One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.
On ne naît pas femme : on le devient.
Philosophers
Simone de Beauvoir
Existentialist philosopher and feminist pioneer born in Paris in 1908. In The Second Sex she argued that womanhood is socially constructed, reshaping gender theory and grounding modern feminism.
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Simone de Beauvoir's Other Quotes
The present is not a potential past; it is the moment of choice and action.
It is in the knowledge of the true conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons to act.
Let nothing define us. Let nothing subjugate us. Let freedom be our very substance.
To will oneself free is already to have freed oneself.
Related Quotes
The works will speak for themselves.
-- Artemisia Gentileschi
The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.
-- John Stuart Mill
The present is not a potential past; it is the moment of choice and action.
-- Simone de Beauvoir
Let nothing define us. Let nothing subjugate us. Let freedom be our very substance.
-- Simone de Beauvoir
To will oneself free is already to have freed oneself.
-- Simone de Beauvoir
Existence precedes essence.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre