WEBVTT

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Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I hope you are

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ready to think because today we are tackling

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a figure who is nothing short of a titan. And

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I don't use that word lightly. Not at all. We

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are talking about a woman whose name is practically

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synonymous with French intellectualism, with

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the hazy smoke of the Café de Flore, with existentialism

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and certainly absolutely with modern feminism.

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We are unpacking the life, the work and the...

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Well, the incredibly complicated legacy of Simone

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de Beauvoir. Titan is exactly the right word.

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In fact, you could argue it's an understatement.

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This is someone who didn't just participate in

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the culture of her time. No. She fundamentally

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reshaped the way we think about gender, about

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freedom, about ethics. She literally gave us

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the vocabulary to talk about what it means to

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be a woman and really what it means to be a human

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being. But, and this is the key thing, she's

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also a figure who completely defies easy categorization.

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She's an icon for sure. But when you really peel

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back the layers and you look at the sources we

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have today, the biographies, her own memoirs,

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the philosophical texts, and especially the letters,

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you see a much more complex and at times a deeply

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controversial person. Exactly. I think a lot

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of people know the name. They might know she

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wrote The Second Sex. Maybe. They almost certainly

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know she was the partner of Jean -Paul Sartre.

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But the image we have of her, it's often just

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a silhouette. Yeah, it's a caricature almost.

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It is. We see the philosopher in the cafe wearing

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the turban, smoking a cigarette, writing furiously

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in a notebook. It's all very chic, very Parisian.

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But the reality, it is so much messier, more

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fascinating, and frankly, more challenging than

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that postcard version. It is. And that's really

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our mission for this deep dive. We want to look

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past the icon. We want to understand how a dutiful

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daughter from a strict bourgeois Catholic family

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transformed herself into a radical atheist. and

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a groundbreaking social theorist. And we have

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to unpack that famous soul partnership with Sartre.

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We do. Because it was revolutionary. For its

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time, sure. But it also had some very, very dark

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corners that we need to shine a light on. The

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sources are pretty clear about that now. And

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we absolutely have to get into the heavy stuff.

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We're going to decode the central thesis of the

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second sex, that famous line, one is not born

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but becomes a woman. A line that changed everything.

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It did. And we need to figure out why the English

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-speaking world... basically misunderstood that

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book for decades. But then we're also going to

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confront the uncomfortable truths. The sources

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we have today, they don't shy away from the allegations

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regarding her relationships with her students

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or her signing certain political petitions that

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look, well, they look very different through

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a modern lens. You have to look at the whole

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picture, the brilliance and the shadows. You

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really can't separate the philosophy from the

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life with Beauvoir because her entire project

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was about living her philosophy, for better or

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for worse. So let's start at the beginning. Because

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to understand the radical, you really have to

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understand the cage she broke out of. And honestly,

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her beginnings sound like something out of a

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19th century novel. Born in 1908, Paris. Right,

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in the 6th arrondissement. Right. Wealthy banker's

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daughter, lawyer father. It sounds... Picture

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perfect. It was a very bourgeois upbringing and

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very, very rigid. Her father, Georges Bertrand

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de Beauvoir, was a lawyer. He was a man of culture,

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loved literature, the theater. He had actually

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aspired to be an actor at one point. Oh, interesting.

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And her mother, Françoise, was a wealthy banker's

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daughter and a deeply, deeply devout Catholic.

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So you have this tension right from the start

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inside the house. Between what? Art and religion.

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Exactly. You've got the worldly, artistic, somewhat

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agnostic aspirations of the father clashing with

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the strict, pious, almost severe morality of

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the mother. Simone was caught right in the middle

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of that. And she was precocious. I mean, intellectually,

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she was on fire from a very young age. She was

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just devouring books. Completely. She taught

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herself to read before she was even supposed

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to. And there is this quote from her father that

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I found in the notes. I guess it's supposed to

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be a compliment, but it lands. Well, it lands

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differently today. He used to boast to his friends,

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Simone has a man's brain. She thinks like a man.

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She is a man. That really sets the stage, doesn't

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it? Yeah. It highlights exactly what she would

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later dedicate her life to fighting against.

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Yeah. This idea that intellect, logic, reason,

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and capability are inherently male traits. Yeah.

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But for her father in that era, that was the

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absolute highest praise he could give his daughter.

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So he was proud of her, but in a really... constrained

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way he was seeing her potential absolutely but

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he could only articulate it by erasing her gender

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he encouraged her studies which was unusual for

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the time but he was also reinforcing the very

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binary that she would eventually spend her life

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trying to dismantle but then the script of her

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life the one that seemed pre -written for her

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just got completely flipped it wasn't just ideas

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that changed her path the material reality of

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her life just it collapsed the money ran out

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it's as simple as that after world war one the

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family lost most of their fortune Her maternal

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grandfather's bank, the bank of the muse, it

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collapsed. So they went from wealthy to what?

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To struggling. They had to maintain the appearance

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being bourgeois, but the reality was very different.

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They had to move from a grand apartment on the

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Boulevard de Raspal to a smaller, darker one

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on the Rue de Rennes. No running water. They

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had to walk up six flights of stairs. It was

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a deep humiliation for the family. And this is

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crucial, right? Because of this financial collapse,

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her dowry was gone. Gone. And we have to pause

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on the dowry thing because for you listening

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now, that sounds so archaic. But in the context

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of 1920s French upper middle class society. Marriage

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was a transaction. It was a business deal between

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families. No dowry, no marriage. Is that basically

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it? For her class, precisely. Without a dowry,

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you couldn't buy a husband of suitable status.

