The Second Sex

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Second Sex (French: Le Deuxime Sexe) is a 1949 book by

the French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, in which the The Second Sex
author deals with the treatment of women throughout history.
Beauvoir researched and wrote the book in about 14 months
when she was 38 years old.[3][4] She published it in two
volumes, Facts and Myths and Lived Experience (Les faits et les
mythes and L'exprience vcue in French). Some chapters first
appeared in Les Temps modernes.[5][6] One of Beauvoir's best-
known books, The Second Sex is often regarded as a major work
of feminist philosophy and the starting point of second-wave
feminism.[3]

Contents
1 Summary
1.1 Volume One
1.2 Volume Two
2 Reception and influence Cover of vol. 1 of the first edition
3 Cultural repercussions Author Simone de Beauvoir
4 Translations
Original title Le Deuxime Sexe
5 See also
6 Notes Country France
7 References
Language French
8 External links
Subject Feminism
Published 1949
Summary Media type Print
Pages 978 in 2 vols.[1][2]
Volume One

Beauvoir asks "What is woman?"[7] She argues that man is considered the default, while woman is considered the
"Other": "Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not herself but as relative to him." Beauvoir describes
the relationship of ovum to sperm in various creatures (fish, insects, mammals), leading up to the human being.
She describes women's subordination to the species in terms of reproduction, compares the physiology of men and
women, concluding that values cannot be based on physiology and that the facts of biology must be viewed in light
of the ontological, economic, social, and physiological context.[8]

Authors whose views Beauvoir rejects include Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler,[9] and Friedrich Engels. Beauvoir
argues that while Engels, in his The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), maintained that
"the great historical defeat of the female sex" is the result of the invention of bronze and the emergence of private
property, his claims are unsupported.[10]
According to Beauvoir, two factors explain the evolution of women's condition: participation in production and
freedom from reproductive slavery.[11] Beauvoir writes that motherhood left woman "riveted to her body" like an
animal and made it possible for men to dominate her and Nature.[12] She describes man's gradual domination of
women, starting with the statue of a female Great Goddess found in Susa, and eventually the opinion of ancient
Greeks like Pythagoras who wrote, "There is a good principle that created order, light and man and a bad principle
that created chaos, darkness and woman." Men succeed in the world by transcendence, but immanence is the lot of
women.[13] Beauvoir writes that men oppress women when they seek to perpetuate the family and keep patrimony
intact. She compares women's situation in ancient Greece with Rome. In Greece, with exceptions like Sparta where
there were no restraints on women's freedom, women were treated almost like slaves. In Rome because men were
still the masters, women enjoyed more rights but, still discriminated against on the basis of their gender, had only
empty freedom.[14]

Discussing Christianity, Beauvoir argues that, with the exception of the German tradition, it and its clergy have
served to subordinate women.[15] She also describes prostitution and the changes in dynamics brought about by
courtly love that occurred about the twelfth century.[16] Beauvoir describes from the early fifteenth century "great
Italian ladies and courtesans" and singles out the Spaniard Teresa of vila as successfully raising "herself as high
as a man."[17] Through the nineteenth century women's legal status remained unchanged but individuals (like
Marguerite de Navarre) excelled by writing and acting. Some men helped women's status through their works.[18]
Beauvoir finds fault with the Napoleonic Code, criticizes Auguste Comte and Honor de Balzac,[19] and describes
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon as an antifeminist.[20] The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century gave women an
escape from their homes but they were paid little for their work.[21] Beauvoir traces the growth of trade unions and
participation by women. She examines the spread of birth control methods and the history of abortion.[22] Beauvoir
relates the history of women's suffrage,[23] and writes that women like Rosa Luxemburg and Marie Curie
"brilliantly demonstrate that it is not women's inferiority that has determined their historical insignificance: it is
their historical insignificance that has doomed them to inferiority".[24]

