Editing Simone Weil (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Simone Weil 14.jpg|thumb|150px| Weil with her father]]

[[File:Simone Weil 1922.jpg|thumb|upright|Weil at age 13, during a family holiday to Belgium.]]

Weil was born in her parents' apartment in Paris on 3 February 1909, the daughter of Bernard Weil (1872–1955), a medical doctor from an [[agnostic]] [[History of the Jews in Alsace|Alsatian Jewish]] background, who moved to Paris after the [[Franco-Prussian War|German]] annexation of [[Alsace–Lorraine]] and  Salomea "Selma" Reinherz (1879–1965), who was born into a Jewish family in [[Rostov-on-Don]] and raised in [[Belgium]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pbNwXrQPs7kC|title = Simone Weil: Portrait of a Self-exiled Jew|isbn = 0-8078-1999-9|last1 = Nevin|first1 = Thomas R.|year = 1991| publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press }}</ref> According to [[Osmo Pekonen]], "the family name Weil came to be when many [[Levi (surname)|Levi]]s in the Napoleonic era changed their names this way, by anagram."<ref name=":2">Pekonen, O. ''Chez les Weil. André and Simone'' by Sylvie Weil and ''At home with André and Simone Weil'', translated from the French by Benjamin Ivry. ''[[Math Intelligencer]]'' *34, *76–78 (2012)</ref> Weil was a healthy baby for her first six months, but then suffered a severe attack of [[appendicitis]]; thereafter, she struggled with poor health throughout her life. Weil's parents were fairly affluent and raised their children in an attentive and supportive atmosphere.<ref name="Pétrement 1988">Simone Pétrement (1988)</ref>{{rp|pp=4&ndash;7}} She was the younger of her parents' two children. Her brother was mathematician [[André Weil]] (1906–1998), with whom she would always enjoy a close relationship.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|date=2 August 2019|title=The Weil Conjectures by Karen Olsson review – maths and mysticism|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/02/weil-conjectures-maths-pursuit-of-unknown-karen-olsson-review|access-date=11 March 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref>

Weil was distressed by her father having to leave home for several years after being drafted to serve in the [[First World War]]. [[Eva Fogelman]], [[Robert Coles (psychiatrist)|Robert Coles]] and several other scholars believe that this experience may have contributed to the exceptionally strong [[altruism]] which Weil displayed throughout her life.<ref name=":5">According to Fogelman, Cole and others, various studies have found that a common formative experience for marked altruists is to suffer a hurtful loss and then to receive strong support from loving carers.</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/153791/friday-film-simone-weil-s-mission-of-empathy/|title= Friday Film: Simone Weil's Mission of Empathy|newspaper=[[The Jewish Daily Forward]] |author= [[Eva Fogelman]]|date= 23 March 2012|access-date= 6 September 2012|archive-date= 9 July 2013|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130709081920/http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/153791/friday-film-simone-weil-s-mission-of-empathy/}}</ref><ref name="Coles">{{cite book|author=[[Robert Coles (psychiatrist)|Robert Coles]] |title= Simone Weil: A Modern Pilgrimage (Skylight Lives)|year=2001|isbn=1-893361-34-9|publisher = SkyLight Paths}}</ref> For example, a young Weil sent her share of sugar and chocolate to soldiers fighting at the front.<ref name="Zaretsky">{{Cite book |last=Zaretsky |first=Robert |title=The subversive Simone Weil: a life in five ideas |date=2021 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-54933-0 |location=Chicago}}</ref>{{rp|pp=4&ndash;7}} When Weil was 10 she joined striking workers chanting [[The Internationale|L'Internationale]] marching on the street below her apartment.{{r|Zaretsky|pp=4&ndash;7}} When visiting a resort with her family and learning of the wages of the workers she encouraged the workers to unionize.{{r|Zaretsky|pp=4&ndash;7}}

From her childhood home, Weil acquired an obsession with cleanliness; in her later life she would sometimes speak of her "disgustingness" and think that others would see her this way, even though in her youth she had been considered highly attractive.<ref name=":6">According to Pétrement (1988), p. 14, family friends would refer to Simone and André as "the genius and the beauty".</ref> Weil was generally highly affectionate, but she almost always avoided any form of physical contact, even with female friends.<ref name="Pétrement 1988" />{{rp|pp=4&ndash;7, 194}}

Weil's mother stated that her daughter much preferred boys to girls and that she always did her best to teach her daughter what she believed were masculine virtues.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bourgault |first=Sophie |date=2014 |title=Beyond the Saint and the Red Virgin: Simone Weil as Feminist Theorist of Care |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/fro.2014.a552623 |journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=1–27 |doi=10.1353/fro.2014.a552623 |issn=1536-0334}}</ref> According to her friend and biographer, Simone Pétrement, Weil decided early in life that she would need to adopt masculine qualities and sacrifice opportunities for love affairs in order to fully pursue her vocation to improve social conditions for the disadvantaged. From her late teenage years, Weil would generally disguise her "fragile beauty" by adopting a masculine appearance, hardly ever using makeup and often wearing men's clothes.<ref name="Hellman">{{cite book|author=John Hellman|title=Simone Weil: An Introduction to Her Thought|publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University Press|year=1983|isbn=0-88920-121-8|pages=1–23}}</ref><ref name="Pétrement 1988" />{{rp|pp=27&ndash;29}} Both Weil's parents referred to her as "our son number two", at the request of Weil and in letters to her parents while a student, she used the masculine form of French participles and signed her name the masculine "Simon".<ref name=thurman>{{Cite magazine |last=Thurman |first=Judith |date=2024-09-02 |title=The Supreme Contradictions of Simone Weil |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/09/09/simone-weil-a-life-in-letters-robert-chenavier-andre-a-devaux-book-review |access-date=2024-09-20 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>