Simone de Beauvoir was born in 1908 into a bourgeois Parisian family. Her father was a traditionalist who once ruefully said, “Simone thinks like a man!” – noticing her fierce intellect. Beauvoir was indeed precocious and very independent-minded. After World War I, her family lost much of its wealth, but they still prioritized a good education for Simone. Deeply religious as a child, Beauvoir experienced a loss of faith in adolescence and thereafter declared herself an atheist – but one with a strong sense of ethical drive.

Beauvoir studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, where in 1929 she became the youngest person (and only woman that year) to pass the agrégation in philosophy, coming second in the nation.

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