Simone de Beauvoir

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

“The body of woman is a mysterious body, troubled, secretive, threatening, to be dominated, violated, possessed.”

“The word 'feminist' itself is repugnant to many women; they associate it with unfeminine and masculine women.”

“The woman who yields and surrenders can receive nothing; she cannot share in a conquest that she has not helped to make.”

“The woman who yields and surrenders can obtain nothing; it is up to her to demand.”

“Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is cleaned, over and over, day after day.”

“To catch a husband is an art; not a woman's looking-glass but her mirror.”

“The word 'freedom' is often misused; it is not a natural state, but a conquest that must be fought for and defended.”

“To catch up with man, woman has to reject her femininity, to conform to a type of humanity that is alien to her.”

“The body of woman is a mysterious body, troubled, secretive; it does not belong to her, it is the instrument of her enslavement.”