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
"To love is to will the other's freedom."
"One must not let oneself be caught by surprise by death."
"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."
"The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it's all that matters."
"Woman is not a fixed reality, but a becoming."
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.