Trying to find footing, this book opened me up to new ideas on how I can move forward as a woman. Left with angst when posed with the statement, "As long as she has to fight to become a human being, she cannot be a creator.” Yet again, I feel I have no ammunition, no armor to defend myself. More than irritated, I hope to go “beyond the pretext” of what is expected of me. And to think I’d have to boost my masculinity to be taken seriously. I am feminine and strong and those qualities are enough.
— Taylor
Description
“Like man, woman is a human being.”
When The Second Sex was first published in Paris in 1949—groundbreaking, risqué, brilliantly written and strikingly modern—it provoked both outrage and inspiration. The Independent Woman contains three key chapters of Beauvoir’s masterwork, which illuminate the feminine condition and identify practical social reforms for gender equality. It captures the essence of the spirited manifesto that switched on light bulbs in the heads of a generation of women and continues to exert profound influence on feminists today.
About the Author
Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. In 1929 she became the youngest person ever to obtain the agrégation in philosophy at the Sorbonne. After the war, she emerged as one of the leaders of the existentialist movement, working with Jean-Paul Sartre on Les Temps Modernes. The Second Sex, first published in 1949, has been translated into forty languages and become a landmark in the history of feminism. Beauvoir was the author of many other books, including the novel The Mandarins,which was awarded the Prix Goncourt. She died in 1986.
