Beauvoir and The Second Sex Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism

Margaret A. Simons, "Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism"
English | 2000 | pages: 288 | ISBN: 0847692566, 0742512460 | EPUB | 1,4 mb
In a compelling chronicle of her search to understand Beauvoir’s philosophy in The Second Sex, Margaret A. Simons offers a unique perspective on Beauvoir’s wide-ranging contribution to twentieth-century thought. She details the discovery of the origins of Beauvoir’s existential philosophy in her hand-written diary from 1927; uncovers evidence of the sexist exclusion of Beauvoir from the philosophical canon; reveals evidence that the African-American writer Richard Wright provided Beauvoir with the theoretical model of oppression that she used in The Second Sex; shows the influence of The Second Sex in transforming Sartre’s philosophy and in laying the theoretical foundations of radical feminism; and addresses feminist issues of racism, motherhood, and lesbian identity.