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- Born January 9, 1908 in 6th arrondissement of Paris, Died April 14, 1986 in Paris
- Studied mathematics, literature & languages, and philosophy at Institut Catholique de Paris, Institut Sainte-Marie, and Sorbonne. She completed her philosophy degree in 1928.

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After reading some of The Second Sex, I think that Simone De Beauvoir was absolutely on the right track in terms of how feminism and womanhood has evolved up to today. She writes such in-depth accounts of what “being a woman” was like, from the perspective of a woman herself in the late twentieth century, as well as women through the lens of other writers, male and female, and societal expectations or requirements for women in her lifetime. She speaks to the idea that women, while biologically different from men, are equally as complex, intelligent, creative, and capable. I think that today, we have come even further within that thought, so far as to throw so many traditional gender roles directed towards women completely aside and shift the goal towards equality not despite gender differences, but equality without even the concept of gender playing a role at all.

De Beauvoir focuses exclusively on cisgender women (specifically cisgender white women), and I think that intersectionality is important when considering feminism today. Not all women have the same experiences, goals, thoughts, opinions, etc. I would like to think that if De Beauvoir were still alive today, she would agree with this statement, and she would adapt some of her theories to account for diversity within womanhood.

De Beauvoir’s existentialist perspective may play a part in this reduced lens of women, because in order to apply a person’s background or external challenges or obstacles does not exactly align with existentialism.

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existentialism in the context of gender separation

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Between 1931 and 1943, De Beauvoir taught at a number of schools before she became fully immersed in and supported by her writing.

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How does Simone De Beauvoir's version of feminism compare to other philosophers or activists today? Her feminism is not intersectional; it focuses mainly on the white, European woman and her relationship to white men. How would her philosophies apply to Black women or transgender women? Additionally, De Beauvoir is famously an existentialist. How does existentialism play a role in feminism, specifically white feminism versus intersectional feminism? Can existentialism truly account for individuals in a way that acknowledges unique experience, perspective, society, or personhood?

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"Simone De Beauvoir theorizes that the subjugation of women was deliberately executed by men throughout history in order to retain monopoly over economic and personal power."

-Stephen West

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-The Second Sex/Le Deuxieme Sexe (collection of essays)
-She Came to Stay, 1943 (debut novel)
-The Blood of Others, 1945 (novel)
-The Woman Destroyed, 1967 (a collection of three novellas)
-The Ethics of Ambiguity, 1947 (non-fiction essay)
-Aideux: A Farewell to Sartre (1981, autobiography/biography on Sartre's final decade)
She also has a handful of posthumous works, made up of diary entries that were discovered after her death in 1986

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Simone De Beauvoir theorized that historically, women had been categorized and separated from men (and by men, intentionally) as "the other", and that this defined their lives and how they moved through the world as human beings.  By falling into this category of "the other", they are able to be objectified by not only men, but also by society as a whole and even themselves. The objectification of women upholds a patriarchal society in which independence or autonomy of women is absent, and men are able to remain in control of what women look like, how they behave, and how they integrate with other people and lead their lives.
However, Simone De Beauvoir believed that even within a patriarchal society, each individual person has within themselves an innate freedom, regardless of gender. She believed that despite being objectified, alienated, or "othered", everyone, including women, had the potential and ability to obtain and practice free will.

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De Beauvoir wrote dozens of works including autobiographies, essays (some hundreds upon hundreds of pages long), and novels. Undoubtedly her most influential and well-known piece is Le Deuxieme Sexe, or The Second Sex, which was originally published in French in 1949, translated from French to English for the first time in 1953, and then again in 2009 by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier in its most complete, unabridged version to date.

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"My studies gave me only a very superficial knowledge of philosophy but sharpened my interest in it. I benefited greatly from being a teacher- that is, from being able to spend a great deal of time reading, writing and educating myself."

-Simone De Beauvoir, interviewed by The Paris Review

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"One is not born, but rather, becomes woman."

-The Second Sex

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Simone De Beauvoir was a prominent existentialist philosopher, feminist, writer, and political activist. Over the course of her lifetime, she not only formed and published several of her own philosophical ideas, but paved the way for how feminism would evolve over the course of nearly a century. De Beauvoir was openly bisexual and never married, though she had a long-term, open, and fairly public relationship with another French philosopher and writer, Jean-Paul Sartre.