Simone de Beauvoir: a Key Landmark of a Tradition

Abstract

The article offers a reading of The Second Sex focused on recontructing the keys of its insertion in the History of Feminist Theory. From a retrospective point of view, this reading presents the work as a radicalisation of the enlightened tradition of feminist thought: Beauvoir irrationalises the pertinence of a feature linked to birth when it comes to determining the legitimacy of an adscriptive identity, in this case, femininity. From the prospective point of view, we propose a reinterpretation of Beauvoir in the context of the current debates around gender as a category. In so doing, we assess her contributions and her shortcomings concerning the theoretical grounds of vindication and the criticism of androcentrism. Her standpoints are particularly contrasted with the premises of “the thought of the sexual difference”.