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Man Is Defined As A Human Being And A Woman As A Female - Whenever She Behaves As A Human Being She Is Said To Imitate The Male.
-Simone De Beauvoir
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Man Is Defined As

Simone De Beauvoir
...
Man Is Defined As A Human Being And A Woman As A Female - Whenever She Behaves As A Human Being She Is Said To Imitate The Male.

Understanding the Quote: "man is defined as a human being and a woman as a..."

This quote by Simone De Beauvoir reflects deeply on the theme of inspiring. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Inspiring, Men, Males, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Simone de Beauvoir interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Simone De Beauvoir

Simone De Beauvoir is celebrated for insightful thoughts on inspiring and men. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Inspiring
Men
Males
More From Simone De Beauvoir
The Point Is Not For Women Simply To Take Power Out Of Men’s Hands, Since That Wouldn’t Change Anything About The World. It’s A Question Precisely Of Destroying That Notion Of Power.
Men
Hands
World
You Have Never Had Any Confidence In Him. And If He Has No Confidence In Himself It Is Because He Sees Himself Through Your Eyes.
Eye
No Confidence
Ifs
At Bottom, Antipsychiatry Is Still Psychiatry. And It Doesn't Really Address Itself To Women's Problems.
Addresses
Problem
Psychiatry
Women's Mutual Understanding Comes From The Fact That They Identify Themselves With Each Other; But For The Same Reason Each Is Against The Others.
Understanding
Facts
Reason
One Is Not Born, But Rather Becomes, A Woman. No Biological, Psychological, Or Economic Fate Determines The Figure That The Human Female Presents In Society; It Is Civilization As A Whole That Produces This Creature, Intermediate Between Male And Eunuch, Which Is Described As Feminine.
Fate
Civilization
Males
Tonight, Once More, Life Sinks Its Teeth Into My Heart.
Heart
Teeth
Tonight
Anais Nin Shows An Occasional Grace In Writing, But Her Work Is Quite Foreign To Me, Precisely Because She Wants So Much To Be Feminine And Not Feminist. And Then She Is So Gaga Before So Many Men. She Talks About Men I Know In France, Men Who Were Less Than Nothing, And She Considers Them Kings, Extraordinary People.
Kings
Writing
Men
There Is No Justification For Present Existence Other Than Its Expansion Into An Indefinitely Open Future.
Expansion
Existence
Justification
I Am Incapable Of Conceiving Infinity, And Yet I Do Not Accept Finity.
Infinity
Accepting
Incapable
In Order To Be An Artist, One Must Be Deeply Rooted In The Society.
Artist
Order
Rooted
Anger Or Revolt That Does Not Get Into The Muscles Remains A Figment Of The Imagination.
Imagination
Political
Doe
Few Tasks Are More Like The Torture Of Sisyphus Than Housework, With Its Endless Repetition: The Clean Becomes Soiled, The Soiled Is Made Clean, Over And Over, Day After Day. The Housewife Wears Herself Out Marking Time: She Makes Nothing, Simply Perpetuates The Present … Eating, Sleeping, Cleaning – The Years No Longer Rise Up Towards Heaven, They Lie Spread Out Ahead, Grey And Identical. The Battle Against Dust And Dirt Is Never Won.
Lying
Sleep
Dust
Old Age Is Life's Parody.
Age
Parody
Old Age
The Father's Life Is Surrounded By Mysterious Prestige: The Hours He Spends In The Home, The Room Where He Works, The Objects Around Him, His Occupations, His Habits, Have A Sacred Character. It Is He Who Feeds The Family, Is The One In Charge And The Head. Usually He Works Outside The Home, And It Is Through Him That The Household Communicates With The Rest Of The World: He Is The Embodiment Of This Adventurous, Immense, Difficult, And Marvelous World; He Is Transcendence, He Is God.
Father
Home
Character
I Am Awfully Greedy; I Want Everything From Life. I Want To Be A Woman And To Be A Man, To Have Many Friends And To Have Loneliness, To Work Much And Write Good Books, To Travel And Enjoy Myself, To Be Selfish And To Be Unselfish… You See, It Is Difficult To Get All Which I Want. And Then When I Do Not Succeed I Get Mad With Anger.
Selfish
Work
Loneliness
Weakness' Is Weakness Only In Light Of The Aims Man Sets For Himself, The Instruments At His Disposal And The Laws He Imposes.
Men
Light
Law
I Wish That Every Human Life Might Be Pure Transparent Freedom.
Inspirational
Freedom
4th Of July
Few Books Are More Thrilling Than Certain Confessions, But They Must Be Honest, And The Author Must Have Something To Confess.
Book
Honest
Confession
I've Always Been Keenly Aware Of The Passing Of Time. I've Always Thought That I Was Old. Even When I Was Twelve, I Thought It Was Awful To Be Thirty. I Felt That Something Was Lost. At The Same Time, I Was Aware Of What I Could Gain, And Certain Periods Of My Life Have Taught Me A Great Deal. But, In Spite Of Everything, I've Always Been Haunted By The Passing Of Time And By The Fact That Death Keeps Closing In On Us.
Time
Twelve
Awful
I'm Not Against Mothers. I Am Against The Ideology Which Expects Every Woman To Have Children, And I'm Against The Circumstances Under Which Mothers Have To Have Their Children.
