de Beauvoir, Simone (1908-1986)

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris, France, on January 9, 1908. De Beauvoir was educated at the Cours Désir, a private Catholic school; the Institut Sainte-Marie, a well-respected women's school to prepare her for her university entrance exams; and the prestigious Sorbonne where she studied philosophy. She excelled in her studies starting as a young girl and continued to excel during her days at the Sorbonne by accelerating through her program of study, achieving high marks, and passing her [Page 188]examinations with the highest honors. Through a natural intellect and thirst for knowledge, she became one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century and a central participant of the French Existentialist movement, along with Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

At the Sorbonne, she first met Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, developing life-long, intellectual friendships with them both, as well as a romantic relationship with Sartre. Her relationship with Sartre is noted to be one of much complexity, partly because they were intellectual equals. In fact, Sartre finished first in the program of philosophy, and de Beauvoir finished second. Some believe that de Beauvoir would have finished first had she been a man, rather than a woman. Her complex relationship with Sartre and her ideas about her so-called egalitarian relationships with him and other intellectual men, prompted her to write about these experiences.

De Beauvoir wrote many books, including The Coming of Age, published in 1970; A Very Easy Death, published in 1964; and All Men Are Mortal, published in 1946, among many others. Perhaps one of her best-known works, particularly among feminists, is Le Deuxième Sexe or The Second Sex, published in France in 1949. In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir took an existentialist approach to defining and describing the plight of women. Based on her own experiences of being an intellectual equal among Sartre and other great men, she questioned her role within this circle. Further, in researching women's roles in history, she found that they were notably absent. Through the writing of The Second Sex, she began to formulate the ideas that women were seen as not being equal to men. She formulated the concept of the woman as Other; man is the norm, the primary reference, whereas woman is abnormal, secondary to man. Thus, women are seen only as in relation to men, rather than as autonomous beings, while being subjugated into secondary, inferior roles.

The significance of de Beauvoir's concept of woman as Other contributed to women challenging their positions within a patriarchal society, and she spearheaded the creation of feminist studies and feminist movements around the world. Through her writings and participation in feminist causes, de Beauvoir was unquestionably one of the major contributors to the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

De Beauvoir died April 14, 1986, at the age of 78, leaving behind a legacy and reputation as a great philosopher and as a major contributor to feminist studies and movements.