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Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.

Simone de Beauvoir, interview with Alice Schwarzer, 1972

Philosophy

The story behind the card

Beauvoir said this in 1972, in the first of a decade of interviews with the German feminist journalist Alice Schwarzer, later collected in English as After the Second Sex (1984). She was describing the new, radical women's movement: as in May 1968, when student protests and strikes shook France, its watchword was to change your life today rather than wait for a better future. So the line is a movement's rallying cry rather than a personal motto. Beauvoir had joined its campaigns, signing the 1971 declaration by 343 women that they had had abortions.

Türkçe oku
Hayatını bugün değiştir. Geleceğe bel bağlama; şimdi, hiç geciktirmeden harekete geç.
Simone de Beauvoir, Alice Schwarzer'le söyleşi, 1972

Beauvoir bu sözleri 1972'de, Alman feminist gazeteci Alice Schwarzer'le on yıl sürecek söyleşilerinin ilkinde söyledi; söyleşiler 1984'te İngilizce After the Second Sex adıyla kitaplaştı. Yeni ve radikal kadın hareketini anlatıyordu: Öğrenci eylemleri ve grevlerle Fransa'yı sarsan Mayıs 1968'de olduğu gibi, hareketin parolası daha iyi bir geleceği beklemek yerine hayatı bugün değiştirmekti. Yani söz kişisel bir öğüt değil, bir hareketin çağrısıdır. Beauvoir de bu harekete katılmış, 1971'de kürtaj yaptırdığını açıklayan 343 kadının bildirisini imzalamıştı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Simone de Beauvoir
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