Famous Bis: Simone de Beauvoir

"If so few female geniuses are found in history, it is because society denies them any means of expression." Simone de Beauvoir was a genius, by all accounts. A French feminist, philosopher, and writer, Beauvoir took the world by storm with her fierce insistence for women’s recognition as men’s equals, as well as advocating for a socialist post-war society. Though much of her career was overshadowed by her relationship with fellow philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Beauvoir was an essential figure in feminist and philosophical history in her own right.

Beauvoir was born on the 9th January 1908, in Paris, France. From a young age she was considered intellectually gifted; her father Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, a lawyer, encouraged Beauvoir to expand her knowledge and would often proudly tell people "Simone thinks like a man!" Throughout her childhood, Beauvoir was deeply religious, much like her mother Françoise Beauvoir, a devout Catholic, and in her early teenage years was considering becoming a nun. However, after witnessing tragedy during the First World War, Beauvoir lost her faith and instead became a staunch atheist. She remained fascinated with religion throughout her life, writing in her memoirs, " ... my father's individualism and pagan ethical standards were in complete contrast to the rigidly moral conventionalism of my mother's teaching. This disequilibrium, which made my life a kind of endless disputation, is the main reason why I became an intellectual."

Though the family was once incredibly wealthy, the First World War depleted their finances. Whilst Beauvoir’s parents were able to afford to send her to a prestigious convent school, they could not provide much in the way of a dowry for her. A dowry (a sum of wealth, usually property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family) was essential for a middle-class girl of the time wishing to marry well. Beauvoir had no choice but to secure employment as a means of living and took one of the only routes deemed suitable for women at the time — teaching.

Whilst studying to become a teacher Beauvoir would frequently sit in on philosophy classes at École Normale Supérieure, one of France’s most prestigious universities, which she wasn’t actually enrolled in. However, her attendance was so diligent that in 1929 she was allowed to sit for the agrégation exam, along with friends Jean-Paul Sartre and René Maheu, students of the university who she had met whilst attending classes. All three passed the exam, with Beauvoir placing second after Sartre, and at 21 years old was the youngest person to ever pass the exam. After passing the exam, she became a professor of philosophy and worked in a number of colleges around Paris, mainly teaching students between the ages of 15 and 18.

It was during this time that Beauvoir fell for Sartre, who was by all accounts a very unconventional man, who proposed to Beauvoir that "What we have is an essential love; but it is a good idea for us also to experience contingent love affairs." Though the two began a relationship, its openness was certainly unusual for the time. They agreed that whilst they would consider themselves in a relationship with one another, there would be no exclusivity to their relationship, and instead, both would have complete freedom to explore affairs and other romantic pursuits... So long as they told each other everything, and held no secrets from one another.

For a woman, breaking so cleanly and publicly from the societal expectations of monogamy and marriage of the time was a huge risk, yet Beauvoir was confident and steadfast in her decision; "We were two of a kind, and our relationship would endure as long as we did: but it could not make up entirely for the fleeting riches to be had from encounters with different people." She was quite right, as their relationship would endure for over 50 years until Sartre’s death in 1980. Surprisingly, though it is by far the most well documented and widely discussed, this was not Beauvoir’s most controversial relationship.

Beauvoir was bi, and due to her open relationship with Sartre, felt free to have as many relationships and affairs as she pleased. She had a transatlantic affair with American writer Nelson Algren for a number of years, affectionately referring to him in letters as "my dear husband", and from 1952 to 1959, she lived with French director Claude Lanzmann. It was her affairs with young women which were considered the most problematic. Bianca Lamblin, a French author and former student of Beauvoir, wrote in her memoirs that both Beauvoir and Sartre exploited her sexual naivety whilst under Beauvoir’s tutelage. In 1943, Beauvoir was suspended from a tutoring position and had her teaching license temporarily revoked after she was discovered to be having an affair with her 17-year-old student Natalie Sorokin. Beauvoir did not believe there should be laws surrounding age of consent, and in 1977 signed a petition to have France’s law removed.

Though her personal sexual liberation brought her much notoriety, Beauvoir was just as well known for her daring writing. Beauvoir was an Existentialist philosopher, meaning that she believed that the problems of human existence should be explored with a focus on the subjective experiences of thinking, feeling, and acting. Her first novel, She Came to Stay, was published in 1943 and explored these themes. The novel was largely based on the affair between herself, Sartre and her 17-year-old student Olga Kosakiewicz and her sister Wanda, with the backdrop of the beginnings of the Second World War. More widely celebrated Beauvoir’s novel The Mandarins, published in 1942, which was a fictionalized account of her affair with Algren, perhaps her most notable relationship outside of that with Sartre. Algren was furious at the explicit descriptions of their sexual relationship, and never publicly forgave her before his death in 1981.

The Second Sex, Beauvoir’s seminal feminist work, was published in 1949. This work, discussing the rights of women and their treatment in French society, and how the socialist revolution she was certain would follow the war would bring about women’s societal liberation, struck a chord across women in Europe and is often credited as igniting the beginning of existentialist feminism in Europe. Originally, Beauvoir was hesitant to call herself a feminist as she did not believe the term accurately captured her socialist beliefs, however in an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in 1972, she did embrace this term. She seemed resigned to the fact the socialist revolution she had hoped for was yet to arrive, and that when it did, she wasn’t sure it would bring about the gender revolution that she had envisioned over 25 years ago.

On 14th April 1986, Beauvoir passed away following a short battle with pneumonia. "Women, you owe her everything!" read the headline above her obituary, a phrase which was repeated many times among the crowd of 5,000 mourners at her funeral. She was buried alongside Sartre in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, where their graves are still frequently visited to this day. As an atheist for her entire adult life, this would have meant little to Beauvoir, who wrote in her memoirs only years beforehand "His death does separate us. My death will not bring us together again. That is how things are."

Beauvoir’s legacy lives on in her innumerable written works surrounding the topics of sexuality, gender and socialism. During her lifetime she earned multiple awards for her writings, including the Prix Goncourt in 1954, the Jerusalem Prize in 1975 and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 1978. Her most well-known work, The Second Sex, has sold over 5 million copies and has been published in over 15 languages, and is credited with inspiring many subsequent Feminist texts including The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer and The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. In Paris, France, there is a square named after Beauvoir and Sartre, "Place Jean-Paul Sartre et Simone de Beauvoir" which commemorates the pair’s influence on modern existentialist philosophy; they had once lived at 42 rue Bonaparte, located just off of the square.