Mother
Children
Circumstances
It's True That This Is One Of The Problems Which Often Arises Among My Radical, Revolutionary Feminist Friends: Do You Have To Join The System Or Not? On The One Hand, If You Don't, You Risk Being Ineffectual. But If You Do, From That Moment On, You Place Your Feminism At The Service Of A System Which You Want To Take Apart.
Hands
Feminist
Risk
Justice Can Never Be Done In The Midst Of Injustice.
Justice
Done
Injustice
The Renewed Use Of Lobotomy Today Is Particularly Applicable To Women: Because They Do Routine Things, It Is Possible To Take Away Their Spirit Of Revolt, Of Debate, Of Criticism, And Still Leave Them Perfectly Capable Of Making Stews Or Washing Dishes. It's Terrible, This Tendency To Consider Women Something Dangerous To Society.
Criticism
Routine
Use
My Worst Mistake Has Been Not Grasping That Time Goes By. It Was Going By And There I Was, Set In The Attitude Of The Ideal Wife Of An Ideal Husband. Instead Of Bringing Our Sexual Relationship To Life Again I Brooded Happily Over Memories Of Our Former Nights Together.
Memories
Husband
Attitude
The Word Love Has By No Means The Same Sense For Both Sexes, And This Is One Cause Of The Serious Misunderstandings That Divide Them.
Sex
Women
Mean
Living By Proxy Is Always A Precarious Expedient.
Proxy
Precarious
I Am Incapable Of Conceiving Infinity, And Yet I Do Not Accept Finity. I Want This Adventure That Is The Context Of My Life To Go On Without End.
Adventure
Goes On
Want
No Woman Should Be Authorized To Stay At Home And Raise Her Children. Society Should Be Totally Different. Women Should Not Have That Choice, Precisely Because If There Is Such A Choice, Too Many Women Will Make That One.
Children
Home
Choices
The Writer Can't Stop Her Unconscious From Showing Up, That's Certain.
Showing Up
Certain
Unconscious
Harmony Between Two Individuals Is Never Granted-it Has To Be Conquered Indefinitely.
Two
Harmony
Granted
The Communists, Following Hegel, Speak Of Humanity And Its Future As Of Some Monolithic Individuality. I Was Attacking This Illusion.
Humanity
Individuality
Speak
Representation Of The World, Like The World Itself, Is The Work Of Men; They Describe It From Their Own Point Of View, Which They Confuse With The Absolute Truth.
Inspiring
Men
Views
Every Time A Man Dies, A Child Dies Too, And An Adolescent And A Young Man As Well; Everyone Weeps For The One Who Was Dear To Him.
Children
Men
Young
Woman Has Always Been Man's Dependent, If Not His Slave; The Two Sexes Have Never Shaped The World In Equality. And Even Today Woman Is Heavily Handicapped, Though Her Situation Is Beginning To Change.
Sex
Equality
Men
If The Unconscious Must Express Itself It Will Do So Through The Work That You Do Consciously Or Subconsciously, With Words, With What You Have To Say.
Unconscious
Ifs
It Is In The Knowledge Of The Genuine Conditions Of Our Lives That We Must Draw Our Strength To Live And Our Reasons For Living.
Life
Positive
Reason
What An Odd Thing A Diary Is: The Things You Omit Are More Important Than Those You Put In.
Important
Odd Things
Diaries
There Is Only One Solution If Old Age Is Not To Be An Absurd Parody Of Our Former Life, And That Is To Go On Pursuing Ends That Give Our Existence A Meaning.
Giving
Age
Goes On
Why One Man Rather Than Another? It Was Odd. You Find Yourself Involved With A Fellow For Life Just Because He Was The One That You Met When You Were Nineteen.
Men
Finding Yourself
Nineteen
There Is No Such Thing As A Natural Death: Nothing That Happens To A Man Is Ever Natural, Since His Presence Calls The World Into Question. All Men Must Die: But For Every Man His Death Is An Accident And, Even If He Knows It And Consents To It, An Unjustifiable Violation.
Men
World
Natural
Feminism Is A Revolutionary Movement Which Is Different From The Class Struggle Movement, The Proletarian Movement, But Which Is A Movement Which Must Be Leftist. By That I Mean At The Extreme Left, A Movement Working To Overthrow The Whole Society.
Struggle
Mean
Class
She Was Not To Look Beyond Herself For The Meaning Of Her Life.
Looks
Sometimes Speech Is No More Than A Device For Saying Nothing - And A Neater One Than Silence.
Silence
Speech
Saying Nothing
As Long As There Have Been Men And They Have Lived, They Have All Felt This Tragic Ambiguity Of Their Condition, But As Long As There Have Been Philosophers And They Have Thought, Most Of Them Have Tried To Mask It.
Men
Long
Philosopher
We Belong To This Earth. Now I Can See The Truth ... I Love You On This Earth Of Ours. Love Me, Do!
Love You
Earth
I Can
Oppression Tries To Defend Itself By Its Utility.
Trying
Oppression
Utility
To Be Moral Is To Discover Fundamentally Ones Own Being.
Moral
If I Were Proud Of Anything In My Life, It Would Be Of Our Love. I Feel We Have To Tell To Each Other As Many Things As We Can, So We Are Not Only Lovers, But The Closest Of Friends At The Same Time.
