She abandoned her faith in her early teens and remained an atheist for the rest of her life. At age 14, Beauvoir questioned her faith as she saw many changes in the world after witnessing tragedies throughout her life. She was deeply religious as a child, at one point intending to become a nun. She had been sent to convent schools as a youth. Religious upbringing īeauvoir was raised in a strict Catholic household. Her studies of political philosophy through university influenced her to start thinking of societal concerns rather than her own individual issues. thesis) on Leibniz for Léon Brunschvicg (the topic was "Le concept chez Leibniz" ). She then studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and after completing her degree in 1928, wrote her Diplôme d'Études Supérieures Spécialisées (roughly equivalent to an M.A. After passing baccalaureate exams in mathematics and philosophy in 1925, she studied mathematics at the Institut Catholique de Paris and literature/languages at the Institut Sainte-Marie. This disequilibrium, which made my life a kind of endless disputation, is the main reason why I became an intellectual." Secondary and post-secondary education īeauvoir pursued post-secondary education after completing her high school years at Lycée Fenelon. ".my father's individualism and pagan ethical standards were in complete contrast to the rigidly moral conventionalism of my mother's teaching. Writing of her youth in Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter she said: The jury for the agrégation narrowly awarded Sartre first place instead of Beauvoir, who placed second and, at age 21, was the youngest person ever to pass the exam. It was while studying for it that she met École Normale students Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Nizan, and René Maheu (who gave her the lasting nickname " Castor", or "beaver"). Although not officially enrolled, she sat in on courses at the École Normale Supérieure in preparation for the agrégation in philosophy, a highly competitive postgraduate examination which serves as a national ranking of students. She first worked with Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Claude Lévi-Strauss, when all three completed their practice teaching requirements at the same secondary school. She took this opportunity to take steps towards earning a living for herself. The family struggled to maintain their bourgeois status after losing much of their fortune shortly after World War I, and Françoise insisted the two daughters be sent to a prestigious convent school.īeauvoir was intellectually precocious, fueled by her father's encouragement he reportedly would boast, "Simone thinks like a man!" Because of her family's straitened circumstances, she could no longer rely on her dowry, and like other middle-class girls of her age, her marriage opportunities were put at risk. Simone's sister, Hélène, was born two years later. Her parents were Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, a legal secretary who once aspired to be an actor, and Françoise Beauvoir (née Brasseur), a wealthy banker's daughter and devout Catholic. 8.1 List of publications (non-exhaustive)īeauvoir was born on 9 January 1908 into a bourgeois Parisian family in the 6th arrondissement.4.4 Sexuality, existentialist feminism and The Second Sex.1.1 Secondary and post-secondary education.She was also known for her open, lifelong relationship with French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, though this relationship lead to a discounting of de Beauvoir as an original thinker in some cases. She won the 1954 Prix Goncourt, the 1975 Jerusalem Prize, and the 1978 Austrian State Prize for European Literature. Her most enduring contribution to literature is her memoirs, notably the first volume, “Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée” (1958), which have a warmth and descriptive power. She was known for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism and for her novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins. īeauvoir wrote novels, essays, biographies, autobiographies and monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues.
Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even though she was not considered one at the time of her death, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory. Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir ( UK: / d ə ˈ b oʊ v w ɑːr/, US: / d ə b oʊ ˈ v w ɑːr/ French: ( listen) 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist.
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