Simone de Beauvoir is a feminist icon. She didn’t just write the feminist book, she wrote the movement’s bible, The Second Sex. She was an engaged intellectual who combined philosophical and literary productivity with real-world political action that led to lasting legislative change. Her life has inspired generations of women seeking independence, and this was largely attributed to her unconventional relationship with the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, which seemed like a love that didn’t come at the cost of her freedom or professional success.
But in the decades since Beauvoir’s death in 1986, several waves of previously unknown letters, diaries and manuscripts have shocked readers who thought they knew her. Her letters to her American lover, Nelson Algren, showed the depth of her passion for another man. Letters to Sartre revealed not only that she had lesbian relationships, but that her lovers were young and her students. There is no doubt now that she hid both significant professional successes and serious moral failings from the story she told in her autobiographies. So what are we to make of the author of The Second Sex, 70 years on from its publication? In light of what she didn’t tell us, was she as feminist as we thought?
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