‘WOMAN BY CHOICE:’ A COMMENT ON SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR’S FAMOUS PHRASE ‘ONE IS NOT BORN A WOMAN, BUT BECOMES ONE’
‘WOMAN BY CHOICE:’ A COMMENT ON SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR’S FAMOUS PHRASE ‘ONE IS NOT BORN A WOMAN, BUT BECOMES ONE’

Summary/Abstract: This paper will ‘represent’ the term of choice, not only as a vehicle of the woman’s path towards knowledge, but also as a tool to justify her existence in the pragmatic and non-pragmatic (non-realistic) world. From a feminist perspective what is perhaps the most famous line of The Second Sex, “One is not born but becomes one” (The Second Sex, 267), introduces what has come to be called the sexgender distinction. Her presence from younger age and through a certain series of events that stigmatize her future, often give serious grounds for philosophical, psychological and sociological observation of her inner self in this struggle among a manly-made society. This article aims to expose the image of the modern woman behind the veil of her own existential tragedy, via examples taken from art and society, so as to compose the figure of her without prejudice. In addition, I will try to ‘tear out of the picture’ the stylized image of a modern woman, with the less enthusiasm of the common observer who suddenly sees something, which was previously unseen. Born to be a woman by choice is a contract every woman should make to herself and towards the life she chooses to follow, in order to physically and emotionally struggle to change and to realize the scope of her dreams. Let us not forget that behind every woman’s dreams lie the fundamental human issues that touch upon identity, body, beauty, sexuality, race and the longing to be accepted.

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