Would Be
Our Love
Proud
The Emancipation Of Women Must Be The Work Of Women Themselves, Independent Of The Class Struggle.
Struggle
Independent
Class
It Was Easier For Me To Think Of A World Without A Creator Than Of A Creator Loaded With All The Contradictions Of The World.
Atheist
Thinking
World
People Seem To Think That If You Keep Your Head Empty You Automatically Fill Your Balls.
Thinking
People
Balls
What Is An Adult? A Child Blown Up By Age.
Birthday
Time
Children
This Has Always Been A Man's World, And None Of The Reasons That Have Been Offered In Explanation Have Seemed Adequate.
Philosophy
Men
World
Legislators, Priests, Philosophers, Writers, Ans Scientists Have Striven To Show That The Subordinate Position Of Woman Is Willed In Heaven And Advantageous On Earth.
Heaven
Earth
Philosopher
Work Would Be Terribly Boring If One Did Not Play The Game All Out, Passionately.
Work
Games
Play
I Think There Is A Great Tendency Toward Autobiography Among Women Today. It Is Perhaps Facile - And I Say That Even Though I Have Written One Myself.
Thinking
Today
Tendencies
Be Loved, Be Admired, Be Necessary; Be Somebody.
The Younger And Healthier A Woman Is And The More Her New And Glossy Body Seems Destined For Eternal Freshness, The Less Useful Is Artifice; But The Carnal Weakness Of This Prey That Man Takes And Its Ominous Deterioration Always Have To Be Hidden From Him...in Any Case, The More Traits And Proportions Of A Woman Seem Contrived, The More She Delighted The Heart Of Man Because She Seemed To Escape The Metamorphosis Of Natural Things. The Result Is This Strange Paradox That By Desiring To Grasp Nature, But Transfigured, In Woman, Man Destines Her To Artifice.
Heart
Men
Weakness
What Would Prince Charming Have For Occupation If He Had Not To Awaken The Sleeping Beauty?
Sleep
Occupation
Charming
Whatever The Country, Capitalist Or Socialist, Man Was Everywhere Crushed By Technology, Made A Stranger To His Own Work, Imprisoned, Forced Into Stupidity. The Evil All Arose From The Fact That He Had Increased His Needs Rather Than Limited Them; . . . As Long As Fresh Needs Continued To Be Created, So New Frustrations Would Come Into Being. When Had The Decline Begun? The Day Knowledge Was Preferred To Wisdom And Mere Usefulness To Beauty. . . . Only A Moral Revolution - Not A Social Or Political Revolution - Only A Moral Revolution Would Lead Man Back To His Lost Truth.
Country
Loss
Frustration
Those Interested In Perpetuating Present Conditions Are Always In Tears About The Marvelous Past That Is About To Disappear, Without Having So Much As A Smile For The Young Future.
Change
Past
Tears
If You Live Long Enough, You'll See That Every Victory Turns Into A Defeat.
War
Long
Victory
There Is A Poetry In Making Preserves; The Housewife Has Caught Duration In The Snare Of Sugar, She Has Enclosed Life In Jars.
Sugar
Duration
Jars
I Would Stand Transfixed Before The Windows Of The Confectioners' Shops, Fascinated By The Luminous Sparkle Of Candied Fruits, The Cloudy Lustre Of Jellies, The Kaleidoscope Inflorescence Of Acidulated Fruit Drops - Red, Green, Orange, Violet: I Coveted The Colours Themselves As Much As The Pleasure They Promised Me.
Food
Orange
Cooking
I Consider It Almost Antifeminist To Say That There Is A Feminine Nature Which Expresses Itself Differently, That A Woman Speaks Her Body More Than A Man, Because After All, Men Also Speak Their Bodies When They Write. Everything Is Implicated In The Work Of A Writer.
Writing
Men
Body
One Can Not Start By Saying That Our Earthly Destiny Has Or Has Not Importance, For It Depends Upon Us To Give It Importance.
Destiny
Giving
Importance
I Am Not At All For A Feminism Which Is Entirely Separatist, Which Would Say, "this Domain Is Purely For Women." I Don't Believe That At All.
Believe
Feminism
Domain
However Gifted An Individual Is At The Outset, If His Or Her Talents Cannot Be Developed Because Of His Or Her Social Condition, Because Of The Surrounding Circumstances, These Talents Will Be Still-born.
Individuality
Talent
Social
Cooking Is Revolution And Creation.
Cooking
Revolution
Creation
‎a Day In Which I Don't Write Leaves A Taste Of Ashes.
Writing
Ashes
Taste
It Is So Difficult Not To Become Vain About One's Own Good Luck.
Good Luck
Complacency
Vain
To Give Space When What One Most Yearns For Is Closeness, That Is Both The Great Test And Great Tragedy Of Love.
Space
Giving
Tragedy
There Are Topics Which Are Common To Men And Women. I Think That If A Woman Speaks Of Oppression, Of Misery, She Will Speak Of It In Exactly The Same Way As A Man. But If She Speaks Of Her Own Personal Problems As A Woman, She Will Obviously Speak In Another Way.
Men
Thinking
Way
A Man Would Never Get The Notion Of Writing A Book On The Peculiar Situation Of The Human Male.
Book
Writing
Men
Retirement Revives The Sorrow Of Parting, The Feeling Of Abandonment, Solitude And Uselessness That Is Caused By The Loss Of Some Beloved Person.
