The Second Sex

Simone de Beauvoir’s landmark 1949 book of feminist existentialist philosophy, examining the historical and cultural construction of woman as the “Other” relative to man. The claims treat it as a text with identifiable philosophical arguments (Hegelian framework, ethical/political orientation) that had significant reception effects.

Claims that use this term

• Sartre’s writer-reader reciprocity mirrors Beauvoir’s happy couple in The Second Sex.
• Beauvoir later judged her Hegelian framework in The Second Sex too idealistic.
• The 1943-49 period saw Beauvoir publish Ethics of Ambiguity and The Second Sex
• French backlash against The Second Sex hindered its acceptance as philosophy
• The Second Sex is fundamentally ethical and political, not epistemological
• Beauvoir’s transcendence concept is largely non-Sartrean, especially in The Second Sex