Simone de Beauvoir was a French author, existentialist philosopher, political activist, and feminist born in 1908. When she was young, her father was said to have boasted that "Simone [thought] like a man!". In 1929, Simone and Jean-Paul Sarte became a couple. Sarte asked Beauvoir to marry him, but she refused and they became life partners. Beauvoir also had many lovers, male and female, during her life. One of Beauvoir's most well known and important works is The Second Sex. The book is considered a major work of feminist philosophy. Beauvoir and Sarte were both editors for a political journal called Les Temps Modernes, which began being published at the end of World War II. Beauvoir was active in the French women's liberation movement in the 1970s and even signed the Manifesto of the 343 (a list of women who claimed to have had an abortion, abortion was illegal at the time). Beauvoir died in 1986 at the age of 78 in Paris.
Simone de Beauvoir was certainly an influential woman during her time. She was an important intellectual, prolific writer, and avid activist. Her works came about at a time when women were beginning to organize and push for reforms that they believed were beneficial for women. I think it would be interesting to know what would have happened with out Beauvoir's book, The Second Sex, which many feminists today are inspired by. Beauvoir may be considered a feminist heroine for igniting new ideas about the female identity.
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