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The elder and 
favored of two 
girls, de Beauvoir 
was born into a 
bourgeois family. 
She pursued a 
glittering and 
precocious career 
as a philosopher 
at the Sorbonne,
where she met
Jean-Paul Sartre
and at 21, she 
became the 
youngest quali-
fied philosopher
in France
#
De Beauvoir was 
devoted to Sartre 
for over 50 years.
They saw each 
other every day, 
but never shared a 
house and had 
various other 
relationships 
though never 
lasting ones. 
Together, they 
formulated the 
philosophy of 
existentialism, 
and were also
involved in the
Resistance during
the second 
world war
#
Rebellious but 
happy as a child, 
de Beauvoir always 
denied that her 
partnership with 
Sartre had anything
in common with
a bourgeois 
marriage. In The 
Second Sex (1949), 
which paved the 
way for the
women's rights 
movement of the 
Sixties she wrote 
that the principle 
of marriage
was obscene
#
After the war, 
de Beauvoir pro-
duced a number 
of books, plays and 
theoretical essays. 
She became one of 
France's best-
selling authors. 
Among her works 
was The Mandarins 
(1954), about 
Jean-Paul Sartre, 
herself and the
writer Albert 
Camus. They spent
many hours discus-
sing literature and 
philosophy in cafes
on Paris' Left Bank
#
Feminists admire 
de Beauvoir for her
achievement as a 
thinker. Two of 
the main trends in
twentieth century 
thought, feminism 
and existentialism, 
meet in her work. 
She united theory 
and activism, for
example she wrote 
and campaigned for 
the right to
contraception, and 
to legal abortion.
She was very much
ahead of her time
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