Like John Stuart Mill, the eminent French feminist Simone de Beauvoir is against the oppression of women; she objects to the prevalent belief that women are inferior by nature. This unfair belief resulted in the subordination of women, and hence man, was regarded as the One and woman the Other; man is ' 'the Subject, he is the absolute_ she is the other ' ' (De Beauvoir 1956, 16). De Beauvoir argues that sometimes the majority oppress the minority such as the Negroes in America but women are not a minority to be oppressed; ' 'there are as many women as men on earth ' ' (1956, 17). De Beauvoir remarks that the Negroes of Haiti managed to change their status through demonstrations but women did not. She maintains:

[If] woman seems to be the inessential which never becomes the essential, it is because she herself fails to bring about this change [...] the women 's effort have never been anything more than a symbolic agitation. They have gained only what men have been willing to grant; they have taken nothing, they have only received. (1956, 18)

Subsequently, De Beauvoir believes that women should resist the oppression of men. Without resistance, they will not gain equal rights as men; moreover, they will remain deprived of their humanity.

The French feminist Luce Irigaray follows the steps of Simone De Beauvoir in her efforts to improve the status of women. In her book, This Sex