Feminist Writings

Simone de Beauvoir

Mar 2015 · Beauvoir Series Book 1 · University of Illinois Press

About this eBook

The philosopher's writings on, and engagement with, twentieth century feminism

By turns surprising and revelatory, this sixth volume in the Beauvoir Series presents newly discovered writings and lectures while providing new translations and contexts for Simone de Beauvoir's more familiar writings. Spanning Beauvoir's career from the 1940s through 1986, the pieces explain the paradoxes in her political and feminist stances, including her famous 1972 announcement of a "conversion to feminism" after decades of activism on behalf of women.

Feminist Writings documents and contextualizes Beauvoir's thinking, writing, public statements, and activities in the services of causes like French divorce law reform and the rights of women in the Iranian Revolution. In addition, the volume provides new insights into Beauvoir's complex thinking and illuminates her historic role in linking the movements for sexual freedom, sexual equality, homosexual rights, and women's rights in France.

About the author

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) was a French existentialist philosopher who employed a literary-philosophical method in her works, including Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) and The Second Sex (1949). Margaret A. Simons is Distinguished Research Professor Emerita at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the author of Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism. Marybeth Timmermann is a contributing translator and editor of Beauvoir's Philosophical Writings and "The Useless Mouths" and Other Literary Writings. Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, adopted daughter and literary executor of Simone de Beauvoir, is the editor of Lettres à Sartre and many other works by Beauvoir.