Portrait of the day: Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir, well-known for her phrase, One is not born but becomes a woman”, was one of the women who inspired the second wave of feminism. She was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist. She was born on January 9, 1908. After passing baccalaureate exams in mathematics and philosophy in 1925, she studied mathematics at the Institut Catholique de Paris and literature/languages at the Institut Sainte-Marie. She studied for the aggregation, the jury for the aggregation narrowly awarded Jean-Paul Sartre first place instead of Beauvoir, who placed second and, at age 21, was the youngest person ever to pass the exam. At the end of World War II, Beauvoir edited Les Temps Modernes (Modern Times), a political journal. Beauvoir remained an editor until her death. She died on April 14, 1986.