Beauvoir provides a presentation about the "everlasting disappointment" of women,[25] for the most part from a
male heterosexual's point of view. She covers female menstruation, virginity, and female sexuality including
copulation, marriage, motherhood, and prostitution. To illustrate man's experience of the "horror of feminine
fertility", Beauvoir quotes the British Medical Journal of 1878 in which a member of the British Medical
Association writes, "It is an indisputable fact that meat goes bad when touched by menstruating women."[26] She
quotes poetry by Andr Breton, Lopold Sdar Senghor, Michel Leiris, Paul Verlaine, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul
Valry, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and William Shakespeare along with other novels, philosophers, and
films.[27] Beauvoir writes that sexual division is maintained in homosexuality.[25]

Examining the work of Henry de Montherlant, D. H. Lawrence, Paul Claudel, Andr Breton, and Stendhal,
Beauvoir writes that these "examples show that the great collective myths are reflected in each singular writer".[28]
"Feminine devotion is demanded as a duty by Montherlant and Lawrence; less arrogant, Claudel, Breton, and
Stendhal admire it as a generous choice...."[29] She finds that woman is "the privileged Other", that Other is
defined in the "way the One chooses to posit himself",[30] and writes that, "But the only earthly destiny reserved to
the woman equal, child-woman, soul sister, woman-sex, and female animal is always man."[31] Beauvoir writes
that, "The absence or insignificance of the female element in a body of work is symptomatic... it loses importance
in a period like ours in which each individual's particular problems are of secondary import."[32]
Beauvoir writes that "mystery" is prominent among men's myths about women.[33] She also writes that mystery is
not confined by sex to women but instead by situation, and that it pertains to any slave.[34] She thinks it
disappeared during the eighteenth century when men however briefly considered women to be peers.[35] She
quotes Arthur Rimbaud, who writes that hopefully one day, women can become fully human beings when man
gives her her freedom.[36]

Volume Two

Presenting a child's life beginning with birth,[37] Beauvoir contrasts a girl's upbringing with a boy's, who at age 3
or 4 is told he is a "little man".[38] A girl is taught to be a woman and her "feminine" destiny is imposed on her by
society.[39] She has no innate "maternal instinct".[40] A girl comes to believe in and to worship a male god and to
create imaginary adult lovers.[41] The discovery of sex is a "phenomenon as painful as weaning" and she views it
with disgust.[42] When she discovers that men, not women, are the masters of the world this "imperiously modifies
her consciousness of herself".[43] Beauvoir describes puberty, the beginning of menstruation, and the way girls
imagine sex with a man.[44] She relates several ways that girls in their late teens accept their "femininity", which
may include running away from home, fascination with the disgusting, following nature, or stealing.[45] Beauvoir
describes sexual relations with men, maintaining that the repercussions of the first of these experiences informs a
woman's whole life.[46] Beauvoir describes women's sexual relations with women.[47] She writes that
"homosexuality is no more a deliberate perversion than a fatal curse".[48]

Beauvoir writes that "to ask two spouses bound by practical, social and moral ties to satisfy each other sexually for
their whole lives is pure absurdity".[49] She describes the work of married women, including housecleaning,
writing that it is "holding away death but also refusing life".[50] She thinks, "what makes the lot of the wife-servant
ungratifying is the division of labor that dooms her wholly to the general and inessential".[51] Beauvoir writes that
a woman finds her dignity only in accepting her vassalage which is bed "service" and housework "service".[52] A
woman is weaned away from her family and finds only "disappointment" on the day after her wedding.[53]
Beauvoir points out various inequalities between a wife and husband and finds they pass the time not in love but in
"conjugal love".[54] She thinks that marriage "almost always destroys woman".[55] She quotes Sophia Tolstoy who
wrote in her diary: "you are stuck there forever and there you must sit".[55] Beauvoir thinks marriage is a perverted
institution oppressing both men and women.[56]

