“One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.”
More from Simone de Beauvoir on Gender
“One is not born a woman - one becomes one.”
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
“If so few female geniuses are found in history, it is because society denies them any means of expression.”
“: woman is an eminently poetic reality since man projects onto her everything he is not resolved to be.”
“Girls are weighed down by restrictions, boys with demands - two equally harmful disciplines.”
Others on Gender
Susan B. Anthony
4 quotes“I have encountered riotous mobs and have been hung in effigy, but my motto is: Men's rights are nothing more. Women's ri...”
Gloria Steinem
3 quotes“A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.”
Alice Walker
1 quote“All her young life she has tried to please her father, never quite realizing that, as a girl, she never could.”
Erica Jong
1 quote“Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.”
Golda Meir
1 quote“Whether women are better than men I cannot say - but I can say they are certainly no worse.”
H. L. Mencken
1 quote“Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.”
Heinrich Heine
1 quote“Woman is at once apple and serpent.”
Joseph Addison
1 quote“As vivacity is the gift of women gravity is that of men.”
Joseph Conrad
1 quote“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.”
Julian Barnes
1 quote“Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.”
William Butler
1 quote“To be born woman is to know - although they do not speak of it at school - women must labor to be beautiful.”
Margaret Thatcher
1 quote“It may be the cock that crows but it is the hen that lays the eggs.”