Simone de Beauvoir she was a writer, philosopher, intellectual, activist and teacher. A member of the French existentialist movement, Beauvoir was considered one of the greatest theorists of modern feminism.
One of her most famous phrases is:
“Nobody is born a woman: they become a woman”.
Owner of a restless and revolutionary spirit for her time, Beauvoir rejected models, hierarchies and values. According to her:
“No biological, psychic, economic fate defines the form that the human female takes within society; it is the whole of civilization that elaborates this intermediate product between the male and the castrated, which they call female.”
Biography of Simone de Beauvoir
Simone Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was born in Paris, France, on January 9, 1908.
In her childhood and youth she attended a Catholic college and later studied mathematics at the Catholic Institute in Paris. Even though she was raised in a Catholic family, Simone opted for atheism. According to her:
“It was easier for me to imagine a world without a creator than a creator loaded with all the contradictions of the world.”
She was also a philosophy student at the Sorbonne University. There she met Jean Paul-Sartre, intellectual partner and with whom she had an open relationship all her life (about 50 years).
Jean Paul-Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in Israel (1967)
That is, both were not adept at monogamy and therefore had other sexual partners throughout their lives. So none of them got married or had children.
Simone taught at several schools in the 30s and 40s. With the Nazi occupation of France, Beauvoir fled the country, returning at the end of the war.
Attending philosophical meetings, in 1945, she, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Raymnond Aron founded the magazine “the modern times” (Les Temps Modernes). With monthly periodicity, this vehicle was very important for propagating her ideas.
His passion for books was notorious from his youth. She has written several works of which one of the greatest classics of the feminist movement stands out “the second sex”, published in 1949.
A victim of pneumonia, Simone died at the age of 78 on April 14, 1986 in her hometown. She was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, alongside her companion Jean-Paul Sartre.
Understand more about the Feminism it's the Feminism in Brazil.
Main works by Simone de Beauvoir
Simone has produced several works related to philosophy, politics and sociology. She wrote novels, novels, plays, essays and autobiographies:
- The Guest (1943)
- The Blood of Others (1945)
- The Second Sex (1949)
- The Mandarins (1954)
- Memoirs of a Well-Behaved Girl (1958)
- A Gentle Death (1964)
- The Disillusioned Woman (1967)
- Old Age (1970)
- All Said and Done (1972)
- The Farewell Ceremony (1981)
Simone de Beauvoir's thoughts
Undoubtedly, her great contribution was in the field of studies on feminism and in the struggle for gender equality. Allied to this, Beauvoir was a supporter of the existentialist theory, where freedom is the main feature.
In her work "the second sex” Simone addresses the role of women in society and female oppression in a male-dominated world. The book was considered aggressive and blacklisted at the Vatican.
In the existentialist novel "the Mandarins” Simone portrays the post-war French society where political, moral and intellectual issues are discussed by the author. With this work, Beauvoir received the Goncourt Prize.
From her autobiographies, the work “Memories of a well-behaved girl” where Simone presents real accounts of her life with a focus on the dogmas of the church and the behavior of her bourgeois family. In this work, we can also note Beauvoir's feminism.
One of her most controversial ideas is related to marriage and motherhood. For her, marriage is a problematic and bankrupt institution of modern society.
And motherhood is a kind of slavery, where the woman abdicates her life having the obligation to marry, procreate and take care of the house. Therefore, for Simone the woman must have autonomy. In the author's words:
“Marriage is the destination traditionally offered to women by society. It is also true that most of them are married, or have been, or plan to be, or suffer from not being.”
“It is not the people who are responsible for the failure of the marriage, it is the institution itself that is perverted from the outset..”
“Humanity is masculine and man defines woman not in himself, but in relation to him: she is not considered an autonomous being.”
Full of controversial ideas, Beauvoir has conquered many admirers and, on the other hand, people who abhor her ideas.
The big question is that it played a preponderant role in twentieth-century feminist ideologies. His studies were based on political, philosophical, historical and psychological theories.
See too: Virginia Woolf.
Phrases by Simone de Beauvoir
- “Sometimes the word represents a more skillful way of being silent than silence.”
- “It is through work that women have been reducing the distance that separated them from men, only work can guarantee them concrete independence.”
- “Man is defined as a human being and woman is defined as a female. When she behaves like a human being she is accused of imitating the male.”
- “Humanity is masculine and man defines woman not in himself but in relation to him; she is not considered an autonomous being.”
- “Between those that sell for prostitution and those that sell for marriage, the only difference is the price and duration of the contract.”
- “Let nothing define us. Let nothing subject us. May freedom be our very substance.”
Fell in Enem!
(ENEM-2015) Nobody is born a woman: she becomes a woman. No biological, psychic, economic fate defines the form that the human female takes within society; it is the whole of civilization that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the castrated that qualify the female.
BEAUVOIR, S. the second sex. Rio de Janeiro: New Frontier, 1980.
In the 1960s, Simone de Beauvoir's proposition contributed to structuring a social movement that had the (a)
a) action by the Judiciary to criminalize sexual violence.
b) pressure from the Legislative Power to prevent double working hours.|
c) organizing public protests to ensure gender equality.
d) opposition from religious groups to prevent same-sex marriages.
e) establishment of government policies to promote affirmative action.
Alternative c: organizing public protests to ensure gender equality.
See too:
- The most important philosophers in history
- Brazilian philosophers you need to meet