In Beauvoir's view, abortions performed legally by doctors would have little risk to the mother.[57] She argues that
the Catholic Church cannot make the claim that the souls of the unborn would not end up in heaven because of
their lack of baptism because that would be contradictory to other Church teachings.[58] She writes that the issue of
abortion is not an issue of morality but of "masculine sadism" toward woman.[58] Beauvoir describes
pregnancy,[59] which is viewed as both a gift and a curse to woman. In this new creation of a new life the woman
loses her self, seeing herself as "no longer anything...[but] a passive instrument".[60] Beauvoir writes that,
"maternal sadomasochism creates guilt feelings for the daughter that will express themselves in sadomasochistic
behavior toward her own children, without end",[61] and makes an appeal for socialist child rearing practices.[62]

Beauvoir describes a woman's clothes, her girlfriends and her relationships with men.[63] She writes that "marriage,
by frustrating women's erotic satisfaction, denies them the freedom and individuality of their feelings, drives them
to adultery".[64] Beauvoir describes prostitutes and their relationships with pimps and with other women,[65] as
well as hetaeras. In contrast to prostitutes, hetaeras can gain recognition as an individual and if successful can aim
higher and be publicly distinguished.[66] Beauvoir writes that women's path to menopause might arouse woman's
homosexual feelings (which Beauvoir thinks are latent in most women). When she agrees to grow old she becomes
elderly with half of her adult life left to live.[67] Woman might choose to live through her children (often her son)
or her grandchildren but she faces "solitude, regret, and ennui".[68] To pass her time she might engage in useless
"women's handiwork", watercolors, music or reading, or she might join charitable organizations.[69] While a few
rare women are committed to a cause and have an end in mind, Beauvoir concludes that "the highest form of
freedom a woman-parasite can have is stoic defiance or skeptical irony".[70]

According to Beauvoir, while a woman knows how to be as active, effective and silent as a man,[71] her situation
keeps her being useful, preparing food, clothes, and lodging.[71] She worries because she does not do anything, she
complains, she cries, and she may threaten suicide. She protests but doesn't escape her lot.[72] She may achieve
happiness in "Harmony" and the "Good" as illustrated by Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield.[73] Beauvoir
thinks it is pointless to try to decide whether woman is superior or inferior, and that it is obvious that the man's
situation is "infinitely preferable".[74] She writes, "for woman there is no other way out than to work for her
liberation".[74]

Beauvoir describes narcissistic women, who might find themselves in a mirror and in the theater,[75] and women in
and outside marriage: "The day when it will be possible for the woman to love in her strength and not in her
weakness, not to escape from herself but to find herself, not out of resignation but to affirm herself, love will
become for her as for man the source of life and not a mortal danger."[76] Beauvoir discusses the lives of several
women, some of whom developed stigmata.[77] Beauvoir writes that these women may develop a relation "with an
unreal" with their double or a god, or they create an "unreal relation with a real being".[78] She also mentions
women with careers who are able to escape sadism and masochism.[79] A few women have successfully reached a
state of equality, and Beauvoir, in a footnote, singles out the example of Clara and Robert Schumann.[80] Beauvoir
says that the goals of wives can be overwhelming: as a wife tries to be elegant, a good housekeeper and a good
mother.[81] Singled out are "actresses, dancers and singers" who may achieve independence.[82] Among writers,
Beauvoir chooses only Emily Bront, Woolf and ("sometimes") Mary Webb (and she mentions Colette and
Mansfield) as among those who have tried to approach nature "in its inhuman freedom". Beauvoir then says that
women don't "challenge the human condition" and that in comparison to the few "greats", woman comes out as
"mediocre" and will continue at that level for quite some time.[83] A woman could not have been Vincent van
Gogh or Franz Kafka. Beauvoir thinks that perhaps, of all women, only Saint Teresa lived her life for herself.[84]
She says it is "high time" woman "be left to take her own chances".[85]

In her conclusion, Beauvoir looks forward to a future when women and men are equals, something the "Soviet
revolution promised" but did not ever deliver.[86] She concludes that, "to carry off this supreme victory, men and
women must, among other things and beyond their natural differentiations, unequivocally affirm their
brotherhood."[87]

