#Existential Freedom

Rewriting Expectations To Liberate Your Whole Life

Nowhere is this clearer than in gender. In *The Second Sex* (1949), Beauvoir famously writes, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” highlighting how society scripts femininity as passivity and sacrifice. Similarly, masculinity is often drafted as stoicism and dominance. When she urges us to rewrite expectations, she is challenging these gendered scripts in particular. Questioning why a daughter “must” care for everyone or why a son “must not” cry becomes a concrete act of liberation. [...]

Freedom Realized Through the Power of Action

Simone de Beauvoir’s statement that freedom is found in action harks back to existentialist philosophy, which emphasizes human agency and personal responsibility. Rather than viewing freedom as a static condition, existentialists like de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre argue that it is something enacted through the choices we make. Our liberty, therefore, is not simply given; it is created and sustained each moment we decide to act. [...]

Absolute Freedom as Rebellion in an Unfree World – Albert Camus

Camus suggests that simply living authentically and freely, despite oppression, becomes a form of protest or resistance. [...]