Beauvoir, Simone de

The French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir was born and grew up as the oldest daughter of a noble Catholic family in Paris. Her family's economic situation, however, was bad, which limited their lifestyle in social and cultural respects. In particular her father was interested in art and theatre. Her Catholic mother and right-wing sympathetic father disagreed ideologically. According to Beauvoir, this disagreement contributed to her decision to become an intellectual, in order to be able to develop her own lines of thought.