Feminist Writings

by Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret A. Simons (Editor), Marybeth Timmermann (Editor), Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir (Foreword by)

Overview

The philosopher's writings on, and engagement with, twentieth century feminism

By turns surprising and revelatory, this sixth volume in the Beauvoir Series presents newly discovered writings and lectures while providing new translations and contexts for Simone de Beauvoir's more familiar writings. Spanning Beauvoir's career from the 1940s through 1986, the pieces explain the paradoxes in her political and feminist stances, including her famous 1972 announcement of a "conversion to feminism" after decades of activism on behalf of women.

Feminist Writings documents and contextualizes Beauvoir's thinking, writing, public statements, and activities in the services of causes like French divorce law reform and the rights of women in the Iranian Revolution. In addition, the volume provides new insights into Beauvoir's complex thinking and illuminates her historic role in linking the movements for sexual freedom, sexual equality, homosexual rights, and women's rights in France.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252039003
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	02/26/2015
Series:	Beauvoir Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) was a French existentialist philosopher who employed a literary-philosophical method in her works, including Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) and The Second Sex (1949). Margaret A. Simons is Distinguished Research Professor Emerita at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the author of Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism. Marybeth Timmermann is a contributing translator and editor of Beauvoir's Philosophical Writings and "The Useless Mouths" and Other Literary Writings. Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, adopted daughter and literary executor of Simone de Beauvoir, is the editor of Lettres à Sartre and many other works by Beauvoir.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the Beauvoir Series Sylvie Le Ban de Beauvoir xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction Margaret A. Simons 1

1 French Women Writers 17

Introduction Elizabeth Eallaize 19

Problems for Women's Literature 24

Women of Letters 30

2 Femininity: The Trap 35

Introduction Nancy Bauer 37

Femininity: The Trap 42

3 A Review of The Elementary Structures of Kinship Claude Levi-Strauss 49

Introduction Shannon M. Mussett 51

A Review of The Elementary Structures of Kinship Claude Levi-Strauss 58

4 Short Feminist Texts from the Fifties and Sixties 67

Introduction Karen Vintges 69

It's About Time Women Put a New Face on Love 76

Preface to Family Planning 81

Preface to The Great Fear of Loving 84

The Condition of Women 88

Preface to The Sexually Responsive Woman 97

What Love Is-and Isn't 99

Love and Politics 103

5 Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome 107

Introduction Elizabeth Fallaize 109

Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome 114

6 The Situation of Women Today 127

Introduction Debra B. Bergoffen 129

The Situation of Women Today 132

7 Women and Creativity 147

Introduction Ursula Tidd 149

Women and Creativity 155

8 Foreword to History: A Novel 171

Introduction Margaret A. Simons 173

Foreword to History: A Novel 176

9 The MLF and the Bobigny Affair 179

Introduction Sylvie Chaperon 181

The Rebellious Woman-An Interview by Alice Schwartzer 192

Response to Some Women and a Man 209

Abortion and the Poor 216

Beauvoir's Deposition at the Bobigny Trial 219

Preface to Abortion: A Law on Trial. The Bobigny Affair 223

10 Short Feminist Texts from the Seventies and Eighties 229

Introduction Francoise Picq 231

Everyday Sexism 240

League of Women's Rights Manifesto 242

Preface to Divorce in France 246

Introduction to Women Insist 250

Preface to Through Women's Eyes 253

When All the Women of the World… 256

My Point of View: An Outrageous Affair 258

Preface to Stories from the French Women's Liberation Movement 260

The Urgency of an Anti-Sexist Law 265

Press Conference of the International Committee for Women's Rights 268

Foreword to Deception Chronicles: From the Women's Liberation Movement to a Commercial Trademark 270

Women, Ads, and Hate 273

11 Preface to Mihloud 277

Introduction Lillian S. Robinson Julien Murphy 279

Preface to Mihloud 282

Contributors 287

Index 293

Editorial Reviews

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2015.

"An impressive work of erudition. Essential."—Choice

"Margaret A. Simons and Marybeth Timmermann's decision to present these essays with introductions from an extraordinary community of scholars is a felicitous addition that enables the texts and meta-texts to bring to light their subtexts. The result is perhaps the best accolade to bestow on any work of scholarship: its necessity. For anyone interested in Beauvoir or the foundations of twentieth century feminist thought, research is imperiled without a perusal of this book."—Lewis R. Gordon, Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, University of Connecticut

"Of all the excellent volumes in this amazing series . . . perhaps this one is the most awaited. This volume gives new insight into Beauvoir's thinking about gender, sexuality, motherhood, the women's movement, and the place of women in the world. These texts, many of which are available in English for the first time, and collected here for the first time anywhere, show the evolving thought on women by the most important feminist thinker of the twentieth century."—Kelly Oliver, author of Technologies of Life and Death: From Cloning to Capital Punishment

"I was thoroughly engrossed with these texts. This volume significantly adds to the Beauvoir literature, and to feminist literature more generally, and should put to rest, once and for all, the myth that Beauvoir embraced feminism only in 1972."—Claudia Card, author of The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil

"Excellent introductions by leading scholars carefully locate these works in their own contexts and also demonstrate why we should still attend to Beauvoir's thinking today. This collection is necessary reading not only for those interested in Simone de Beauvoir's thinking but for all who are interested in the emergence of contemporary feminism."—Sonia Kruks, author of Simone de Beauvoir and the Politics of Ambiguity

From the Publisher