interestingly, it is not only that the issue of 
oppression is considered, she also demonstrates how women are 
marginalized at home and workplace. More fundamentally, she 
shows clearly that women are marginalized economically and 
politically, which gives rise to her being further dominated 
domestically. For instance, she traces the issue of oppression to the 
traditional institution called 'marriage'. For Beauvoir, “Marriage is 

37
the destiny traditionally offered to women by society.”  In marriage, 
she argues that the patriarchal system has created a hierarchy of 
species, where men, the superior or head, dominate and exploit 
women. It is convincing to agree with Beauvoir that cultural 
institutions have played signicant roles in the molestation of 
women. Thus, the rethinking liberation of women (and the poor) is 
what can fully reposition the contemporary political world. 
Accordingly, Debra Bergoffen notes that “A politics of liberation is 

38 
tied, Beauvoir tells us, to the abolition of the rule of the father.” This 
domineering posture of the traditional institution of the family has 
wrecked more havoc than good for social engineering in recent times. 
Hence, to avoid the burden that oppressors pose on women, we agree 
with Beauvoir that moral responsibility, authenticity, and freedom 
are fundamental. How can this be advanced? Beauvoir has rightly 
espoused that 'existential conversion' is necessary. We consider this 
conversion as vital since only ethics that is rooted in authenticity, 
reciprocity, responsibility and that which guarantees social freedom 
can sufce. 
 We now turn to the issue of oppression and marginalization in 
Africa. Over the past few decades, women's liberation movements 
have emerged in different parts of Africa to defend the rights of 
women on the continent. Today, there are different associations 
seeking freedom for women in South Africa, Nigeria, the Gambia, 
Kenya, as well as other parts of the continent. 

37Ibid, 425.
38Debra Bergoffen. “Marriage, Autonomy, and Feminine,” in The Philosophy of Simone 
de Beauvoir: Critical Essays, Margaret A. Simons (ed.), Bloomington: Indiana 
University Press 2006, 97.

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 111



  Women's Rights Movements and National Women's Union 
were also formed in Nigeria, Women's National Coalition in South 
Africa, Action for Development in Uganda, Women's Movement in 
Egypt, etc. are women's liberation groups that argue for the 
recognition of women's rights in Africa. Many such groups are 
available today. Some countries in Africa have recognized and given 
women more roles to play in politics and society at large. 
 In 2016, arguments have been made for equalization of men 
and women in every sphere of life in a bid to remove the 
discrimination against anyone as specied in the Nigerian 1999 
Constitution. According to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal 
Republic of Nigeria, Section 34 (1):

Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his 
person, and accordingly- (a) no person shall be subject to 
torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment; (b) no 
person shall be held in slavery or servitude; and (c) no 
person shall be required to perform forced or compulsory 

39labour.

In Section 42 (1), it is emphasized that:
 

A citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic 
group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion 
shall not, by reason only that he is such a person:- (a) be 
subjected either expressly by, or in the practical 
application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any 
executive or administrative action of the government, to 
disabilities or restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria of 
other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, 
religious or political opinions are not made subjects; or 
(b) be accorded either expressly by, or in the practical 

39“The Nigerian 1999 Constitution”, available on the International Centre for Nigerian 
Law (ICFNL) website at: (www.nigeria-law.org/ConstitutionoftheFederal 
RepublicofNigeria.htm.Chapter_4)

112 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any such 
executive or administrative action, any privilege or 
advantage that is not accorded to citizens of Nigeria of 
other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, 

40
religious or political opinions.

