(Paris, 1908-1986) French thinker and novelist, representative of the atheist existentialist movement and an important figure in the vindication of women's rights. Originally from a bourgeois family, she stood out from an early age as a brilliant student. She studied at the Sorbonne and in 1929 she met Jean-Paul Sartre, who became her companion for the rest of her life.
He graduated in philosophy and until 1943 he devoted himself to teaching at the lycées of Marseilles, Rouen and Paris. His first work was the novel The Guest (1943), followed by The Blood of Others (1944) and the essay Pyrrhus and Cineas (1944). She participated intensely in the ideological debates of the time, harshly attacked the French right wing and assumed the role of a committed intellectual. In her literary texts she revised the concepts of history and character and incorporated, from an existentialist point of view, the themes of "freedom", "situation" and "commitment".
Together with Sartre, Albert Camus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, among others, she founded the magazine Tiempos Modernos, whose first issue was published on October 15, 1945 and became a political and cultural reference of French thought in the mid-twentieth century. Subsequently, he published the novel All Men Are Mortal (1946), and the essays For a Morality of Ambiguity (1947) and America a Day (1948).
Her book The Second Sex (1949) was a theoretical starting point for various feminist groups, and became a classic work of contemporary thought. In it she elaborated a history of the social condition of women and analyzed the different characteristics of male oppression. She asserted that by being excluded from the processes of production and confined to the home and reproductive functions, women lost all social ties and with them the possibility of being free. She analyzed the gender situation from the point of view of biology, psychoanalysis and Marxism; she destroyed feminine myths, and urged the search for authentic liberation. She argued that the struggle for the emancipation of women was distinct from and parallel to the class struggle, and that the main problem to be faced by the "weaker sex" was not ideological but economic.
Simone de Beauvoir founded with some feminists the League of Women's Rights, which set out to react firmly to any sexist discrimination, and prepared a special issue of Modern Times devoted to the discussion of the subject. She won the Prix Goncourt with The Mandarins (1954), in which she dealt with the difficulties of post-war intellectuals in assuming their social responsibility. In 1966 she participated in the Russell Tribunal, in May 1968 she showed solidarity with the students led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, in 1972 she presided over the Choisir association, in charge of defending free contraception, and until her last days she was a tireless fighter for human rights.
Her abundant testimonial and autobiographical titles include Memoirs of a Formal Young Woman (1958), The Fullness of Life (1960), The Force of Things (1963), A Very Sweet Death (1964), Old Age (1968), The End of Accounts (1972) and The Farewell Ceremony (1981).
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Yes she signed the petition
There were actually two petitions, the January 77 which is the age of consent one and the May one that is against the criminalization of homosexuals combining some demands from the January. Some of the defenders of the French philosophers would often put both of them together to confuse people that it is the same petition for sexual equality, some defenders also say some signatories signed the petitions without knowing because rebellion.
Both defenses are weak consider Simone signed both of them and also her life with Sartre demonstrated that the reason is not really to promote the decriminalization of homosexuals relationships.
CW: CSA, Libertarian shit, complicated history of gay rights struggle
spoiler
Back in the 70s there was still some degree of conflation between homosexuality and pedophilia/pederasty, partially because both were considered similarly taboo and carried similar stigma. Shit was weird and bad, and it's a very good thing people sorted that shit out. We still see echoes of it, with fash conflating pedophilia and transgenderness.
Very true, maybe I am harsh on Sartre and Simone because I just hate the French
Oh no be harsh on them what they did was creepy
shit. Even if you condone a relationship between a 17 year old and adults they apparently treated the girl poorly and abandoned her when they lost interest. Just shitty behavior all around. If anything nominally leftist philosophers should have a stronger understanding of power disparities that adults hold over children and how that negates consent.