Simone de Beauvoir (born 9 January 1908; died 14 April 1986), philosopher, feminist, novelist, autobiographer, social critic and French intellectual, remains a writer who escapes easy classification. Objectification, as a woman or as a writer, was something she always resisted. Widely revered in the feminist movement for having re-defined our understanding of women's oppression in Le Deuxième Sexe [The Second Sex] (1947), and setting a new agenda for second-wave feminism in the 1970's onwards, she did not initially identify with feminism. The Second Sex was undertaken as a philosophical exploration of what it meant to be a woman, not as a feminist polemic. Apart from the shocked reception to The Second Sex, Beauvoir also became notorious for her manipulation of personal relations and her sexual and intellectual exploitation of young acolytes. Her fifty year partnership...
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Citation: Gordon, Felicia. "Simone de Beauvoir". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 February 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=318, accessed 15 December 2025.]
