Her Sovereignty

“One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others.”
~ Simone de Beauvoir

"Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men." - Joseph Conrad

"“Men are the default setting and women are considered a recessive gender,”
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
“Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female — whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”
“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.”
“All agree in recognising the fact that females exist in the human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity.”
“If it came to be that each man did what he must, existence would be saved in each one without there being any need of dreaming of a paradise where all would be reconciled in death.”
“All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception. The existent who is regarded as inessential cannot fail to demand the re-establishment of her sovereignty.”

~ "Simone de Beauvoir (1908 – 1986) was a French author and existentialist philosopher. She is now most famous for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex [Le Deuxième Sexe], a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism, and her long personal relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre."