Overview
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French existentialist philosopher and novelist whose The Second Sex (1949) transformed feminist theory. A Normalienne, she partnered intellectually with Sartre while building an independent oeuvre on ethics, aging, and politics. She wrote fiction, memoirs, and travel reports alongside philosophy. Handbook dates: 1908–1986. She became twentieth-century feminism’s philosophical landmark.
Main ideas
One is not born, but becomes, a woman—gender as historical situation, not fixed essence. Woman has been cast as man’s Other; liberation requires economic and existential autonomy. Ambiguity of freedom and facticity grounds an ethics beyond abstract purity. Oppression mystifies immanence as destiny. Aging and death disclose social myths of usefulness. Literature and philosophy jointly analyze lived experience (le vécu).
Major works
- The Second Sex
- The Ethics of Ambiguity
- The Coming of Age
- Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
Legacy
Beauvoir founded modern feminist philosophy’s existential wing and inspired second-wave activism. Debates continue on her relation to Sartre and to later gender theory. The Second Sex remains a global classic.
Themes in this archive
Freedom (3) · Self (1) · Nature (1) · Otherness (1) · Justice (1) · Relation (1) · Existence (1)