Simone de Beauvoir — "The most important task for women is to free themselves from the chains of tradi…"
The most important task for women is to free themselves from the chains of tradition and men's expectations.
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More from Simone de Beauvoir
"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion."
"The word 'love' has by now been so debased and distorted that it is almost impossible to use it."
"The present is not a potential past; it is the moment of choice and action."
"Man is defined as a being that has to create himself."
"The great advantage of the present-day bourgeoisie is to possess no moral, no ideal, no religion, no God, no sacred values."
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.