Simone de Beauvoir and Femininity

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) argued (in The Second Sex) that one is not born a woman, but rather becomes one. In other words, femininity is the result of a social construction – and therefore masculinity is as well. What is interesting is that all societies, absolutely all of them, though in very different forms and degrees, build behavioural differences upon biological difference, differences that do not inevitably arise from the diversity of genital organs.