Simone de Beauvoir - Feminist Writings

FEMINIST WRITINGS

THE BEAUVOIR SERIES

Coedited by Margaret A. Simons and
Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Editorial Board

Kristana Arp
Debra Bergoffen
Anne Deing Cordero
Elizabeth Fallaize
Eleanore Holveck

_______________

A list of books in
the series appears at
the end of this book.

Edited by Margaret A. Simons
and Marybeth Timmermann

Foreword by Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

University of Illinois Press

Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield

Problems for Womens Literature Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Women of Letters Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Femininity: The Trap Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

A Review of The Elementary Structures of Kinship by Claude Lvi-Strauss Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Its About Time Women Put a New Face on Love Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Preface to Family Planning Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Preface to The Great Fear of Loving ditions Gallimard, 1979

The Condition of Women ditions Gallimard, 1979

Preface to The Sexually Responsive Woman Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

What Love Isand Isnt Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Love and Politics Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

The Situation of Women Today ditions Gallimard, 1979

Women and Creativity ditions Gallimard, 1979

Foreword to History: A Novel ditions Gallimard, 1979

The Rebellious WomanAn Interview by Alice Schwartzer ditions Gallimard, 1979

Response to Some Women and a Man ditions Gallimard, 1979

Abortion and the Poor Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Beauvoirs Deposition at the Bobigny Trial ditions Gallimard, 1979

Preface to Abortion: A Law on Trial. The Bobigny Affair ditions Gallimard, 1979

Everyday Sexism ditions Gallimard, 1979

League of Womens Rights Manifesto Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Preface to Divorce in France ditions Gallimard, 1979

Introduction to Women Insist ditions Gallimard, 1979

Preface to Through Womens Eyes ditions Gallimard, 1979

When All the Women of the World ditions Gallimard, 1979

My Point of View: An Outrageous Affair Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Preface to Stories from the French Womens Liberation Movement Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

The Urgency of an Anti-Sexist Law Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Press Conference of the International Committee for Womens Rights Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Foreword to Deception Chronicles: From the Womens Liberation Movement to a Commercial Trademark Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Women, Ads, and Hate Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Preface to Mihloud Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

2015 by the Board of Trustees

of the University of Illinois

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

c 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beauvoir, Simone de, 19081986.

[Works. Selections. English]

Simone de Beauvoir : Feminist Writings / edited by Margaret A. Simons and Marybeth Timmermann ; foreword by Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir. pages cm. (The Beauvoir Series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-252-03900-3 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-252-09717-1 (ebook)

I. Simons, Margaret A., editor. II. Timmermann, Marybeth, editor. III. Title.
PQ2603.E362A2 2015
848.91409dc23 2014027985

The editors gratefully acknowledge the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, and a Matching Funds grant from the Illinois Board of Higher Education. The volume also received a translation grant from the French Ministry of Culture.

IN MEMORY OF
EVA LUNDGREN-GOTHLIN AND
MARYLU MATHISON

Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

Margaret A. Simons

Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir

TRANSLATED BY MARYBETH TIMMERMANN

It is my pleasure to take this opportunity to honor the monumental work of research and publication that the Beauvoir Series represents, which was undertaken and brought to fruition by Margaret A. Simons and the ensemble of her team. These volumes of Simone de Beauvoirs writings, concerning literature as well as philosophy and feminism, stretch from 1926 to 1986, that is to say throughout almost her entire life. Some of them have been published before, and are known, but remain dispersed throughout time and space, in diverse editions, diverse newspapers, or reviews. Others were read during conferences or radio programs and then lost from view. Some had been left completely unpublished. What gives them force and meaning is precisely having them gathered together, closely, as a whole. Nothing of the sort has yet been realized, except, on a much smaller scale, Les crits de Simone de Beauvoir (The writings of Simone de Beauvoir), published in France in 1979. Here, the aim is an exhaustive corpus, as much as that is possible.

Because they cover more than 50 years, these volumes faithfully reflect the thoughts of their author, the early manifestation and permanence of certain of her preoccupations as a writer and philosopher, as a woman and feminist. What will be immediately striking, I think, is their extraordinary coherence. Obviously, from this point of view, Les cahiers de jeunesse (Diaries of a Philosophy Student), previously unpublished, constitute the star document. The very young eighteen-, nineteen-, twenty-year-old Simone de Beauvoir who writes them is clearly already the future great Simone de Beauvoir, author of Linvite, (She Came to Stay), Pour une morale de lambigut (The Ethics of Ambiguity), Le deuxime sexe (The Second Sex), Les Mandarins (The Mandarins), and Mmoires (Memoirs). Not only is her vocation as a writer energetically affirmed in these diaries, but one also discovers in them the roots of her later reflections. It is particularly touching to see the birth, often with hesitations, doubt, and anguish, of the fundamental choices of thought and existence that would have such an impact on so many future readers, women and men. Torments, doubt, and anguish are expressed, but also exultation and confidence in her strength and in the futurethe foresight of certain passages is impressive. Take the one from June 25, 1929, for example: Strange certitude that these riches will be welcomed, that some words will be said and heard, that this life will be a fountain-head from which many others will draw. Certitude of a vocation.

These precious Cahiers will cut short the unproductive and recurrent debate about the influence that Sartre supposedly had on Simone de Beauvoir, since they incontestably reveal to us Simone de Beauvoir before Sartre. Thus, their relationship will take on its true sense, and one will understand to what point Simone de Beauvoir was even more herself when she agreed with some of Sartres themes, because all those lonely years of apprenticeship and training were leading her to a definite path and not just any path. Therefore, it is not a matter of influence, but an encounter in the strong sense of the term. They each recognized themselves