Retirement
Loss
Solitude
A Man Is In The Right In Being A Man; It Is The Woman Who Is In The Wrong.
Men
I Was Made For Another Planet Altogether. I Mistook The Way.
Way
Made
Planets
All Oppression Creates A State Of War.
War
Historical
Oppression
I Admire Freud A Great Deal As A Person And Thinker. Despite Everything, I Find His Work Very, Very Rich, But I Think That For Women He Has Been Absolutely Disastrous. And Even More So, Everyone Who Came After Him.
Thinking
Rich
Admire
He Reflected. 'i Know A Lot Of Different Kids Of People; What I Want Is To Show Each Of Them How The Others Really Are. You Hear So Many Lies!
Lying
Kids
People
In Itself, Homosexuality Is As Limiting As Heterosexuality: The Ideal Should Be To Be Capable Of Loving A Woman Or A Man; Either, A Human Being, Without Feeling Fear, Restraint, Or Obligation.
Gay
Men
Heterosexuality Is
I Had Never Believed In The Sacred Nature Of Literature. God Had Died When I Was Fourteen.
God
Literature
Sacred
Virginia Woolf Thought A Lot About Her Own Sex When She Wrote. In The Best Sense Of The Word, Her Writing Is Very Feminine, And By That I Mean That Women Are Supposed To Be Very Sensitive To All The Sensations Of Nature, Much More So Than Men, Much More Contemplative. It's This Quality That Marks Her Best Works.
Sex
Writing
Mean
That A Whole Part Of The Middle Class Detests Me... Is Utterly Normal. I Would Be Troubled If The Contrary Were True.
Class
Would Be
Normal
Capabilities Are Clearly Manifested Only When They Have Been Realized.
Capability
Has Beens
Can One Say That There Is A Way Of Crying Out, Of Speaking, Which Is Properly Feminine? Personally, I Don't Think So. In The End, I Find This Is Another Way Of Putting Women In A Kind Of Singularity, A Ghetto, Which Is Not What I Want. I Want Them To Be Singular And Universal At The Same Time.
Ghetto
Thinking
Want
Anyway I Know Only Too Well That All Life Is Nothing But A Brief Reprieve From Death.
Life Is
Wells
Reprieve
Self-consciousness Is Not Knowledge But A Story One Tells About Oneself.
Self
Stories
Consciousness
Existentialism Does Not Offer To The Reader The Consolations Of An Abstract Evasion: Existentialism Proposes No Evasion. On The Contrary, Its Ethics Is Experienced In The Truth Of Life, And It Then Appears As The Only Proposition Of Salvation Which One Can Address To Men.
Men
Doe
Addresses
A Darwinian Nation Of Economic Fitness Abhors Idleness, Dependence, Non-productivity.
Economic
Dependence
Nations
I Willingly Trust Myself To Chance. I Let My Thoughts Wander, I Digress, Not Only Sitting At My Work, But All Day Long, All Night Even. It Often Happens That A Sentence Suddenly Runs Through My Head Before I Go To Bed, Or When I Am Unable To Sleep, And I Get Up Again And Write It Down.
Running
Writing
Sleep
This Is Certainly A Very Tricky Point: How To Ally Yourself To Other Leftist Forces Without Losing Your Feminist Specificity.
Feminist
Allies
Losing
It Is Not The Inferiority Of Women That Has Caused Their Historical Insignificance; It Is Rather Their Historical Insignificance That Has Doomed Them To Inferiority.
Women
History
Historical
My Life Was Hurrying, Racing Tragically Toward Its End. And Yet At The Same Time It Was Dripping So Slowly, So Very Slowly Now, Hour By Hour, Minute By Minute. One Always Has To Wait Until The Sugar Melts, The Memory Dies, The Wound Scars Over, The Sun Sets, The Unhappiness Lifts And Fades Away.
Memories
Waiting
Racing
Authentic Love Must Be Founded On Reciprocal Recognition Of Two Freedoms. For Each Of Them, Love Would Be The Revelation Of The Self Through The Gift Of The Self And The Enrichment Of The Universe.
Two
Self
Would Be
Society Turns Away From The Aged Worker As Though He Belonged To Another Species. That Is Why The Whole Question Is Buried In A Conspiracy Of Silence. Old Age Exposes The Failure Of Our Entire Civilization.
Civilization
Silence
Age
Choice Springs From The Totality Of The Person. Thus, To Study, To Analyze What A Person Is, Does Not Eliminate The Idea Of Freedom.
Spring
Ideas
Choices
And Without A Doubt It Is More Comfortable To Endure Blind Bondage Than To Work For One's Liberation; The Dead, Too, Are Better Suited To The Earth Than The Living.
Doubt
Earth
Blind
Hegel Held That The Two Sexes Were Of Necessity Different, The One Being Active And The Other Passive, And Of Course The Female Would Be The Passive One.
Sex
Two
Female
The Ideal Of Happiness Has Always Taken Material Form In The House, Whether Cottage Or Castle; It Stands For Permanence And Separation From The World.
Taken
Home
House
I Don't Want To Be Just Another Blade Of Grass.
Want
Blades
Grass
It Is True That Nothing Is Gained Without Something Being Lost: Everyone Knows That In Fulfilling Oneself One Necessarily Sacrifices Some Possibilities.
