Beauvoir’s The Second Sex applied existentialist method to the history of patriarchy

Evidence

Perhaps the starting point had been a modest idea in need of masculine encouragement, but Beauvoir soon developed the project into something revolutionary in every sense: her book overturned accepted ideas about the nature of human existence, and encouraged its readers to overturn their own existences. It was also a confident experiment in what we might call ‘applied existentialism’. Beauvoir used philosophy to tackle two huge subjects: the history of humanity — which she reinterpreted as a history of patriarchy — and the history of an individual woman’s whole life as it plays itself out from birth to old age. The two stories are interdependent, but occupy two separate parts of the book. To flesh them out, Beauvoir combined elements of her own experience with stories gathered from other women she knew, and with extensive studies in history, sociology, biology and psychology. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 666

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies what ‘applied existentialism’ means as a method distinct from abstract theorizing — a useful orientation concept for a reader new to the movement.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s separate thread on sacrifice and ritual — Beauvoir reframing all of human history as patriarchy parallels other history-as-single-structure reinterpretations. — connects to: The Second Sex transformed women’s lives as an unrecognized existentialist work — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 68; Beauvoir grounded existential freedom within gendered historical situations — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 684; Beauvoir’s transcendence and immanence derive from gendered biology, not Sartrean metaphysics — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 600 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Beauvoir grounded existential freedom within gendered historical situations #expands (0.92) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 684
• Beauvoir repurposes the Hegelian dialectic to analyze women’s historic oppression #corroborates (0.90) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 262
• Existentialist subject-Other opposition provided the framework for feminist analysis #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 13
• Beauvoir’s concept of transcendence evolves from Sartre’s metaphysics toward an active Hegelian sense #expands (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 591
• Beauvoir’s transcendence and immanence derive from gendered biology, not Sartrean metaphysics #qualifies (0.78) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 600
• Beauvoir innovated by pairing Hegel’s immanence with transcendence only in The Second Sex #qualifies (0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 594