Simone de Beauvoir's 1949 philosophical analysis of women's condition — arguing that 'one is not born a woman, but becomes one' — that femininity is a social construction imposed by patriarchal culture — the foundational text of second-wave feminism.
Created the philosophical foundation of second-wave feminism — The Second Sex's existentialist analysis of how woman is constituted as 'Other' by a masculine subject, and how women internalize their own oppression through the categories of femininity, provided the theoretical framework for the women's liberation movement.
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