The French philosopher, activist, novelist and memoirist Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) was an icon of twentieth-century left-wing intellectualism and the grande dame of European feminist thought. This article provides an overview of her most celebrated work, The Second Sex (Le Deuxième Sexe) (1949). It is designed to get you thinking about worthwhile and relevant ways in which this landmark in criticism — best seen as an ideas network about gender, power and patriarchy rather than a toolkit for practical literary criticism — might enhance your contextual understanding of the mid- to late-twentieth-century cultural landscape.
Perhaps the ultimate irony when reviewing Beauvoir’s achievements is the impossibility of discussing these without referring to the man with whom she shared her life for more than half a century, and of whom she declared herself a ‘disciple’. Her enduring partnership with the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) profoundly shaped her life and work from the moment they met in Paris as brilliant young students. When Beauvoir became only the eighth woman, and the youngest person ever at the age of just 21, to pass the agrégation postgraduate examination, she was ranked second only to Sartre. As she established herself as a hugely influential intellectual powerhouse, her personal life became the subject of much debate.
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