General aspects of Simone de Beauvoir life and work

“One is not born but becomes a woman”(The Second Sex, 267) Simone de Beauvoir

The French woman Simone De Beauvoir who played an important role in the development of existentialism and feminism in the 20th century. I will divide the presentation in three parts, the first part will explain a briefly review about some personal aspects of her life, the second part will consider the context of her work in the second wave feminism and finally her role in the existentialism and feminist movement. 1. De Beauvoir was an academic and philosopher woman, she Born on 1908 in Paris, French. She died seventy eight years later, on April, 1986. At the time of her death she was honored as a crucial figure in the struggle for women's rights .De Beauvoir grew up in a respected catholic borgeois family. However she adopted atheism when she was 14. She graduated from the Sorbonne University in 1929 as a philosopher. In this year she met Jean Paul Sartre with who she had an exceptional relationship. The love story last 35 years until the death of Sartre. She always refuse to merried Sarter because she didn’t want to follow the social consciences. They preferred to have a conditional friendship and personal love that help each other to enrich their knowledge. 2. She was a prolific writer her most important philosophical work is “The Ethics of Ambiguity” and her most famous and influential book is “The Second Sex”. It was wrote 1948 between the first and second wave of women movement. Beauvoir is considered the mother of second wave feminism. (Which is the women movement from the early 1960's through the late 1980's) The thought and existential philosophy of Beauvoir was influenced by Marx, Roseau, Descartes, Heidegger, and of course Sartre. 3. Her academic work can be recognized in two areas: philosophy and feminism. Beauvoir's place in philosophy is now gaining attraction however she was not identified as philosophers from the very beginning, gradually she won the right to be admitted into the philosophical world in the fact that we can no longer discuss French existentialism without attending to the works of Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism in the broader sense is a 20th century philosophy that is centered upon the analysis of existence. It is based on the assumption that individuals are free and responsible for their own choices and actions. Beauvoir wrote the book “Ethics of ambiguity” in 1947 were she exposed her existentialism theory rooted in individual freedom. Her existential ethics is reject all moral absolutes. Moreover, she claimed that freedom is the most absolute value and that religion restrings freedom, also she believed that everything that is forbidden is oppression. The Second Sex was a key of understanding women’s subordinate social position It expressed their sense of injustice, focused their demands for social, political, and personal change. The second sex exposed the theory of “subjects and others”. Human male is associated with subject in contrast to the other that represent Human female. This categorization is the result of society logical view but hopefully will change in the future. She establishes: “She is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the subject, he is the absolute, and she is the other.” Beauvoir complete this thought establishing that the other is the submissive, subordinate and dependent. Beauvoir also faces the question what is a women and state “woman is not born, but made. After repeatedly refusing to align herself with the feminist movement, Beauvoir declared herself a feminist in a 1972. Bibliography Bauer, Nancy 2001. “Simone de Beauvoir: philosophy and feminism”. New York: Columbia University Press. Simons, M. A., & Todd, J. (1989). Two Interviews with Simone de Beauvoir. Hypatia, 3(3), 11. Bergoffen, Debra, "Simone de Beauvoir", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . http://atheism.about.com/od/existentialistphilosophers/a/beauvoir.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpN6VXX2oeA