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Simone de Beauvoir
France · 1908–1986
In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir examined how women are constructed as secondary to men through culture, institutions and everyday expectations. Her existentialist approach made freedom and social constraint central questions.
Later feminists have both developed and criticised her work. Its continuing importance lies partly in the arguments it opened about experience, embodiment and the making of gender.
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
The Second Sex (1949), English translation.
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Short original introduction by GYNĒMA · Source review: 7 October 2026. The quote is an excerpt, not a summary of her entire outlook.
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