Simone de Beauvoir
Pre-reading
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was a French writer and social activist, and one of the most influential feminist theorists of the 20th century. Beauvoir got a degree in philosophy in 1929 from the école Normale Superiéure and the Sorbonne, where she met Jean-Paul Sartre to begin a free, lifelong association with him. Beauvoir and Sartre remained in Paris during World WarⅡ, and were active in the resistance movement against the German occupation. During these years they refined the principles of Existentialism. After the war Beauvoir became a committed writer, her writings including the novel The Mandarins (Les Mandarins 1954) which received the Prix Goncourt, a prestigious French literary award. She collaborated with Sartre on the political and literary journal Les temps modernes(Modern Times) and traveled with him throughout Europe, Asia and America. Beauvoir is known primarily for her treatise The Second Sex (Le deuxième sexe 1949), a scholarly and passionate plea for the abolition of what she called the myth of the “eternal feminine”. It became a classic of feminist literature during the 1960s, and the existential analysis of the situation of women was extremely influential in the formation of feminist theory. In these writings she revealed herself as a woman of formidable courage and integrity: the basic options of an individual made on the premises of an equal vocation for man and woman founded on a common structure of their being, independent of their sexuality. For this and many others, she has often been referred to as “Grand-mother” of 20th century feminism.
Prompts for Your Reading
1.After reading the first two paragraphs, make a prediction for the possible conclusion the author might come to in the following paragraphs.
2.How would you comment on the author’s tone or attitude toward the questions she raised in the opening paragraphs?
3.In answering the question of “what is a woman?”, the author cites long-standing concept as from men, women themselves, great thinkers or scholars and even the Bible. Locate these concepts and find the critical remarks of the author.