"One is not #born, but rather becomes, a #woman. No #biological, #psychological, or #economic destiny defines the figure that the #human#female acquires in #society; it is #civilization as a whole that develops this product, intermediate between female and #eunuch, which one calls #feminine. Only the mediation of another can establish an #individual as an #Other. In so far as he exists for himself, the #child would not be able to understand himself as sexually differentiated. In #girls as in #boys the #body is first of all the radiation of a #subjectivity, the instrument that accomplishes the comprehension of the world: it is through the eyes, the hands, and not through the sexual parts that children apprehend the universe."
—Simone de #Beauvoir, philosopher and social theorist, in The Second Sex (1949)
Just my favorite Second Wave feminist, shattering the entire concept of the gender binary and "biological womanhood" in one masterful swoop.