One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.

One is not born a woman, one becomes one.

On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.

“One is not born but rather becomes a woman,” goes Simone de Beauvoir’s famous dictum. I obviously was not born but became black when I went to England. Similarly, of course, I was not born but became a woman of color when I went to America.

She is a woman now, and not an idle girl, not a domestic ornament or a sexual convenience anymore.

I have always wondered what it truly means to be woman. Not ‘a woman’ but ‘woman’. You don’t choose to be born female, you literally wake up one day and realise that you are. Often times it is because growing up especially in Nigeria, there is a constant reminder of what you should do, how you should act, what you should think simply because you are not male. Little wonder that a lot of young girls grow up not knowing who they truly are because they have been moulded into these beings that have never really discovered their true essence or worth because culture and society have provided all the answers.

Being a woman is a fate Sabina did not choose. What we have not chosen we cannot consider either to our merit or our failure. Sabina believed that she had to assume to correct attitude to her unchosen faith. To rebel against being born a woman seemed as foolish to her as taking pride in it.

Woman is not a fixed reality but a becoming; she has to be compared with man in her becoming; that is, her possibilities have to be defined: what skews the issues so much is that she is being reduced to what she was, to what she is today, while the question concerns her capacities; the fact is that her capacities manifest themselves clearly only when they have been realized: but the fact is also that when one considers a being who is transcendence and surpassing, it is never possible to close the books.

A woman is a female. That's it. And if you are born male there is no way to become female. It's simply not biologically possible. [...] And beyond that, why would a male ever NEED to 'become female'? I mean, by all means, be yourself, dress how you like, express yourself as you wish, in ways that make you feel good and authentic. Push back against gender stereotypes. But why that would demand one is literally the opposite sex, I do not know. 'Woman' is not simply a set of stereotypes, an outfit, a feeling. There is nothing wrong with being male or being a male who rejects masculinity. But it is ridiculous to say that if you reject gender stereotypes you are literally no longer male.

This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

When a woman evolves, she gives permission to her community to do the same.

Whether you become a daughter, sister, lover, partner, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, mother, or anything else with complete honesty, the satisfaction you'll find in becoming yourself cannot be found in becoming any of these relative beings

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

لا تولد المرأة امرأة، ولكنها تسعى لتصير امرأة