Sacrifice
Possibility
Lost
I Would Certainly Like To See Some Young Women Take Up Psychoanalysis Seriously And Reconstruct It From An Absolutely New Viewpoint.
Viewpoints
Young
Young Women
The Innumerable Conflicts That Set Men And Women Against One Another Come From The Fact That Neither Is Prepared To Assume All The Consequences Of This Situation Which The One Has Offered And The Other Accepted.
Men
Facts
Assuming
I Discovered Feminism Around 1970-72-precisely The Time When Feminism Began To Exist In France. Before That, There Was No Feminism.
Feminism
France
Woman Is Determined Not By Her Hormones Or By Mysterious Instincts, But By The Manner In Which Her Body And Her Relation To The World Are Modified Through The Action Of Others Than Herself.
Women
World
Body
Love And Action Always Imply A Failure, But This Failure Must Not Keep Us From Loving And Acting. For We Have Not Only To Establish What Our Situation Is, We Have To Choose It In The Very Heart Of Its Ambiguity.
Heart
Acting
Action
Every Time I Start On A New Book, I Am A Beginner Again. I Doubt Myself, I Grow Discouraged, All The Work Accomplished In The Past Is As Though It Never Was, My First Drafts Are So Shapeless That It Seems Impossible To Go On With The Attempt At All, Right Up Until The Moment - Always Imperceptible, There, Too, There Is A Break - When It Is Has Become Impossible Not To Finish It.
Book
Past
Doubt
The State Of Emotional Intoxication Allows One To Grasp Existence In One's Self And In The Other, As Both Subjectivity And Passivity. The Two Partners Merge In This Ambiguous Unity; Each One Is Freed Of His Own Presence And Achieves Immediate Communication With The Other.
Communication
Emotional
Two
I Have Never Read A Really Good Novel Written By A Man Where Women Are Portrayed As They Truly Are. They Can Be Portrayed Externally Very Well - Stendhal's Madame De Renal, For Example - But Only As Seen From The Outside.
Men
Example
Novel
I Believe That We Must Use Language. If It Is Used In A Feminist Perspective, With A Feminist Sensibility, Language Will Find Itself Changed In A Feminist Manner. It Will Nonetheless Be The Language. You Can't Not Use This Universal Instrument; You Can't Create An Artificial Language, In My Opinion. But Naturally, Each Writer Must Use It In His/her Own Way.
Believe
Perspective
Feminist
It Is Only On Posters And In Advertisement Pages That Americans Have Those Chubby Cheeks, Expanding Smiles, Smooth Looks, And Faces Flushed With Well-being. In Fact, Almost All Are At Odds With Themselves; Drink Offers A Remedy For This Inner Malady Of Which Boredom Is The Most Usual Sign: As Drinking Is Accepted By Society, It Does Not Appear As A Sign Of Their [americans'] Inability To Adapt Themselves; It Is Rather The Adapted Form Of Inadaptability.
Drinking
Odds
Boredom
Christian Ideology Has Contributed No Little To The Oppression Of Woman.
Christian
Littles
Oppression
That Is What Chills Your Spine When You Read An Account Of A Suicide: Not The Frail Corpse Hanging From The Window Bars But What Happened Inside That Heart Immediately Before.
Suicide
Heart
Bars
To Be Feminist Doesn't Mean Simply To Do Nothing, To Reduce Yourself To Total Impotence Under The Pretext Of Refusing Masculine Values. There Is A Problematic, A Very Difficult Dialectic Between Accepting Power And Refusing It, Accepting Certain Masculine Values, And Wanting To Transform Them. I Think It's Worth A Try.
Mean
Thinking
Feminist
It's Frightening To Think That You Mark Your Children Merely By Being Yourself. It Seems Unfair. You Can't Assume The Responsibility For Everything You Do --or Don't Do.
Being Yourself
Children
Responsibility
They [americans] Want To Believe That Good And Evil Can Be Defined In Precise Categories, That Good Is Already, Or Will Be Easily Achieved. ... If This Optimism Appears Too Superficial, They Will Try To Create A Kind Of Anti-god: The U.s.s.r. That Is Evil, And It Only Needs To Be Annihilated To Re-establish The Reign Of Good.
Believe
Evil
Optimism
The Day Had Been Spent In The Expectation Of These Hours, And Now They Were Crumbling Away, Becoming, In Their Turn, Another Period Of Expectancy...it Was A Journey Without End, Leading To An Indefinite Future, Eternally Shifting Just As She Was Reaching The Present.
Journey
Expectations
Crumbling
To Create A Language All Of A Piece Which Would Be A Women's Language, That I Find Quite Insane. There Does Not Exist A Mathematics Which Is Only A Women's Mathematics, Or A Feminine Science.
Insane
Doe
Would Be
Ce N'est Gue' Re Que Dans Les Asiles Que Les Coquettes Gardent Avec Ente" Tement Une Foi Entie' Re En Des Regards Absents; Normalement, Elles Re Clament Des Te Moins. Women Fond Of Dress Are Hardly Ever Entirely Satisfied Not To Be Seen, Except Among The Insane; Usually They Want Witnesses.
