Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, novelist, and feminist — best known for The Second Sex (1949), the foundational text of second-wave feminism. Her central argument: 'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' — womanhood is not biologically determined but socially constructed through cultural norms, institutions, and expectations. This single sentence launched modern gender studies. Beauvoir had a lifelong relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre that was deliberately unconventional — they never married or lived together, both had other relationships, and she maintained full intellectual and emotional independence. She won the Prix Goncourt (France's highest literary prize) for her novel The Mandarins (1954). Her Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958) and The Coming of Age (1970, on old age) established her as one of the 20th century's great autobiographical writers. She signed the 'Manifesto of 343' (1971) admitting to having an abortion (illegal in France) to draw attention to the abortion rights campaign.