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Books
Simone de Beauvoir1 January 2008
Portrait of Simone de Beauvoir by Helene de Beauvoir reproduced by kind permission of Claudine Monteil
Her feminism, her ideas and her legacy for modern France.

When 'The Second Sex' was published sixty years ago in 1949, it scandalised conservative French society, but its central idea that "one is not born a woman, but becomes one" opened the minds of a generation of women and has gripped women readers ever since. We look at her life and ideas, and her legacy for women today, in France and beyond. Jenni talks to writer and feminist Michele Roberts, Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford Elizabeth Fallaize, Nabila Ramdani, a lecturer who has taught in both Paris and Oxford, and Kate Smurthwaite, feminist blogger and writer. They are joined, from Paris, by Simone's friend Claudine Monteil, founder of the French Women’s Liberation Movement, and Agnes Poirier, French journalist based in London.


Agnes Poirier
Michele Roberts
Claudine Monteil
Professor Elizabeth Fallaize
Ni Putes, Ni Soumises
The F word

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