The internet website allaboutphilosophy.org informs me that existentialism is a philosophy centered upon the analysis of existence and the way humans find themselves existing in the world. The notion is that humans exist first and then each individual spends a lifetime changing their essence or nature. Put simply, existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility.
Last week in my other subject of English we discussed issues of gender and how society constructs and molds the individual. This and an influential quote from the French writer Simone de Beauvoir is highly relevant to the theme of existentialism. Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her book The Second Sex that, "One is not born a woman, one becomes one." It was her belief in existentialist feminism that the social construction of a woman is paramount to oppression. Beauvoir anticipated that women were moving beyond this constraint and would reach a position where they would take personal responsibilities for their own choices.
This view neatly corresponds with the philosophy of Existentialism. A person is at their best when struggling against their individual nature, with the human free will to discover their self.
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