Despite this as well as other provisions granted for the protection of 
women's rights in Nigeria (and other African nations), there are clear 
and systemic violations of women in the continent, like in other parts 
of the world. For instance, in 2016, a lawmaker in Nigeria, Senator 
Biodun Olujimi of Ekiti State, Nigeria proposed a Bill which aims at 
ensuring that the provision of the United Nations Convention on the 
elimination of discrimination against women was deeply entrenched 
into the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with the hope 
of providing equal treatment for all humans (men and women alike) 
in all spheres of life. The bill aims at ensuring equal rights in 
marriage, divorce, the inheritance of property, land ownership, 
education, etc. The aim also includes freedom of movement for 
women as well as economic activities. However, this Bill which 
seeks to equalize women and men as expressly stated in the 1999 
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria did not pass through 

41the second reading.  Sadly, most justications of men's superiority 
over women are based on exploitation, oppression, and 
marginalization arising from religious and cultural underpinnings of 
the people. Johanna Schalkwyk clearly articulates this thus: 

Gender (like race and ethnicity) functions as an 
organizing principle for society because of the cultural 
meaning given to being male or female… This is evident 
in the division of labour according to gender. In most 
societies, there are clear patterns of 'women's work' and 
'men's work', both in the household and in the wider 

40Ibid
41Jinali M., “Senate Rejects Bill That Seeks to Make Women Equal to Men”, 8:4pm on 
March, 2016 at:    ( ) www.nairaland.com/2991369/nigeria-senate-fails-pass-gender

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 113



community--and cultural explanation of why this should 
42

be so.

Today, the justication for the stratication of society on gender lines 
has cultural as well as the biological root. If Africans can adopt 
democracy as it is now being practiced in Africa from the lives and 
cultures of non-Africans, it would also be useful to adopt values that 
could liberate African women from cultural oppression and 
marginalization if this would help Africa to achieve concrete 
development? We thus consider it necessary, not only to invite 
women into fellowship with men politically, economically, or 
intellectually, there is also the need for this fellowship to be legally as 
well as universally afrmed in African political life for it to be 
effective. It is by giving legal as well as moral considerations to the 
issue of human rights (women's rights inclusive), can a positive 
transition be made in public policy. 
  In 1979, the General Assembly of the United Nations 
“adopted the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of 
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which is often described 

43
as an International Bill of Rights for Women.”  In this Bill, the UN 
General Assembly declares that, “All human beings are born free and 
equal in dignity and rights” and that “everyone is entitled to all the 
rights and freedoms outlined in this Declaration, without distinction 
of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, … birth or 
other status” (Ibid). Many nations of the world (including African 
nations) have adopted the imports of this Bill in their national policies 
which openly afrm equal rights to men and women even though in 
practice, these policies have not been fully implemented.  One way of 
recognizing women's freedom is to recognize their political rights as 
being equal to men's. On the political level, studies on African women 
affairs indicate that only 7 out of 108 seats are occupied by Nigerian 

42Johanna Schalkwyk. “Gender Equality,” in ADC Sourcebook in Concepts and 
Approaches Linked to Gender Equality, 2000 retrieved at: www.acid-cida.gc.ca. on 15-
10-2015. 
43United Nations (CEDAW), retrieved at: ( )www.un.org/en.globalissues/women

114 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



women in the 2015 Upper House national election, which is 6.50% 
(see www.ipu.org/wme-e/classif.htm), whereas the majority are 
traded into marriages due to cultural inclinations. Economically, 
women are left uncared for in most parts of Africa as reported in the 
2016 Aljazeera news, especially in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria. There 
are other social vices against women in regard to rape and forced 
marriage. The case is not even made more enduring for 

44
homosexuals.  All these have affected human relations in Africa.
 Today, Beauvoir has revolutionized our conception of women 
as transcendence rather than mere immanence in which sex is fettered 
to a child's procreation. As one can possibly claim, the major 
challenge facing contemporary women in Africa is not the lack of 
awareness of their exploitation and oppression by men; rather, it is 
simply that women have been nurtured culturally to take their 
predicaments as natural. As Beauvoir has clearly articulated, this has 
accelerated the domination of women. In Africa, it has led to women's 
inauthentic existence and inability to press for justice in the face of 
blatant cruelty against their persons. For Akinola Mohammed 
Akomolafe and Olusegun Steven Samuel, the lack of commitment to 
humanist cause often leads to a backlog of vices that often weaken 

