For me, beyond the pleasure of reading, ( because SB knows how to describe and make the atmosphere ) - it was an instructional book. Especially because it sets out clearly enough the development of a woman's consciousness in an oppressive bourgeois environment, and the ways in which this woman learns to avoid conflicts and to live under pressures that she did not recognize as such. The Second Sex, first published in 1949 in French as Le Deuxième Sexe, turns the existentialist mantra that existence precedes essence into a feminist one: "One is not born but becomes a woman" (French: "On ne naît pas femme, on le devient"). [67] With this famous phrase, Beauvoir first articulated what has come to be known as the sex-gender distinction, that is, the distinction between biological sex and the social and historical construction of gender and its attendant stereotypes. [68] Beauvoir argues that "the fundamental source of women's oppression is its [femininity's] historical and social construction as the quintessential" Other. [69] Beauvoir published her first novel She Came to Stay in 1943. [80] It has been assumed that it is inspired by her and Sartre's sexual relationship with Olga Kosakiewicz and Wanda Kosakiewicz. Olga was one of her students in the Rouen secondary school where Beauvoir taught during the early 1930s. She grew fond of Olga. Sartre tried to pursue Olga but she rejected him, so he began a relationship with her sister Wanda. Upon his death, Sartre was still supporting Wanda. He also supported Olga for years, until she met and married Jacques-Laurent Bost, a lover of Beauvoir. However, the main thrust of the novel is philosophical, a scene in which to situate Beauvoir's abiding philosophical pre-occupation – the relationship between the self and the other. [ citation needed] Freely, Maureen (6 June 1999). "Still the second sex". The Guardian. UK. Archived from the original on 13 April 2019 . Retrieved 6 January 2019. Beauvoir, Simone de | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy". www.iep.utm.edu . Retrieved 3 January 2018.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir: Bianca, leur jouet sexuel"[Sartre, Beauvoir: Bianca, their sexual toy]. Gala (in French). 14 July 2023 . Retrieved 1 August 2023. Butler 1990, p.112 'One is not born a woman.' Monique Wittig echoed that phrase in an article by the same name, published in Feminist Issues (1:1). Since this book covers mostly her childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, it focuses a lot on her family, her childhood friend Zaza, her love of books, her studies... and her crushes! The very lucid way she remembers the pangs of puberty, the strange and mysterious agonies of trying to understand oneself and others as you grow up were fascinating and moving.Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-01-07 22:03:31 Boxid IA40017021 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier After Sartre died in 1980, Beauvoir published his letters to her with edits to spare the feelings of people in their circle who were still living. After Beauvoir's death, Sartre's adopted daughter and literary heir Arlette Elkaïm would not let many of Sartre's letters be published in unedited form. Most of Sartre's letters available today have Beauvoir's edits, which include a few omissions but mostly the use of pseudonyms. Beauvoir's adopted daughter and literary heir Sylvie Le Bon, unlike Elkaïm, published Beauvoir's unedited letters to both Sartre and Algren. Soon, however, Simone develops feelings for Jacques. She loves him, but at the same time is aware that the two are incompatible. She explains that Jacques enjoys life’s luxuries and is easily contented. Simone, on the other hand, is goal-driven, never happy unless she has a challenge to overcome. More importantly, while Jacques is non-traditional, he is happy to conform to society’s values and expectations. Simone refuses to do so.

