Book Bearings
The Second Sex
- 728 pages · about 12 hours
- First published 1949
- 90 editions
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1 About this book
The Second Sex, published in France in 1949, is Simone de Beauvoir's study of the treatment of women, in her own society and throughout history. It appeared in two volumes. The first, Facts and Myths, asks how woman came to be defined in relation to man, looking at what biology, psychoanalysis and history have said about her and at the myths surrounding her. The second, Lived Experience, follows a woman's life as it was then shaped, from childhood through marriage and motherhood to old age, and turns at the last to independence. It is regarded as a founding work of modern feminist philosophy.
- Philosophy
- Sociology
- Classics
- Economics
- Biology
- Social science
- Women
- Feminism
2 What to expect
A founding work of modern feminism: a long philosophical study of how women have been made the second sex, defined in relation to men. The first half ranges over biology, history and myth; the second follows women's lives from girlhood to old age as Beauvoir observed them in the 1940s. It is dense, learned and argued from existentialist philosophy, dated in some of its facts, and the choice of English translation matters.
Good for readers who want: feminist philosophy, the history of women's condition, and a landmark classic.
3 About Simone de Beauvoir
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
4 More by Simone de Beauvoir
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