45 common good. While it could be claimed that women's exploitation, 
marginalization, and oppression are culturally dened, today, women 
have accepted their fate as weaker vessels, whose responsibility is to 
remain in the kitchen, to cook and nurse the family. Trinh T. Minh-ha 
observes that:
 

The need to contain and restrict women's wisdom within 
the mothering role is therefore a constant in social 
institutions across cultures; and women's status as child-

44Oladipup S. Layi & Emmanuel Ofuasia. “The Religious Foundation of Violence 
against Homosexuals: Proposing a Relief from African Local Epistemologies.” In D.O. 
Laguda & E.G. Konyana (Eds.). Religious Violence and Conict Management in 
Africa: Phenomenological and Epistemological Engagements. (Harare: Africa Institute 
for Culture, Peace, Dialogue & Tolerance Studies 2019, 186.
45Mohammed A. Akomolafe & Olusegun S. Samuel. “An African Humanist Assessment 
of Technology and Moral Concerns,” Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, 
2016 Vol. 9 (3), 30.

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 115



bearer continues in many African contexts to be the test of 
their womanhood. From one generation to another, 
mothers are called upon to perfect their duty as the killjoy 
keepers of tradition—especially in matters that concern 
their gender. As is well-known, a woman's lot is to 
conceive, bear, feed, and, above all, indoctrinate her 

46children.  
 
Although these are not negative virtues if they can be blended with 
other values in which women can contribute to the world, African 
societies see these as the primary and major reasons why women are 
created. Olufadekemi Adagbada (2006: 105) puts it this way:
 

The fact that women have been and are still being 
oppressed, marginalised and denigrated has been a 
typical issue in many nations of the world as far back as 
the eighteenth century. Many African women, most of 
whom have either gone through such oppression in one 
form or the other or who have been witnesses to them, 
accept that the male gender has upper hands in several 
things in the society. This is detrimental to the women, 
who are regarded and treated as second class citizens. 
Some of these women (who are increasing in number 
daily) are working to see an end to their oppression; 
striving to achieve a kind of co-operation and recognition 

47of roles between genders…

In Africa, women have accepted injustice as necessary, thereby 
failing to liberate themselves from oppression. That is, they have 
accepted the erroneous belief that they are created for men. Beauvoir 

46Trinh T. Minh-ha. “Mother's Talk,” in The Politics of (Mothering): Womanhood, 
Identity, and Resistance in African Literature, Obioma Nnaemeka (ed.), London: 
Routledge 1997), 31.
47Olufadekemi Adagbada. “Women Oppression, Its Rejection and Nomenclature in 
Yoruba Video Films,” Journal of Philosophy and Development, Suleimon O. Opafola 
(ed.), Vol. 8 (nos. 1 & 2), (Ibadan: Hope Publications Ltd 2006), 105.

116 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



would consider this as bad faith which is a denial of women's self-
esteem, individuality and/or authentic selfhood. In this regard then, 
we argue that it is signicant for women to continually demand 
recognition since this is what makes human truly liberated as a 
member of a democratic society. Beauvoir's work, therefore, shows 
that ethics can complement other social tools such as the law to 
redress women's failure to address their predicaments which is 
disadvantageous. The need for women to be responsible for their 
circumstances is therefore fundamental.
 It can then be claimed that Beauvoir's ethics is promising to 
the extent that it teaches women not to accept the fabricated and 
gendered-structured-world as natural. Of course, the divide between 
the sexes (male and female) is therefore culturally made. The 
question is: is it justiable for a person/man to benet at the expense 
of another? Given that those who support the marginalization of 
women, as most examples above have shown, rely on a favourable 
aspect of a people's culture to keep themselves at an advantage level, 
it would equally be correct for others to press for the need to 
restructure the gendered society which permits such injustice as 
natural. According to J. Ann Tickner, “Feminists dene gender as a 
set of socially constructed characteristics that dene what we mean 
by masculinity and femininity … Gender is a system of social 
hierarchy in which masculine characteristics are more valued than 

