Simone de Beauvoir — "The point is not for a woman to be like a man, but to be a woman, to be an indiv…"
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.
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More from Simone de Beauvoir
"The world is not a given, it is a project."
"There is no such thing as a natural woman. Woman is a social construction."
"The greatest danger for women is that they will be loved too much, and not enough."
"The key to success is to focus on goals, not obstacles."
"A woman's greatest achievement is to be a mother."
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.