Simone de Beauvoir

Felicia Gordon (University of Cambridge)
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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…

2304 words

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 19 March 2024.]

318 Simone de Beauvoir 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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