Simone de Beauvoir — "The drama of human existence is that one is always in a situation."
The drama of human existence is that one is always in a situation.
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More from Simone de Beauvoir
"I am a woman who writes, and I am a woman who lives."
"The world is not a collection of things, but a collection of relationships."
"The world is not given, it is made."
"The word 'love' has by now been so debased and perverted that it has become almost impossible to use it without a sense of shame."
"If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person."
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.