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“You are not born a woman, you become one. […] The biological need – sexual desire and desire for posterity – which places the male under the dependence of the female has not socially liberated the woman.” – Simone de Beauvoir, Le deuxième Sexe (1949).

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was born in 1908. She was a philosopher who called herself a writer despite her rigorous philosophical training and accomplishments. Lasting contributions to the fields of ethics, social and political philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, and feminist philosophy were made by de Beauvoir.

Within the New Voices network, several members focus on Beauvoir and her philosophical work. Ondine Arnould (University of Strasbourg) works on The Second Sex in relation to 19th- and 20th-century feminist thought and concepts of womanhood. Annabelle Bonnet (EHESS–CNRS, Paris) studies Beauvoir within the socio-history of intellectuals and modern feminist theory and Piergiacomo Severini (Università G. d’Annunzio di Chieti-Pescara) approaches Beauvoir through existentialism and the concept of freedom, in dialogue with Jeanne Hersch and contemporary women philosophers.

Interested? If you would like to connect with the New Voices community and engage in international research and networking on women in the history of philosophy, you can find more information here:
https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/projects/new-voices-on-women-in-the-history-of-philosophy/