a b Mussett, Shannon. Simone de Beauvoir Biography on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 11 April 2010. Only in 2009 was there a second translation, to mark the 60th anniversary of the original publication. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier produced the first integral translation in 2010, reinstating a third of the original work. [76] What happens when you learn to see the conflicts between what you are, what you believe, and what is around you, and these become unbearable ? Beauvoir pursued post-secondary education after completing her high school years at Cours Desir [ fr]. [21] After passing baccalaureate exams in mathematics and philosophy at the age of seventeen in 1925, she studied mathematics at the Institut Catholique de Paris and literature/languages at the Institut Sainte-Marie [ fr]. She then studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and after completing her degree in 1928, wrote her Diplôme d'Études Supérieures Spécialisées [ fr] (roughly equivalent to an M.A. thesis) on Leibniz for Léon Brunschvicg (the topic was "Le concept chez Leibniz" ["The Concept in Leibniz"]). [22] Her studies of political philosophy through university influenced her to start thinking of societal concerns. [ citation needed] Religious upbringing [ edit ] Beauvoir asserted that women are as capable of choice as men, and thus can choose to elevate themselves, moving beyond the " immanence" to which they were previously resigned and reaching " transcendence", a position in which one takes responsibility for oneself and the world, where one chooses one's freedom. [72]How some autobiographies I have read recently seem bland and empty to me now, in the face of this one! Simone de Beauvoir jumps on each evocation of her childhood to dissect it, explain it, and draw from it the substance of what will build her over the years. Margaret A. Simons (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Simone de Beauvoir, Penn State Press, 1 November 2010, p. 3. Beauvoir was raised in a Catholic household. In her youth, she was sent to convent schools. She was deeply religious as a child, at one point intending to become a nun. At age 14, Beauvoir questioned her faith as she saw many changes in the world after witnessing tragedies throughout her life. [23] Consequently, she abandoned her faith in her early teens and remained an atheist for the rest of her life. [24] To explain her atheist beliefs, Beauvoir stated, "Faith allows an evasion of those difficulties which the atheist confronts honestly. And to crown all, the believer derives a sense of great superiority from this very cowardice itself." [25] Middle years [ edit ] Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir at the Balzac Memorial Paris: sur les traces de Simone de Beauvoir"[Paris: On the trail of Simone de Beauvoir]. en-vols.com (in French). 22 November 2022 . Retrieved 31 July 2023. Bergoffen, Debra (2015). Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.

I felt also that she was engaging with Freud, perhaps not surprising given his intellectual influence during the period of her adult life. She is careful to point out that she was happy being a girl and saw nothing superior about boys (although physically her upbringing was constrained, no swimming, no gymnastics, to the point that when she begins dancing lessons she feels clumsy and awkward, as she is also flushed with certain physical reactions to dancing in couples she gives up dancing lessons fear of or disquiet at the intensity of ones own physical or emotional reactions is also something of a theme, not just for Simone either by more broadly within her milieux, this was a culture which aimed to set people against themselves, and which sadly to some extent was successful ) and that she wasn't envious of them and indeed as a student rather liked male company in different ways. At the same time there was a psychological awareness, particularly here in her discussion of her father, of how his self regard meant he cold never fully share in de Beauvoir's academic success and likely career as a Lycée teacher, as the necessity of her having to earn a living and get a job with a secured pension was due to his failure to be a real man and provide a fat dowry for his daughter so she could be married off. A certain tension in their relationship developed as she passes exams and collects diplomas.

And there was one question she just couldn't figure out, "how can a women fall in love with a man, whom she may have only known briefly, and replace Papa who had been loved for her whole life"?. Sartre and Beauvoir always read each other's work. Debate continues about the extent to which they influenced each other in their existentialist works, such as Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Beauvoir's She Came to Stay and "Phenomenology and Intent". [35] However, recent studies of Beauvoir's work focus on influences other than Sartre, including Hegel and Leibniz. [7] The Neo-Hegelian revival led by Alexandre Kojève and Jean Hyppolite in the 1930s inspired a whole generation of French thinkers, including Sartre, to discover Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. [36] [37] However, Beauvoir, reading Hegel in German during the war, produced an original critique of his dialectic of consciousness. This panoramic novel, winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt, takes us into the heart of the left bank during what has now become its mythical post-war epoch. Camus and Sartre appear, loosely veiled, as do their political conflicts. De Beauvoir's heroine is a psychoanalyst and her own passionate affair with the American novelist, Nelson Algren, is key both to the action and to her understanding of the choices women can make. 3. She Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir

La scrittura di questa donna magnifica è qualcosa di straordinario. Mi ci perdo. Mi lascio trasportare, me ne innamoro e poi mi accorgo di avrer letto pagine su pagine in un soffio. Légifrance - Publications officielles - Journal officiel - JORF n° 0155 du 03/07/1945 (accès protégé)"[Official publications - Official gazette (secure access)] (in French) . Retrieved 29 July 2023. Willms, Janice (18 December 1997). "A Very Easy Death". NYU Langone Health . Retrieved 23 April 2019. a b c d Fallaize, Elizabeth (2007) [1st pub. 1998]. Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge. p.9. ISBN 978-0-415-14703-3. OCLC 600674472.Moorehead, Caroline (2 June 1974). "A talk with Simone de Beauvoir". The New York Times . Retrieved 30 August 2023.