Contents
French existentialist philosopher and feminist writer
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, novelist, and social theorist whose 1949 treatise The Second Sex laid the intellectual foundation for second-wave feminism.13 She was the youngest person to pass the agrégation in philosophy at the time, finishing second in the 1929 exam at age 21 — the first-place finisher that year was Jean-Paul Sartre, who had failed the exam on his first attempt the year before.12
Beauvoir was born on January 9, 1908, in Paris to Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, a legal secretary who had aspired to be an actor, and Françoise Brasseur, a devout Catholic.13 Her father's law practice declined after World War I, and the family lost most of its wealth — an experience Beauvoir later credited with pushing her toward intellectual independence rather than a conventional bourgeois marriage.1 She was educated at the Catholic Institut Adeline Désir and studied mathematics at the Institut Catholique before turning to philosophy at the Sorbonne.1
At the Sorbonne she prepared for the agrégation alongside Sartre, Paul Nizan, and René Maheu (who gave her the lifelong nickname "Castor," the French word for beaver, punning on her surname).1 She and Sartre began a romantic and intellectual partnership in 1929 that lasted until his death in 1980, though both maintained other relationships — an arrangement they called "essential love" versus "contingent loves."14
Beauvoir's philosophical work centers on the relationship between freedom, situation, and oppression.25 In The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), she argued that human existence is fundamentally ambiguous — each person is simultaneously a free subject and an object constrained by circumstance — and that genuine freedom requires acknowledging this condition rather than fleeing into bad faith.25 She rejected the idea that ethics could be derived from abstract principles alone, insisting that moral action must engage with the concrete situations in which people find themselves.5
Her philosophical method drew on phenomenology and existentialism but diverged from Sartre on key points.2 Where Sartre's early work in Being and Nothingness (1943) treated freedom as absolute and individual, Beauvoir argued that freedom is always situated within social structures and that one person's freedom depends on the freedom of others.25 This insight — that oppression is not merely a personal failure of will but a structural condition — became the backbone of The Second Sex.2
Published in two volumes in June 1949, The Second Sex sold 22,000 copies in its first week in France.1 The Vatican placed it on the Index of Forbidden Books.1 The book's central argument is captured in its most quoted line: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" — meaning that femininity is not a biological destiny but a social construction imposed through upbringing, culture, and economic dependence.12
The first volume, "Facts and Myths," surveys biology, psychoanalysis, and historical materialism to show how each discipline has been used to justify women's subordination.12 The second volume, "Lived Experience," traces a woman's life from childhood through old age, analyzing how social institutions — marriage, motherhood, sexuality, education — shape women into the "Other," a secondary being defined only in relation to men.23
The first English translation by Howard Parshley, published in 1953, cut roughly 15 percent of the original text and introduced philosophical errors — translating Beauvoir's Hegelian and existentialist terminology inconsistently.12 A new, unabridged English translation by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier was published in 2009.1
Beauvoir's debut novel, She Came to Stay (1943), fictionalized the triangular relationship between herself, Sartre, and Olga Kosakiewicz, exploring themes of jealousy, consciousness, and the confrontation with another's freedom.13 The Blood of Others (1945) dealt with French Resistance ethics and individual responsibility during the German occupation.1
The Mandarins (1954) won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize.13 The novel follows left-wing intellectuals in postwar Paris navigating Cold War politics, personal betrayals, and the question of whether political engagement demands compromising one's principles.1 Characters in the novel were widely interpreted as portraits of Sartre, Albert Camus, and Nelson Algren, with whom Beauvoir had a transatlantic affair from 1947 to 1964.14
Her four-volume autobiography — Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958), The Prime of Life (1960), Force of Circumstance (1963), and All Said and Done (1972) — documented her intellectual development and political commitments across five decades.1
Beauvoir signed the Manifesto of the 121 in 1960, a declaration by French intellectuals supporting the right to insubordination during the Algerian War, which made her a target of right-wing violence — a bomb was placed at her apartment.13 In 1971, she signed the Manifesto of the 343, in which 343 French women publicly declared they had undergone illegal abortions, helping catalyze the movement that led to the legalization of abortion in France in 1975.14
She served as president of the feminist league Choisir and of the Commission for the Rights of Women.1 In 1973, she wrote the preface to the first issue of Les Temps modernes devoted entirely to feminism, and in the late 1970s she hosted a feminist column on French television.1
In The Coming of Age (1970), Beauvoir applied the analytical framework of The Second Sex to aging, arguing that society treats the elderly much as it treats women — as "Other," stripped of subjectivity and warehoused out of public life.13 After Sartre's death in 1980, she published Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre (1981), which included transcripts of conversations from the last decade of his life and a frank account of his physical and mental decline.1
Beauvoir died on April 14, 1986, in Paris and was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery alongside Sartre.1 Her adopted daughter, Sylvie Le Bon-de Beauvoir, became her literary executor and has since published collections of her letters and unpublished manuscripts.1
