“She came to stay”

‘I want to be a famous writer’, she thought she dreamed, she uttered.

She was only fifteen years old.

Despite being raised by a strict, bourgeois family, in a world ruled by men, where men made all the important decisions; at the age of fifteen she was already strong and defiantly poised about her place in this world.

“When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair. That convinced me that culture was the highest of values”

She was determined to make a difference.

She was Simone de Beauvoir.

As a young woman in a society, which considered women to be an “abnormality”, striving to be “normal” and equal to men, she thought that the only way to make a difference was to radically change the way women perceived their own existence and place in this world.

 

She lived her life in an unconventional way.

She refused to marry the love of her life, Jean-Paul Sartre, or even live with him because she thought that every human being had to be free.

“I am too intelligent, too demanding , too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely.”

They loved each other until they both died and influenced one another’s lives, work, and philosophical beliefs.

“The Second Sex”, considered one of the most important works of feminism, caused multiple waves of protests with critics characterizing it “pornography” and the Vatican placing the book on the church’s list of forbidden texts (Index Librorum Prohibitorum).

Simone became the symbol of every strong and intelligent woman, who wanted -but could not- study, work, create art, vote, or rule the world.

Simone became the symbol for equity, a symbol for all human beings who are oppressed, who want to -but cannot- freely experience their sexual identity and not be condemned because of it, in so many ways.

Simone was unique in her existential rebellion.

Simone came to stay.

 

Margaret Chala