The Second Sex Quotes

“If so few female geniuses are found in history, it is because society denies them any means of expression.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“: woman is an eminently poetic reality since man projects onto her everything he is not resolved to be.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“The feminine body is expected to be flesh, but discreetly so;”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“; the man who does not "understand" a woman is happy to replace his subjective deficiency with an objective resistance; instead of admitting his ignorance, he recognizes the presence of a mystery exterior to himself: here is an excuse that flatters his laziness and vanity at the same time.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“Forced motherhood results in bringing miserable children into the world, children whose parents cannot feed them, who become victims of public assistance or "martyr children." It must be pointed out that the same society so determined to defend the rights of the fetus shows no interest in children after they are born; instead of trying to reform this scandalous institution called public assistance, society prosecutes abortionists; those responsible for delivering orphans to torturers are left free; society closes its eyes to the horrible tyranny practiced in "reform schools" or in the private homes of child abusers; and while it refuses to accept that the fetus belongs to the mother carrying it, it nevertheless agrees that the child is his parents' thing.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“It must be added that the men who most respect embryonic life are the same ones who do not hesitate to send adults to death in war.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“The little girl feels that her body is escaping her, that it is no longer the clear expression of her individuality: it becomes foreign to her; and at the same moment she is grasped by others as a thing: on the street, eyes follow her, her body is subject to comments; she would like to become invisible; she is afraid of becoming flesh and afraid to show her flesh.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“As Merleau Ponty very justly puts it, man is not a natural species: he's a historical idea. Woman is not a completed reality, but rather a becoming, and it is in her becoming that she should be compared with man; that is to say, her possibilities should be defined. What gives rise to much of the debate is the tendency to reduce her to what she has been, to what she is today, in raising the question of her capabilities; for the fact is that capabilities are clearly manifested only when they are realized - but the fact is also that when we have to do with a being whose nature is transcendent action, we can never close the books.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“The relation of woman to husband, of of daughter to father, of sister to brother, is a relation of vassalage.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“she gives birth in pain, she heals males' wounds, she nurses the newborn and buries the dead; of man she knows all that offends his pride and humiliates his will. While inclining before him and submitting flesh to spirit, she remains on the carnal borders of the spirit; and she contests the sharpness of hard masculine architecture by softening the angles; she introduces free luxury and unforeseen grace.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“But the answer is obvious: it is easy to believe one is sovereign when alone, to believe oneself strong when carefully refusing to bear any burden.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“There is no such thing as maternal "instinct": the word does not in any case apply to the human species. The mother's attitude is defined by her total situation and by the way she accepts it.”
― Simone de Beauvoir

“Primitive people alienate themselves in their mana, their totem; civilized people in their individual souls, their egos, their names, their possessions, and their work: here is the first temptation of inauthenticity.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“From man's point of view adopted by both male and female psychoanalysts - behavior of alienation is considered feminine, and behavior where the subject posits his transcendence is considered masculine. Donaldson, a historian of woman, observed that the definitions "the man is a male human being, the woman is a female human being" were asymmetrically mutilated; psychoanalysts in particular define man as a human being and woman as a female: every time she acts like a human being, the woman is said to be imitating the male.”
― Simone de Beauvoir

“Taking without being taken in the anguish of becoming prey is the dangerous game of adolescent feminine sexuality.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“The relation of woman to husband, of daughter to father, of sister to brother, is a relation of vassalage.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex