Responses to The Second Sex: 1962–79

Abstract

There is an extensive literature on The Second Sex, enough now to justify a book in its own right. I propose to devote three chapters of the present work to summarizing this secondary literature; then I shall offer a further, final chapter in which I propose to reply to the main criticisms of The Second Sex and defend de Beauvoir against these criticisms. The present chapter concentrates on the responses contained in the following works: M. Cranston, ‘Simone de Beauvoir’, in J. Cruickshank (ed.), The Novelist as Philosopher (1962); R. Cottrell, Simone de Beauvoir (1975); J. Leighton, Simone de Beauvoir on Woman (1975); and K. Bieber, Simone de Beauvoir (1979).KeywordsFinal ChapterCurious FactExtreme OptimismCreative AchievementPresent ChapterThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.