Quote of the day by French philosopher and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir: ‘Man is defined as a human being and woman…’

Long before contemporary debates about gender, identity, and equality entered everyday conversation, one philosopher dissected how society quietly teaches women to see themselves as secondary. Her words challenged not only laws and customs, but the very language and assumptions people used to define what it meant to be “human.”

Who was Simone de Beauvoir?

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French philosopher, novelist, and social theorist, widely regarded as one of the foundational voices of modern feminism and existentialism. A lifelong intellectual partner of Jean-Paul Sartre, Beauvoir carved her own path through rigorous philosophical writing and bold social critique.


Her landmark book, The Second Sex (1949), transformed how the world understood gender. The book’s famous assertion, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”, challenged essentialist views of gender and laid the intellectual foundation for modern feminist theory.

Her novels such as She Came to Stay and The Mandarins (which won France’s Prix Goncourt), along with multi-volume memoirs, documented the moral and political turbulence of her era.

The Quote

“Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”

Meaning of the quote

Beauvoir exposes a subtle but powerful bias embedded in social thinking.

She points out that “human” is often unconsciously equated with male, while female is treated as a deviation from that norm. In such a framework, when a woman displays traits considered universally human, assertiveness, intelligence, ambition, independence, she is accused of copying men rather than simply expressing her humanity.

The quote challenges the assumption that male experience defines the standard for all people. Beauvoir urges readers to recognize how language and culture shape perceptions, often limiting women not through explicit rules but through inherited ideas about what is “natural.”

Her insight remains strikingly relevant: equality is not only about rights, but also about redefining who gets to be seen as fully human.

More notable quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

• “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
• “Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”
• "All oppression creates a state of war; this is no exception."
• “In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man.”
• “I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.”