Reception and influence

The first French publication of The Second Sex sold around 22,000 copies in a week.[88] It has since been
translated into 19 languages. The Vatican placed the book on its List of Prohibited Books.[3] The sex researcher
Alfred Kinsey was critical of The Second Sex, holding that while it was an interesting literary production, it
contained no original data of interest or importance to science.[89] In 1960, Beauvoir wrote that The Second Sex
was an attempt to explain "why a woman's situation, still, even today, prevents her from exploring the world's basic
problems."[90] The attack on psychoanalysis in The Second Sex helped to inspire subsequent feminist arguments
against psychoanalysis, including those of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963), Kate Millett's Sexual
Politics (1969), and Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch (1970).[91] Millett commented in 1989 that she did not
realize the extent to which she was indebted to Beauvoir when she wrote Sexual Politics.[92]

The philosopher Judith Butler writes that Beauvoir's formulation that "One is not born, but rather becomes, a
woman" distinguishes the terms "sex" and "gender". Borde and Malovany-Chevalier, in their complete English
version, translated this formulation as "One is not born, but rather becomes, woman" because in this context (one
of many different usages of "woman" in the book), the word is used by Beauvoir to mean woman as a construct or
an idea, rather than woman as an individual or one of a group. Butler writes that the book suggests that "gender" is
an aspect of identity which is "gradually acquired". Butler sees The Second Sex as potentially providing a radical
understanding of gender.[93]

The biographer Deirdre Bair, writing in her "Introduction to the Vintage Edition" in 1989, relates that "one of the
most sustained criticisms" has been that Beauvoir is "guilty of unconscious misogyny", that she separated herself
from women while writing about them.[94] Bair writes that the French writer Francis Jeanson and the British poet
Stevie Smith made similar criticisms: in Smith's words, "She has written an enormous book about women and it is
soon clear that she does not like them, nor does she like being a woman."[95] Bair also quotes British scholar C. B.
Radford's view that Beauvoir was "guilty of painting women in her own colors" because The Second Sex is
"primarily a middle-class document, so distorted by autobiographical influences that the individual problems of the
writer herself may assume an exaggerated importance in her discussion of femininity.[95]

The classical scholar David M. Halperin writes that Beauvoir gives an idealized account of sexual relations
between women in The Second Sex, suggesting that they reveal with particular clarity the mutuality of erotic
responsiveness that characterizes women's eroticism.[96] The critic Camille Paglia praised The Second Sex, calling
it "brilliant" and "the supreme work of modern feminism." Paglia writes that most modern feminists do not realize
the extent to which their work has simply repeated or qualified Beauvoir's arguments.[97] In Free Women, Free
Men (2017) Paglia writes that as a sixteen year-old, she was "stunned by de Beauvoir's imperious, authoritative
tone and ambitious sweep through space and time", which helped inspire her to write her work of literary criticism
Sexual Personae (1990).[98] Christina Hoff Sommers dismissed The Second Sex, writing that its "reputation as a
masterpiece, a work of art, or even an inspiring manifesto, depends heavily on no one reading it." Sommers
described the book as a "tangle" containing "sweeping declarations", and that Beauvoir "made no effort to
distinguish relevant from irrelevant material", and was careless in her use of evidence.[99]

Cultural repercussions
The rise of second wave feminism in the United States spawned by Betty Friedans book, Feminine Mystique,
which was inspired by Simone de Beauvoirs, The Second Sex, took significantly longer to reach and impact the
lives of European women. Even though The Second Sex was published in 1949 and Feminine Mystique was
published in 1963, the French were concerned that expanding equality to include matters of the family was
detrimental to French morals. In 1966, abortion in Europe was still illegal and contraception was extremely
difficult to access. Many were afraid that legalization would take from men the proud consciousness of their
virility and make women no more than objects of sterile voluptuousness.[100] The French Parliament in 1967
decided to legalize contraception but only under strict qualifications.

