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Beauvoir's The Second Sex

1949 · Paris (Paris, France)

In 1949 Simone de Beauvoir publishes The Second Sex: one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. Beauvoir turns existentialism's method, the self made in situation, on the situation of women, and produces the founding text of modern feminism. The book's two volumes are the Paris decade's most consequential application of its philosophy.

Tagged: Existentialism

The Event

Date
1949 (exact)
Era
The Paris Decade; Standard periodization of existentialist history
Location
Paris; today Paris, France
Traditions
Existentialism
Streams
Existentialism
Key figures
Simone de Beauvoir
Key texts
The Second Sex

Connections

Illustration for Sartre's Being and Nothingness History Event Sartre's Being and Nothingness 1943 turns the philosophy of the Other on the situation of women

Primary Sources

  • Beauvoir, Simone de. Le Deuxième Sexe. Paris: Gallimard, 1949.

Secondary Sources

  • Gordon, Lewis R. Fanon and the Crisis of European Man. New York: Routledge, 1995.
  • Kaufmann, Walter, ed. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: Meridian, 1956.
  • Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford University Press, second edition, 2005.

Provenance: HIST-1432; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.

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