Feminism Quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

“Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity.”

— Simone de Beauvoir

A man is in the right in being a man; it is the woman who is in the wrong.

— Simone de Beauvoir

Feminism is one way of attacking society as it now exists.

— Simone de Beauvoir

One is not conceived a lady, one turns into one.

— Simone de Beauvoir

To be a woman, if not a defect, is at least a peculiarity.

— Simone de Beauvoir

“...her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.”

— Simone de Beauvoir

One is not born a woman, but becomes one.

— Simone de Beauvoir

Let women be provided with living strength of their own.

— Simone de Beauvoir

It is in great part the anxiety of being a woman that devastates the feminine body.

— Simone de Beauvoir

“If the "question of women" is so trivial, it is because masculine arrogance turned it into a "quarrel"; when people quarrel, they…

— Simone de Beauvoir

A man of the right doesn't write in the same way as a man of the left, you can see that right…

— Simone de Beauvoir

“How could women ever have had genius when all possibility of accomplishing a work of genius - or just a work -…

— Simone de Beauvoir

If the feminine issue is so absurd, is because the male's arrogance made it "a discussion

— Simone de Beauvoir

As long as the family and the myth of the family ... have not been destroyed, women will still be oppressed.

— Simone de Beauvoir

This is certainly a very tricky point: How to ally yourself to other leftist forces without losing your feminist specificity.

— Simone de Beauvoir

“...modern woman is everywhere permitted to regard her body as capital for exploitation.”

— Simone de Beauvoir

“It is difficult for men to measure the enormous extent of social discrimination that seems insignificant form the outside and whose moral…

— Simone de Beauvoir

Let women be provided with living strength of their own. Let them have the means to attack the world and wrest from…

— Simone de Beauvoir

Feminism is a revolutionary movement which is different from the class struggle movement, the proletarian movement, but which is a movement which…

— Simone de Beauvoir

it is not the inferiority of women that has caused their historical insignificance; it is rather their historical insignificance that has doomed…

— Simone de Beauvoir

If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline also to explain her through "the eternal…

— Simone de Beauvoir

The women of today are in a fair way to dethrone the myth of femininity; they are beginning to affirm their independence…

— Simone de Beauvoir

To refuse everything, to say, even when there is something which really should be done, "Ah, that's no longer feminist," is a…

— Simone de Beauvoir

But women do not say 'We', except at some congress of feminists or similar formal demonstration; men say 'women', and women use…

— Simone de Beauvoir

I think that feminism permits women to speak among themselves, instead of simply being resentful, having personal complaints, which get them nowhere…

— Simone de Beauvoir

“How could van Gogh have been born woman? A woman would not have been sent on mission to Boringe, she would not…

— Simone de Beauvoir

“Woman has ovaries and a uterus; such are the particular conditions that lock her in her subjectivity; some even say she thinks…

— Simone de Beauvoir

“Misogynists have often reproached intellectual women for 'letting themselves go'; but they also preach to them: if you want to be our…

— Simone de Beauvoir

“The validity of the cook's work is to be found only in the mouths of those at her table; she needs their…

— Simone de Beauvoir

“Even when her rights are recognized abstractly, long-standing habit keeps them from being concretely manifested in customs. Economically, men and women almost…

— Simone de Beauvoir

In 1949, I believed that social progress, the triumph of the proletariat, socialism would lead to the emancipation of women. But I…

— Simone de Beauvoir

Most feminists in France came to feminism after '68 as a result of the hypocrisy they experienced in leftist movements. In these…

— Simone de Beauvoir

“The proletariat could plan to massacre the whole ruling class; a fanatic Jew or black could dream of seizing the secret of…

— Simone de Beauvoir

“The fact is that men encounter more complicity in their woman companions than the oppressor usually finds in the oppressed; and in…

— Simone de Beauvoir

One is not born a woman, one becomes one.

— Simone De Beauvoir

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.

— Simone de Beauvoir

The American woman's inequality with men is proved by her defiant attitude.

— Simone de Beauvoir

The most sympathetic of men never fully comprehend woman's concrete situation.

— Simone de Beauvoir

“The facts of religion were convincing only to those who were already convinced.”

— Simone de Beauvoir

I discovered feminism around 1970-72-precisely the time when feminism began to exist in France. Before that, there was no feminism.

— Simone de Beauvoir