Social feminists then went further to claim that women were fundamentally different from men in psychology and
in physiology[100] and stressed gender differences rather than simply equality, demanding that women have the
right of choice to stay home and raise a family, if they so desired, by issue of a financial allowance, advocated by
the Catholic church, or to go into the workforce and have assistance with childcare through government mandated
programs, such as nationally funded daycare facilities and parental leave. The historical context of the times was a
belief that "a society cut to the measure of men ill served women and harmed the overall interests of society".[100]
As a result of this push for public programs, European women became more involved in politics and by the 1990s
held six to seven times more legislative seats than the United States, enabling them to influence the process in
support of programs for women and children.[100]

Translations
Many commentators have pointed out that the 1953 English translation of The Second Sex by H. M. Parshley,
frequently reissued, is poor.[101] The reviewer from The New York Times described the zoologist hired to do the
translation as having "a college undergraduates knowledge of French."[3] The delicate vocabulary of philosophical
concepts is frequently mistranslated, and great swaths of the text have been excised.[102] The English publication
rights to the book are owned by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc and although the publishers had been made aware of the
problems with the English text, they long stated that there was really no need for a new translation,[101] even
though Beauvoir herself explicitly requested one in a 1985 interview: "I would like very much for another
translation of The Second Sex to be done, one that is much more faithful; more complete and more faithful."[103]

The publishers gave in to those requests, and commissioned a new translation to Constance Borde and Sheila
Malovany-Chevalier.[104] The result, published in November 2009,[105] has met with generally positive reviews
from literary critics, who credit Borde and Malovany-Chevalier with having diligently restored the sections of the
text missing from the Parshley edition, as well as correcting many of its mistakes.[106][107][108][109]

Other reviewers, however, including Toril Moi, one of the most vociferous critics of the original 1953 translation,
are critical of the new edition, voicing concerns with its style, syntax and philosophical and syntactic
integrity.[3][110][111] The publisher made at least one correction based on Moi's review; the book now ends in the
word that Beauvoir chose: "brotherhood" (French: fraternit).[87][110]

The New York Times reviewer cites some confused English in the new edition where Parshley's version was
smoother, saying, "Should we rejoice that this first unabridged edition of 'The Second Sex' appears in a new
translation? I, for one, do not."[3]

See also
Feminist existentialism
Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century

