Simone de Beauvoir was a French philosopher, author, and feminist. She was born in Paris in 1908 and spent most of her life there. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and became involved with Jean-Paul Sartre. Her 1949 book The Second Sex established her as a founder of feminist existentialism and challenged patriarchal views of women. It analyzed how women are socially constructed as "other" and subordinate to men. Though initially controversial, it came to be seen as a seminal text of second-wave feminism. De Beauvoir argued that women should strive for equality and have the freedom to define themselves rather than be defined by others.