When Simone de Beauvoir was a little girl, she was nicknamed «Beaver», after the assonance with the animal. What is interesting is that Simone felt this nickname as part of her personality, due to her desire to change the course of the current and to build a political mindset which could transform the status quo. The book tells us about Simone’s childhood, when – «brave as a beaver» – she decides to challenge her mother’s (and society’s) rules for the first time, by asking for a bicycle. She didn’t get one, but that was just going to be the first of many times – first as a child, then as a woman - she refused to comply with society’s gender norms and block the river’s flow by building an alternative path. Just like beavers do.