Simone de Beauvoir — "There is no such thing as a natural woman."
There is no such thing as a natural woman.
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More from Simone de Beauvoir
"Self-consciousness is not a matter of being aware of oneself, but of being aware of oneself as a being-in-the-world."
"There is no such thing as a natural woman. Woman is a social construction."
"There is no way a man can understand a woman, unless he is a woman."
"The greatest challenge in life is to find your own path."
"I am too intelligent, too demanding, too resourceful for anyone to be able to satisfy me sensibly."
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.