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, novelist, and social theorist whose 1949 treatise The Second Sex laid the intellectual foundation for second-wave feminism.13 She was the youngest person to pass the agrégation in philosophy at the time, finishing second in the 1929 exam at age 21 — the first-place finisher that year was Jean-Paul Sartre, who had failed the exam on his first attempt the year before.12
Beauvoir was born on January 9, 1908, in Paris to Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, a legal secretary who had aspired to be an actor, and Françoise Brasseur, a devout Catholic.13 Her father's law practice declined after World War I, and the family lost most of its wealth — an experience Beauvoir later credited with pushing her toward intellectual independence rather than a conventional bourgeois marriage.1 She was educated at the Catholic Institut Adeline Désir and studied mathematics at the Institut Catholique before turning to philosophy at the Sorbonne.1
At the Sorbonne she prepared for the agrégation alongside Sartre, Paul Nizan, and René Maheu (who gave her the lifelong nickname "Castor," the French word for beaver, punning on her surname).1 She and Sartre began a romantic and intellectual partnership in 1929 that lasted until his death in 1980, though both maintained other relationships — an arrangement they called "essential love" versus "contingent loves."14
Beauvoir's philosophical work centers on the relationship between freedom, situation, and oppression.25 In The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), she argued that human existence is fundamentally ambiguous — each person is simultaneously a free subject and an object constrained by circumstance — and that genuine freedom requires acknowledging this condition rather than fleeing into bad faith.25 She rejected the idea that ethics could be derived from abstract principles alone, insisting that moral action must engage with the concrete situations in which people find themselves.5
Her philosophical method drew on phenomenology and existentialism but diverged from Sartre on key points.2 Where Sartre's early work in Being and Nothingness (1943) treated freedom as absolute and individual, Beauvoir argued that freedom is always situated within social structures and that one person's freedom depends on the freedom of others.25 This insight — that oppression is not merely a personal failure of will but a structural condition — became the backbone of The Second Sex.2
Published in two volumes in June 1949, The Second Sex sold 22,000 copies in its first week in France.1 The Vatican placed it on the Index of Forbidden Books.1 The book's central argument is captured in its most quoted line: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" — meaning that femininity is not a biological destiny but a social construction imposed through upbringing, culture, and economic dependence.12
The first volume, "Facts and Myths," surveys biology, psychoanalysis, and historical materialism to show how each discipline has been used to justify women's subordination.12 The second volume, "Lived Experience," traces a woman's life from childhood through old age, analyzing how social institutions — marriage, motherhood, sexuality, education — shape women into the "Other," a secondary being defined only in relation to men.23
The first English translation by Howard Parshley, published in 1953, cut roughly 15 percent of the original text and introduced philosophical errors — translating Beauvoir's Hegelian and existentialist terminology inconsistently.12 A new, unabridged English translation by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier was published in 2009.1
Beauvoir's debut novel, She Came to Stay (1943), fictionalized the triangular relationship between herself, Sartre, and Olga Kosakiewicz, exploring themes of jealousy, consciousness, and the confrontation with another's freedom.13 The Blood of Others (1945) dealt with French Resistance ethics and individual responsibility during the German occupation.1
The Mandarins (1954) won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize.13 The novel follows left-wing intellectuals in postwar Paris navigating Cold War politics, personal betrayals, and the question of whether political engagement demands compromising one's principles.1 Characters in the novel were widely interpreted as portraits of Sartre, Albert Camus, and Nelson Algren, with whom Beauvoir had a transatlantic affair from 1947 to 1964.14
Her four-volume autobiography — Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958), The Prime of Life (1960), Force of Circumstance (1963), and All Said and Done (1972) — documented her intellectual development and political commitments across five decades.1
Beauvoir signed the Manifesto of the 121 in 1960, a declaration by French intellectuals supporting the right to insubordination during the Algerian War, which made her a target of right-wing violence — a bomb was placed at her apartment.13 In 1971, she signed the Manifesto of the 343, in which 343 French women publicly declared they had undergone illegal abortions, helping catalyze the movement that led to the legalization of abortion in France in 1975.14
She served as president of the feminist league Choisir and of the Commission for the Rights of Women.1 In 1973, she wrote the preface to the first issue of Les Temps modernes devoted entirely to feminism, and in the late 1970s she hosted a feminist column on French television.1
In The Coming of Age (1970), Beauvoir applied the analytical framework of The Second Sex to aging, arguing that society treats the elderly much as it treats women — as "Other," stripped of subjectivity and warehoused out of public life.13 After Sartre's death in 1980, she published Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre (1981), which included transcripts of conversations from the last decade of his life and a frank account of his physical and mental decline.1
Beauvoir died on April 14, 1986, in Paris and was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery alongside Sartre.1 Her adopted daughter, Sylvie Le Bon-de Beauvoir, became her literary executor and has since published collections of her letters and unpublished manuscripts.1