Insane
Dresses
Coquette
In 1949, I Believed That Social Progress, The Triumph Of The Proletariat, Socialism Would Lead To The Emancipation Of Women. But I Saw That Nothing Came Of It: First Of All, That Socialism Was Not Achieved Anywhere, And That In Certain Countries Which Called Themselves Socialist, The Situation Of Women Was No Better Than It Was In So-called Capitalist Countries.
Country
Progress
Saws
I Think That The Second Sex Will Seem An Old, Dated Book, After A While. But Nonetheless, A Book Which Will Have Made Its Contribution. At Least, I Hope So.
Sex
Book
Thinking
It Is Impossible To Do Anything For Anyone.
Impossible
I Think It's Wrong To Write In A Totally Esoteric Language When You Want To Talk About Things Which Interest A Multitude Of Women.
Writing
Thinking
Want
It Is Not In Giving Life But In Risking Life That Man Is Raised Above The Animal; That Is Why Superiority Has Been Accorded In Humanity Not To The Sex That Brings Forth But To That Which Kills.
Life
Death
Sex
As Long As The Family And The Myth Of The Family ... Have Not Been Destroyed, Women Will Still Be Oppressed.
Long
Myth
Stills
There Is Not A Single Line In This Diary That Does Not Call For A Correction Or A Denial...yes: Throughout These Pages I Meant What I Was Writing And I Meant The Opposite; Reading Them Again I Feel Completely Lost...i Was Lying To Myself. How I Lied To Myself!
Lying
Reading
Writing
In The Face Of An Obstacle Which Is Impossible To Overcome, Stubbornness Is Stupid.
Stupid
Overcoming
Stubborn
The Whole World Was Nothing But An Exile With No Hope Of A Return.
World
Return
No Hope
On Ne Na|"t Pas Femme: On Le Devient. One Is Not Born A Woman: One Becomes A Woman.
Born
Femme
It's Only Arrogance If You're Wrong.
Arrogance
Ifs
Today, However, We Are Having A Hard Time Living Because We Are So Bent On Outwitting Death.
Hard Times
Today
Existentialism
When Women Act Like Women, They Are Accused Of Being Inferior. When Women Act Like Human Beings, They Are Accused Of Behaving Like Men.
Men
Justice
Diversity
The Most Mediocre Of Males Feels Himself A Demigod As Compared With Women.
Women
Equality
Males
One Is Not Born, But Rather Becomes, A Woman.
Motivational
Strong Women
Philosophy
She Would Never Change, But One Day At The Touch Of A Fingertip She Would Fall To Dust.
Fall
Dust
One Day
Feminism Is One Way Of Attacking Society As It Now Exists.
Feminism
Way
Attacking
I Was Struck By The Absence, Even Among Very Young Boys And Girls, Of Any Interior Motivation; They Were Incapable Of Thinking, Of Inventing, Of Imagining, Of Choosing, Of Deciding For Themselves; This Incapacity Was Expressed By Their Conformism; In Every Domain Of Life They Employed Only The Abstract Measure Of Money, Because They Were Unable To Trust To Their Own Judgment.
Girl
Money
Motivation
When An Individual (or A Group Of Individuals) Is Kept In A Situation Of Inferiority, The Fact Is That He Is Inferior.
Feminism
Doe
Inferiority
When Goya Was 80 He Drew An Ancient Man Propped On Two Sticks, With A Great Mass Of White Hair And Beard All Over His Face, And The Inscription, "i Am Still Learning."
Men
Hair
Two
Therefore The Misfortune Which Comes To Man As A Result Of The Fact That He Was A Child Is That His Freedom Was First Concealed From Him And That All His Life He Will Be Nostalgic For The Time When He Did Not Know It's Exigencies.
Children
Men
Firsts
Man Is A Talking Animal And He Will Always Let Himself Be Swayed By The Power Of The Word. Machines Won't Change Human Nature.
Animal
Men
Talking
Fathers Never Have Exactly The Daughters They Want Because They Invent A Notion A Them That The Daughters Have To Conform To.
Daughter
Father
Expectations
Man Is Defined As A Human Being And A Woman As A Female - Whenever She Behaves As A Human Being She Is Said To Imitate The Male.
Inspiring
Men
Males
Self-knowledge Is No Guarantee Of Happiness, But It Is On The Side Of Happiness And Can Supply The Courage To Fight For It.
Fighting
Self
Guarantees
Literature Takes Its Revenge On Reality By Making It The Slave Of Fiction.
Revenge
Reality
Fiction
Ah, If Only There Were Two Of Me, She Thought, One Who Spoke And The Other Who Listened, One Who Lived And One Who Watched, How I Would Love Myself! I Would Envy No One.
Two Of Me
Envy
Self Love
Given Masculine Norms, It Is Clear That Women Are More Likely To Be Considered Crazy - I'm Not Saying To Be Crazy.
Crazy
Given
Masculine
Woman Is Shut Up In A Kitchen Or In A Boudoir, And Astonishment Is Expressed That Her Horizon Is Limited. Her Wings Are Clipped, And It Is Found Deplorable That She Cannot Fly.
Wings
Justice
Diversity
If The Writer Is A Woman, Feminist Or Not, It Will Give The Language Something That It Would Not Have If It Had Been Used By A Man.
Men
Giving
Feminist
I Could See No Reason For Being Sad. It´s Just That It Makes Me Unhappy Not To Feel Happy.