48feminine ones.”  It is people, who, based on the prevailing culture 
they profess, dene how one relates or is to relate with the other. As 
Beauvoir has rightly argued, there is a need to transpose cultures that 
see women as objects. For, O.S. Samuel, cultures are “constantly 
changing, and as they change, cultural identity, unity, and diversity 

49
are altered.”  To Schalkwyk, “Cultural change occurs as 

48J. Ann Tickner. “Gender in World Politics,” in The Globalization of World Politics: An 
Introduction to International Relations, John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia Owens 

th(eds), 5  ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011, 265.
49Olusegun O. Samuel. “Re-echoing the Dawn of Cultural Revolution in Africa: The 
Case of Sex and Sexuality in Social Ethics,” in Sex and Sexuality in Africa and Africa 
Diaspora: A Social and Ethical Engagement, Danoye Oguntola Laguda (ed.), Harere: 
African Institute for Culture, Peace, Dialogue & Tolerance Studies 2013, 189.

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 117



communities and households respond to social and economic shifts 
associated with globalization, new technologies, environmental 

50pressures, armed conict, development projects, etc.” Society can 
no longer be organized on a ladder that promotes injustice against 
women for the good of some people if social development is 
desirable.
 Both men and women, including least advantaged men, 
require social recognition, which, indeed, cannot be attained unless 
freedom is deeply rooted in contemporary African culture. In this 
case, the existential conversion is apposite in addressing the backlog 
cases of marginalization and oppression of women in most parts of 
Africa. This conversion requires that women (and men) should be 
recognized as humans, whereas women (and men) should act 
responsibly. This means that differential treatment of humans which 
leads to injustice needs to be reconsidered in social policies. It means 
then that the issue of injustice should no longer be ignored in Africa. It 
is when justice takes place that impartiality, unfair treatment of 
persons, and domination can be settled.
 It is when the United Nations (UN) Declaration which 
guarantees equal rights for all people across the world is legally 
adopted as sacred in Africa can men begin to engage in true 
partnership and relationship with women, for the public good. This is 
possible when the promotion of common good is embedded in Africa. 
This can be made accessible through the development of the 
humanist spirit in society. As M.A. Akomolafe and O.S. Samuel have 
envisaged, “The rst goal of the community is therefore of proper 

51
social integration…”  and this requires “…social solidarity, good 
family upbringing, community responsibility, the moral obligation 
not to harm others, mutual trust, social harmony, honesty, truth, 
benevolence, etc. All these are virtues that are necessary for human 

5 2  
well-being.” Unfortunately, these values are ebbing in 

50Johanna Schalkwyk. “Gender Equality,”, 1.
51Mohammed A. Akomolafe & Olusegun S. Samuel. “An African Humanist Assessment 
of Technology and Moral Concerns,” 28.
52Ibid, 27.

118 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



contemporary Africa. It is our considered view in this paper, 
therefore, that the invigoration of the traditional value-system which 
promotes mutual association such as iwapele (patience), iwarere 
(benevolence) and emi-isokan (collective spirit) can accelerate the 
resolution of women's oppression in Africa.

Conclusion
This paper has assessed Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity. It 
showed that Beauvoir's idea was a critiqued of the divide between 
subject-object, transcendence-immanence, etc. which has generated 
tension between men and women. The paper showed that the division 
between the sexes has necessitated the oppression as well as 
marginalization of women. It was established that Beauvoir's 
principles of reciprocity, responsibility, and freedom are invaluable 
for the resolution to the subjugation of women in Africa. While the 
paper rejects Beauvoir's conjecture that gainful employment is 
adequate to confront the problem of oppression/marginalization of 
women in Africa, it articulated that through existential conversion, 
women's liberation in Africa is possible. This, as the paper showed, 
requires the development of collective spirit and compassion for all 
humans. 

Rethinking Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity ...    | 119 


