Simone de Beauvoir — "The body is not a thing, it is a situation."
The body is not a thing, it is a situation.
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More from Simone de Beauvoir
"She has been taught that she is a plaything, and she has learned to play."
"The word 'love' has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one of the causes of the serious misunderstandings which divide them."
"One is not born a genius, one becomes one."
"The greatest scandal of the world is the one in which we must be happy."
"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion."
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.