The Simone de Beauvoir Prize is an international human rights prize for women's freedom, awarded to individuals or groups fighting for gender equality and opposing breaches of human rights. It is named after the French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir.
The prize is awarded every year to a remarkable personality whose courage and thoughts are examples for everybody, in the spirit of Simone de Beauvoir who wrote: "The ultimate end, for which human beings should aim, is liberty, the only capable [thing], to establish every end on."
The prize was founded on January 9, 2008, the 100th anniversary of de Beauvoir's birth. It is funded by Éditions Gallimard and CulturesFrance.
The current prize committee is composed of approximately 20 internationally known figures, including several writers, sociologists, philosophers, journalists and politicians. Famous philosopher Julia Kristeva is the founder and head of the Simone de Beauvoir prize committee.