Howard Parshley’s flawed translation obscured The Second Sex’s philosophical status

Evidence

Beauvoir should label Th e Second Sex an “essay” and add that “this is not philosophy” must be striking to anyone who has read the original French text. It is unfortunately highly probable that the fl awed, not to say “fraudulent,” translation by the zoologist Howard Parshley would not lead a reader to think that he was reading a philosophical treatise. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 56

Categorization

• QUESTION: What exactly did Parshley cut or mistranslate to make it read as non-philosophical? Worth chasing the Simons and Moi sources cited.
• ADDENDUM: Relates to the translator’s distortions of a text — parallels the ‘Grafting & Growth’ piece’s theme of infrastructure shaping what gets transmitted, and more directly the immigrant-translation themes in The Namesake.
• XREF: connects to: The Second Sex’s English translation distorted its existentialist philosophy — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 686; Parshley’s 1953 translation reversed Beauvoir’s meaning on several core existentialist terms — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 42; French backlash against The Second Sex hindered its acceptance as philosophy — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 56 (+1 more)