Recommendations
Books Like Le Deuxième Sexe by Simone de Beauvoir
The foundational feminist work — 'one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman'
Beauvoir's 1949 900-page analysis of women's condition — through mythology, history, biology, psychoanalysis, and daily life — that opened with 'What is a woman?' and founded second-wave feminism worldwide.
- 1
Buy on AmazonMémoires d'une jeune fille rangée
by Simone de Beauvoir
The autobiography of Beauvoir's own formation (1958) — the personal account of the experience that Le Deuxième Sexe analyzes theoretically; reading the autobiography alongside the theory gives the lived experience behind the philosophical analysis.
- 2
Buy on AmazonLes Mandarins
by Simone de Beauvoir
The 1954 Prix Goncourt novel — the fictional complement to Le Deuxième Sexe; Anne Dubreuilh's experience in the postwar Paris intellectual world dramatizes the questions about women's freedom and love that the theoretical work analyzes.
- 3Buy on Amazon
La Mysticque féminine
by Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan's 1963 The Feminine Mystique is the American counterpart — the critique of the ideology of the suburban housewife that was directly inspired by Le Deuxième Sexe and that launched second-wave American feminism; the comparison gives the range of what Beauvoir's work sparked.
- 4
Buy on AmazonA Room of One's Own
by Virginia Woolf
Woolf's 1929 essay is the most important predecessor — the argument that women need money and a room of their own to write; Le Deuxième Sexe develops Woolf's insight into a full philosophical account of the material and psychological conditions of women's intellectual life.
- 5
Buy on AmazonThe Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedan
Friedan's 1963 book is the American realization of Beauvoir's theoretical program — the application of the analysis of women's condition to the specific situation of American suburban housewives; reading both together gives the global impact of Le Deuxième Sexe.
- 6
Buy on AmazonThe Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir
The Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier translation (2010) is the first complete English translation — restoring the roughly one-fifth of the text cut by the earlier Parshley translation (1953); essential for English readers who want the complete text.
- 7
Buy on AmazonGender Trouble
by Judith Butler
Butler's 1990 book is the most important response to Le Deuxième Sexe — developing and critiquing Beauvoir's analysis of gender as construction; Butler argues that not only femininity but the very concept of biological sex is a discursive construction; the comparison gives the development of feminist theory from 1949 to 1990.
- 8
Buy on AmazonL'Être et le Néant
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Sartre's Being and Nothingness (1943) is the existentialist philosophical framework that Le Deuxième Sexe both uses and critiques — Beauvoir uses Sartre's concepts of the Other, of bad faith, and of freedom, but shows that their application to women's condition requires modification; reading the two together gives the dialogue between existentialism and feminism.
More Le Deuxième Sexe by Simone de Beauvoir Resources
More Reading Recommendations
View all →Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.