Notes
1. de Beauvoir, Simone (1949). Le deuxime sexe (https://books.google.com/books?id=XUHaAAAAMAAJ) [The Second
Sex]. NRF essais (in French). 1, Les faits et les mythes [Facts and Myths]. Gallimard. ISBN 9782070205134.
2. de Beauvoir, Simone (1949). Le deuxime sexe (https://books.google.com/books?id=XUHaAAAAMAAJ). NRF essais
(in French). 2 L'exprience vcue [Experience]. Gallimard. ISBN 9782070205141. OCLC 489616596 (https://www.worl
dcat.org/oclc/489616596).
3. du Plessix Gray, Francine (May 27, 2010), "Dispatches From the Other" (https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/books/re
view/Gray-t.html?pagewanted=all), The New York Times, retrieved October 24, 2011
4. Bauer 2006, p. 122.
5. Beauvoir 2009, p. Copyright page.
6. Appignanesi 2005, p. 82.
7. de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. xvxxix.
8. Beauvoir 2009, p. 46.
 9. Beauvoir 2009, p. 59.
10. Beauvoir 2009, p. 6364.
11. Beauvoir 2009, p. 139.
12. Beauvoir 2009, p. 75.
13. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 79, 89, 84.
14. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 96, 100, 101, 103.
15. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 104106, 117.
16. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 108, 112114.
17. Beauvoir 2009, p. 118, "She brilliantly shows that a woman can raise herself as high as a man when, by astonishing
chance, a man's possibilities are granted to her."
18. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 118, 122, 123.
19. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 127129.
20. Beauvoir 2009, p. 131.
21. Beauvoir 2009, p. 132.
22. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 133135, 137139.
23. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 140148.
24. Beauvoir 2009, p. 151.
25. Beauvoir 2009, p. 213.
26. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 168, 170.
27. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 175, 176, 191, 192, 196, 197, 201, 204.
28. Beauvoir 2009, p. 261.
29. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 264265.
30. Beauvoir 2009, p. 262.
31. Beauvoir 2009, p. 264.
32. Beauvoir 2009, p. 265.
33. Beauvoir 2009, p. 268.
34. Beauvoir 2009, p. 271.
35. Beauvoir 2009, p. 273.
36. Beauvoir 2009, p. 274.
37. Beauvoir 2009, p. 284.
38. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 285286.
39. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 294295.
40. Beauvoir 2009, p. 296.
41. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 304305, 306308.
42. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 315, 318.
43. Beauvoir 2009, p. 301.
44. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 320330, 333336.
45. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 366, 368, 374, 367368.
46. Beauvoir 2009, p. 383.
47. Beauvoir 2009, p. 416.
48. Beauvoir 2009, p. 436.
49. Beauvoir 2009, p. 466.
50. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 470478.
51. Beauvoir 2009, p. 481.
52. Beauvoir 2009, p. 485.
53. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 485486.
54. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 497, 510.
55. Beauvoir 2009, p. 518.
56. Beauvoir 2009, p. 521.
57. Beauvoir 1971, p. 458.
58. Beauvoir 1971, p. 486.
59. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 524533, 534550.
60. Beauvoir 1971, p. 495.
61. Beauvoir 2009, p. 567.
62. Beauvoir 2009, p. 568.
63. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 571581, 584588, 589591, 592598.
64. Beauvoir 2009, p. 592.
 65. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 605, 607610.
66. Beauvoir 1971, p. 565.
67. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 619, 622, 626.
68. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 627, 632, 633.
69. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 634636.
70. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 636637.
71. Beauvoir 2009, p. 644.
72. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 645, 647, 648, 649.
73. Beauvoir 2009, p. 658.
74. Beauvoir 2009, p. 664.
75. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 668670, 676.
76. Beauvoir 2009, p. 708.
77. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 713, 714715, 716.
78. Beauvoir 2009, p. 717.
79. Beauvoir 2009, pp. 731732.
80. Beauvoir 2009, p. 733.
81. Beauvoir 2009, p. 734.
82. Beauvoir 2009, p. 741.
83. Beauvoir 2009, p. 748.
84. Beauvoir 2009, p. 750.
85. Beauvoir 2009, p. 751.
86. Beauvoir 2009, p. 760.
87. Beauvoir 2009, p. 766.
88. Rossi, Alice S. The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir. Boston: Northeastern University Press. p. 674.
ISBN 978-1-55553-028-0.
89. Pomeroy, Wardell (1982). Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 279.
ISBN 0-300-02801-6.
90. Beauvoir, Simone de (1962) [1960]. The Prime of Life. Translated by Green, Peter. Cleveland: The World Publishing
Company. p. 38. LCCN 62009051 (https://lccn.loc.gov/62009051).
91. Webster, Richard (2005). Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. Oxford: The Orwell Press. p. 22.
ISBN 0-9515922-5-4.
92. Forster, Penny; Sutton, Imogen (1989). Daughters of de Beauvoir. London: The Women's Press, Ltd. p. 23. ISBN 0-
7043-5044-0.
93. Butler, Judith, "Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex" in Yale French Studies, No. 72 (1986), pp. 3549.
94. Bair 1989, p. xiii.
95. Bair 1989, p. xiv.
96. Halperin, David M. (1990). One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: And Other Essays on Greek Love. New York:
Routledge. pp. 136, 138. ISBN 0-415-90097-2.
97. Paglia, Camille (1993). Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 112, 243. ISBN 0-14-
017209-2.
98. Paglia, Camille (2017). Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism. New York: Pantheon Books. p. xiii. ISBN 978-
0-375-42477-9.
99. https://www.aei.org/publication/not-lost-in-translation/
100. Hunt, Michael H. (2014). The World Transformed: 1945 to the Present. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
pp. 226227. ISBN 978-0-19-937234-8.
101. Moi, Toril, "While we wait: The English translation of The Second Sex" in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Society vol. 27, no. 4 (2002), pp. 10051035.
102. Simons, Margaret, "The Silencing of Simone de Beauvoir: Guess What's Missing from The Second Sex" in Beauvoir
and The Second Sex (1999), pp. 6171.
103. Simons, Margaret, "Beauvoir Interview (1985)", in Beauvoir and The Second Sex (1999), pp. 9394.
104. Moi, Toril. "It changed my life!" (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jan/12/society.simonedebeauvoir) The
Guardian, January 12, 2008.
105. London, Cape, 2009. ISBN 978-0-224-07859-7
106. di Giovanni, Janine, "The Second Sex (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_re
views/article6960597.ece)", in The Times (London)
107. Cusk, Rachel, "Shakespeare's Daughters (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/dec/12/rachel-cusk-women-writing-r
eview)", in The Guardian.
 108. Crowe, Catriona, "Second can be the best (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/1219/1224260949819.h
tml)", in The Irish Times
109. Smith, Joan, "The Second Sex (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-second-sex-by-simo
ne-de-beauvoir-trans-constance-borde--sheila-malovanychevallier-1843614.html)", in The Independent (London).
110. Moi, Toril (2010). "The Adulteress Wife" (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n03/toril-moi/the-adulteress-wife). London Review
of Books. pp. 36. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
111. Goldberg, Michelle. "The Second Sex" (http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Reviews-Essays/The-Second-Sex/ba-p/2
417). Barnes and Noble Review. Retrieved September 6, 2012.

