Simone de Beauvoir — "Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female – whenever she behaves as …"
Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.
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More from Simone de Beauvoir
"To be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to choose what you want to do."
"The most authentic human existence is one that is constantly in flux, constantly becoming."
"I am going to die, and I will not be able to write anymore. This is a very serious problem."
"The meaning of life is to be found in the project of becoming oneself."
"I know of no other experience more thrilling than to be at the heart of a debate, to be part of the current of ideas."
About Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
French existentialist philosopher whose The Second Sex (1949) is the foundational text of modern feminist theory. Closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre (lifetime partner and existentialist co-founder) and Albert Camus (existentialist contemporary in Paris). For an intellectual contrast, see Camille Paglia, American cultural critic and Sexual Personae author — Paglia argues for biological-essentialist roots of gender that Beauvoir's social-construction view — 'one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' — explicitly rejects. The two are the cleanest constructed-vs-essentialist poles in feminist theory.
The standard scholarly entry points to Simone de Beauvoir's work: Toril Moi (Duke, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor) — Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman (1994); Margaret A. Simons (Southern Illinois University, Emerita) — Beauvoir and The Second Sex (1999); Kate Kirkpatrick (Oxford, Regent's Park College) — Becoming Beauvoir: A Life (2019). These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Simone de Beauvoir.