Simone de Beauvoir — "The fact that she is a woman has been a handicap for her in every respect."
The fact that she is a woman has been a handicap for her in every respect.
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More from Simone de Beauvoir
"Man is defined as a being who chooses himself."
"No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society must be changed so that women can earn their living and children are cared for by appropriate services."
"The most important task for women is to free themselves from the chains of tradition and men's expectations."
"The point is not for a woman to be like a man, but to be a woman, to be an individual with her own identity and her own values."
"I am a woman, and I am a human being."
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.