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
"The problem with women is that they want to be men."
"The only way to be truly free is to be free from yourself."
"For a woman to be a full human being, she must be entirely autonomous, entirely responsible for her own existence."
"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth—and truth rewarded me."
"She was ready to deny the existence of space and time rather than admit that love might not be eternal."
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.