References
Appignanesi, Lisa (2005). Simone de Beauvoir. London: Haus. ISBN 1-904950-09-4.
Bauer, Nancy (2006) [2004]. "Must We Read Simone de Beauvoir?". In Grosholz, Emily R. The Legacy of Simone de
Beauvoir. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926536-4.
Beauvoir, Simone (1971). The Second Sex. Alfred A. Knopf.
Bair, Deirdre (1989) [Translation first published 1952]. "Introduction to the Vintage Edition". The Second Sex. By
Beauvoir, Simone de. Trans. H. M. Parshley. Vintage Books (Random House). ISBN 0-679-72451-6.
Beauvoir, Simone de (2002). The Second Sex (Svensk upplaga). p. 325.
Beauvoir, Simone de (2009) [1949]. The Second Sex. Trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. Random
House: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-26556-2.

External links
Cusk, Rachel (December 11, 2009). "Shakespeare's daughters" (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/de
c/12/rachel-cusk-women-writing-review). The Guardian. Guardian News and Media.
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Sheila Malovany-Chevallier" (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-second-s
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" 'The Second Sex' by Simone de Beauvoir" (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2
nd-sex/index.htm). Marxists Internet Archive. (Free English translation of a small part of the book)
Zuckerman, Laurel (March 23, 2011). "The Second Sex: a talk with Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany
Chevalier" (http://www.laurelzuckerman.com/2011/03/paris-writers-news-talks-about-simone-de-beauvoirs-t
he-second-sex-with-constance-borde-and-sheila-ma.html). laurelzuckerman.com.
Radio National (November 16, 2011). "Translating the 'Second Sex" (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/sto
ries/2011/3367659.htm). ABC: The Book Show. ABC.net.au.
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Beauvoir" (https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/reviews/981206.06udovitt.html?_r=2). The New York
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(Book review of the republished The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir)" (http://www.newyorker.com/archi
ve/2005/09/26/050926crbo_books?currentPage=all). The New Yorker.

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