(1908-1986)
French socialist, feminist, and writer who played a large role in French intellectual life from the 1940s to the 1980s. Her book Le Deuxičme sexe/The Second Sex 1949, one of the first major feminist texts, is an encyclopedic study of the role of women in society, drawing on literature, myth and history.
In The Second Sex, she argues that the subservient position of women is the result of their systematic repression by a male-dominated society that denies their independence, identity and sexuality. She also published novels, including Les Mandarins/The Mandarins 1954, and many autobiographical volumes. She was a lifelong companion of the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
De Beauvoir taught philosophy at the University of Paris 1931–43.
Women, she claimed, must take responsibility for their own lives. The themes of choice and identity are explored in her novels, such as L’Invitée/She Came to Stay 1943, and also appear in her extended autobiography. This gives a frank and vivid account not only of one woman’s life from birth to old age, but also of intellectual life in the 20th century. The sequence includes Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée/Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter 1954, La Force de l’âge/The Prime of Life 1960, The Force of Circumstance 1963, and All Said and Done 1972. Adieux gives an intimate insight into her relationship with Sartre, and Old Age 1970 attacks society’s indifference to the old.