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.
Simone de BeauvoirHegel 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.
Simone de BeauvoirIf you try consciously to be avant-garde, it's a little dangerous, like the present state of modern painting, where dealers try to be avant-garde, and under this pretext, painters take some old scraps and call it avant-garde.
Simone de BeauvoirOne can not start by saying that our earthly destiny has or has not importance, for it depends upon us to give it importance.
Simone de Beauvoir