Being Sad
Unhappy
Reason
If Her Functioning As A Female Is Not Enough To Define Woman, If We Decline Also To Explain Her Through "the Eternal Feminine," And If Nevertheless We Admit, Provisionally, That Women Do Exist, Then We Must Face The Question: What Is A Woman?
Female
Faces
Eternity
Society Cares About The Individual Only In So Far As He Is Profitable. The Young Know This. Their Anxiety As They Enter In Upon Social Life Matches The Anguish Of The Old As They Are Excluded From It.
Anxiety
Age
Care
To Emancipate Woman Is To Refuse To Confine Her To The Relations She Bears To Man, Not To Deny Them To Her; Let Her Have Her Independent Existence And She Will Continue Nonetheless To Exist For Him Also: Mutually Recognising Each Other As Subject, Each Will Yet Remain For The Other An Other...when We Abolish The Slavery Of Half Of Humanity, Together With The Whole System Of Hypocrisy That It Implies, Then The 'division' Of Humanity Will Reveal Its Genuine Significance And The Human Couple Will Find Its True Form.
Couple
Independent
Men
The Curse Which Lies Upon Marriage Is That Too Often The Individuals Are Joined In Their Weakness Rather Than In Their Strength -each Asking From The Other Instead Of Finding Pleasure In Giving. It Is Even More Deceptive To Dream Of Gaining Through The Child A Plenitude, A Warmth, A Value, Which One Is Unable To Create For Oneself; The Child Brings Joy Only To The Woman Who Is Capable Of Disinterestedly Desiring The Happiness Of Another, To One Who Without Being Wrapped Up In Self Seeks To Transcend Her Own Existence.
Marriage
Dream
Children
Words Have To Murder Reality Before They Can Hold It Captive.
Reality
Murder
Captives
Regardless Of The Staggering Dimensions Of The World About Us, The Density Of Our Ignorance, The Risks Of Catastrophes To Come, And Our Individual Weakness Within The Immense Collectivity, The Fact Remains That We Are Absolutely Free Today If We Choose To Will Our Existence In Its Finiteness, A Finiteness Which Is Open On The Infinite. And In Fact, Any Man Who Has Known Real Loves, Real Revolts, Real Desires, And Real Will Knows Quite Well That He Has No Need Of Any Outside Guarantee To Be Sure Of His Goals; Their Certitude Comes From His Own Drive.
Philosophy
Real
Ignorance
I Never Thought Of Myself As Being In The Avant-garde. I Said What I Had To Say, As I Was Able To Say It.
Avant Garde
Able
Said
Each Of Us Is Responsible For Everything And To Every Human Being.
Responsible
Humans
Human Beings
One's Life Has Value So Long As One Attributes Value To The Life Of Others, By Means Of Love, Friendship, Indignation And Compassion.
Love
Life
Kindness
At The Moment Of Their Emancipation, Women Have A Need To Write Their Own Histories.
Writing
Needs
Moments
Because We Are Separated Everything Separates Us, Even Our Efforts To Join Each Other.
Effort
The Writer Of Originality, Unless Dead, Is Always Shocking, Scandalous; Novelty Disturbs And Repels.
Powerful
Writing
Bad Ass
The Body Is Not A Thing, It Is A Situation: It Is Our Grasp On The World And Our Sketch Of Our Project
World
Body
Projects
You Can't Define The Future. And In My Opinion, You Can't Define The Avant-garde.
Avant Garde
Opinion
We Can Reorient Science - For Example, A Kind Of Medicine Much More Directed Toward The Enormous Number Of Women's Health Problems Which Are Neglected Now. But The Original Givens Of This Science Are The Same For Men And For Women. Women Simply Have To Steal The Instrument; They Don't Have To Break It, Or Try, A Priori, To Make Of It Something Totally Different. Steal It And Use It For Their Own Good.
Men
Medicine
Numbers
It's So Easy To Be Mistaken About The Future. Sometimes There Are Avant-gardes Which Believe Themselves To Be The Avant-garde And Which Later Find Themselves To Be Absolutely Dated.
Believe
Avant Garde
Sometimes
Americans Are Nature-lovers: But They Only Admit Of Nature Proofed And Corrected By Man.
Nature
Men
United States
Defending The Truth Is Not Something One Does Out Of A Sense Of Duty Or To Allay Guilt Complexes, But Is A Reward In Itself.
Truth
Guilt
Rewards
To Will Freedom And To Will To Disclose Being Are One And The Same Choice; Hence, Freedom Takes A Positive And Constructive Step Which Causes Being To Pass To Existence In A Movement Which Is Constantly Surpassed.
Choices
Movement
Causes
It's True That What You Find In New York Is Something Other Than America. Only Small Towns And Small Countries Are Self-satisfied; A Real Capital Goes Beyond Its Borders.
Country
New York
Real
I Think That Freud Understood Absolutely Nothing About Women - As He Himself Said.
Thinking
Said
Understood
Each Person Has His Or Her Own Very Particular History And After All, The Unconscious Is The Most Secret Part Of Ourselves.
Secret
Unconscious
Persons
There Is Something In The New York Air That Makes Sleep Useless.
Travel
New York
Sleep
Life Is Occupied In Both Perpetuating Itself And In Surpassing Itself; If All It Does Is Maintain Itself, Then Living Is Only Not Dying.
Life
Inspire
Dying
To Make Oneself An Object, To Make Oneself Passive, Is A Very Different Thing From Being A Passive Object.
