The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.
Simone de Beauvoir - Man - Woman - Esteem

Woman is opaque in her very being; she stands before man not as a subject but as an object paradoxically endued with subjectivity; she takes herself simultaneously as self and as other, a contradiction that entails baffling consequences.
Simone de Beauvoir - Man - Woman - Self - Esteem - Contradiction

All oppression creates a state of war.
Simone de Beauvoir - Oppression - War

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.
Simone de Beauvoir - Man - Woman

To be a woman, if not a defect, is at least a peculiarity.
Simone de Beauvoir - Woman - Negative

A man would never set out to write a book on the peculiar situation of the human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say: 'I am a human woman'.
Simone de Beauvoir - Man - Woman - Self - Writing - Books

See also Simone de Beauvoir Biography