Acceptance
Different
Passive
In Truth We Need To Change The Society Itself, Men As Well As Women, To Change Everything.
Men
Needs
Need A Change
I Went To Get A Detective Story. You Have To Kill Time. But Time Will Kill Me Too - And There´s The True, Preestablished Balance.
Balance
Stories
Detectives
Patience Is One Of Those Feminine Qualities Which Have Their Origin In Our Oppression But Should Be Preserved After Our Liberation.
Quality
Oppression
Feminine
He Formed His Sentences Hesitantly And Then Threw Them At Me With Such Force That I Felt As If I Were Receiving A Present Each Time
Receiving
Force
Sentences
Let Women Be Provided With Living Strength Of Their Own.
Strength
Tragedies Are All Right For A While: You Are Concerned, You Are Curious, You Feel Good. And Then It Gets Repetitive, It Doesn't Advance, It Grows Dreadfully Boring: It Is So Very Boring, Even For Me.
Feel Good
Tragedy
Boring
Work Almost Always Has A Double Aspect: It Is A Bondage, A Wearisome Drudgery; But It Is Also A Source Of Interest, A Steadying Element, A Factor That Helps To Integrate The Worker With Society. Retirement May Be Looked Upon Either As A Prolonged Holiday Or As A Rejection, A Being Thrown On To The Scrap-heap.
Retirement
Work
Holiday
But Women Do Not Say 'we', Except At Some Congress Of Feminists Or Similar Formal Demonstration; Men Say 'women', And Women Use The Same Word In Referring To Themselves.
Men
Feminist
Use
There Are Cases Where The Slave Does Not Know His Servitude And Where It Is Necessary To Bring The Seed Of His Liberation To Him From The Outside: His Submission Is Not Enough To Justify The Tyranny Which Is Imposed Upon Him.
Doe
Existential
Slave
It Is A Difficult Matter For Man To Realize The Extreme Importance Of Social Discriminations Which Seem Outwardly Insignificant But Which Produce In Woman Moral And Intellectual Effects So Profound That They Appear To Spring From Her Original Nature.
Spring
Men
Profound
To Abstain From Politics Is In Itself A Political Attitude.
Attitude
Political
To Be Free Is Not To Have The Power To Do Anything You Like; It Is To Be Able To Surpass The Given Toward An Open Future.
Able
You Like It
Given
There Are Jobs That Can Be Done Equally Well By Men Or By Women And That Finally You Can't See A Difference. But From The Moment That You Involve Yourself Fully In Writing A Novel, For Example, Or An Essay, Then You Are Involved As A Woman, In The Same Way That You Can't Deny Your Nationality - You Are French, You Are A Man, You Are A Woman... All This Passes Into The Writing.
Jobs
Writing
Men
Buying Is Profound Pleasure.
Profound
Buying
Pleasure
If You Haven't Been Happy Very Young, You Can Still Be Happy Later On, But It's Much Harder. You Need More Luck.
Happiness
Luck
Needs
What Is Very Troubling Is That People Who Have Tried To Write Literature, Even, For Example, Proletarian Writers, Seem To Write Within The Norms Of The Dominant Class.
Writing
Class
People
There Is The Problem Of Unpaid Labor, Such As Housework, Which Represents Millions And Millions Of Unsalaried Work Hours And On Which Masculine Society Is Firmly Based. To Put An End To This Would Be To Send The Present-day Capitalist System Flying In A Single Blow. Only We Can't Do It By Ourselves; There Have To Be Other Kinds Of Attacks On The System. So A Certain Alliance With Revolutionary Systems Is Necessary, Even Masculine Ones.
Blow
Flying
Would Be
Habit Has A Kind Of Poetry.
Kind
Habit
There Are So Many Problems. Women Can Go To Work On These As Well Without Giving Up Their Feminism.
Giving Up
Feminism
Problem
The Role Of A Retired Person Is No Longer To Possess One.
Retirement
Roles
Retired
Science Condemns Itself To Failure When, Yielding To The Infatuation Of The Serious, It Aspires To Attain Being, To Contain It, And To Possess It; But It Finds Its Truth If It Considers Itself As A Free Engagement Of Thought In The Given, Aiming, At Each Discovery, Not At Fusion With The Thing, But At The Possibility Of New Discoveries; What The Mind Then Projects Is The Concrete Accomplishment Of Its Freedom.
Discovery
Accomplishment
Mind
It's Important That You Think Of Your Relationship With The World And The Way You Can Express That World And That You Not Be Stopped If It Scandalizes Or Embarrasses; But You Must Not Look For Scandal Or For The Avant-garde As A Thing In Itself.
Thinking
Important
Avant Garde
All The Idols Made By Man, However Terrifying They May Be, Are In Point Of Fact Subordinate To Him, And That Is Why He Will Always Have It In His Power To Destroy Them.
Men
Idols
Scary
In Fact, People Seem To Be Tired Of Fiction Now. There Are So Many Other Ways Of Exploring Humanity - By Ethnology, Psychoanalysis, And So On. It's A Little Boring To Make Up Stories. So Many People Think That It's Better To Be Very Close To Reality And To Recount One's Life As It Is Rather Than To Fictionalize, As They Say, That Is To Transpose, And Therefore To Cheat.
Tired
Reality
Thinking
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