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Her marriage prospects just evaporated overnight.

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But here is the aha moment, the turning point.

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Beauvoir didn't see this as a tragedy. She saw

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it as a liberation. It's the classic blessing

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in disguise, but on a massive life -altering

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scale. It completely forced her hand. Because

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she couldn't rely on a husband to support her,

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she had to work. She had to earn her own living.

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That necessity drove her toward education and

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eventually economic independence, which of course

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became a cornerstone of her feminist philosophy

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later on. So she knew from a young age that her

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brain was her only asset. It was her only way

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out. She realized that if she'd had that dowry,

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she likely would have been married off to some

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respectable lawyer. or a banker, had five kids,

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and we never would have heard of Simone de Beauvoir.

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So if the bank hadn't collapsed, we might never

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have had the second sex. We might have just had

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Simone, the Parisian housewife. It is very, very

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likely. The loss of her family's privilege was

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the catalyst for her personal and intellectual

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freedom. It's profound irony. And there was another

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major break from her background happening at

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the same time. Her faith. Remember, she was raised

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in this incredibly strict Catholic environment.

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Convent schools, the whole nine yards. She was

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incredibly religious as a child. She wrote in

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her memoirs that she wanted to become a nun.

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She would play at being a martyr. So what happened?

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How do you go from wanting to be a nun to being

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one of the world's most famous atheists? It was

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a hard pivot. It happened during a crisis of

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faith when she was about 14. But it wasn't just

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a sort of drifting away like, oh, I'm too busy

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for church now. It was a conscious... deliberate

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intellectual decision she thought it through

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deeply she decided that she wanted to confront

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the world honestly on its own terms without what

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she saw as the comfort of illusion she felt that

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using faith to explain the world's suffering

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or its mysteries was in her words an evasion

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there's a quote here from her writings that is

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just it's scathing she said the believer derives

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a sense of great superiority from this very cowardice

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itself ouch That is sharp. Right. She's basically

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saying, you think you're better than me because

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you have faith, but really you're just afraid.

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I'm the brave one for facing the void without

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a safety net. And that atheism stayed with her

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for the rest of her life. It's absolutely central

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to existentialism. The core idea is that if there

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is no God, there's no predetermined purpose for

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humanity. There's no divine blueprint for your

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life. You are thrown into the world and you alone

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are responsible for creating your own meaning.

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That's terrifying for a lot of people. It's terrifying

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but it's also radically freeing. She started

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that journey at 14, deciding to face the universe

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without a buffer. So she's broken with the church.

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She's broken with the traditional path of marriage.

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Now she throws herself completely into academia.

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And domination really is the right word here.

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She goes to the Sorbonne. She sits in on classes

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at the École Normale Supérieure. Which is like

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the Ivy League of French philosophy, but even

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more exclusive. Yeah. It was the absolute training

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ground for the intellectual elite. And she prepares

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for the aggregation. We really need to explain

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the aggregation because it doesn't have a perfect

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equivalent in the U .S. or U .K. systems. It

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isn't just a final exam or a Ph .D. defense.

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It's a grueling, year -long, highly competitive

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national ranking exam. So it's not just pass

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-fail. It's about where you rank in the entire

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country. Exactly. Your rank determines your entire

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career. It determines whether you get to teach

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at a prestigious university in Paris or get sent

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off to a high school in the provinces. It separates

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the wheat from the chaff in the French education

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system. And she didn't just pass. She crushed

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it. She did. In 1929, she was 21 years old. She

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was the youngest person to ever pass the philosophy

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aggregation at that time. The youngest ever.

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That is just incredible. And looking at the final

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ranking, she came in second. But we have to qualify

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that because we have to ask. Who came in first?

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Jean -Paul Sartre. Right. But Sartre was 24.

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And crucially, he was retaking the exam. He had

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failed it the previous year because he was too

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arrogant in his answers. He tried to be too original,

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and the judges, who valued tradition, failed

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him for it. So he had an extra year of prep.

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And he was older, and he was male. And the jury...

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Well, the records show they debated heavily.

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They narrowly awarded Sartre first place because

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he was the boy genius, the established figure

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from the ENS. But many on the jury felt that

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Beauvoir was actually the sharper, more precise,

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more philosophically rigorous candidate that

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year. Still second place to Sartre at 21 as the

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youngest ever to pass. That solidified it. She

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was economically independent. She was a certified

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genius. And she had met the man who would be

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her partner for the next 51 years. Which brings

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us to the pact. The pact. This is the stuff of

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legend. This is what every philosophy undergrad

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talks about. So they meet during college while

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they're studying for the aggregation. She wasn't

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interested at first, right? Not really, no. Sartre

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was short. He had a wandering eye, literally.

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He had strabismus. And he wasn't traditionally

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handsome. He was, by all accounts, quite messy.

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But he was relentless. He was completely captivated

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by her determination and her intellect. He saw

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her as an equal. He was the first person she'd

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ever met who she felt was her intellectual equal.

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That's what won her over. The conversation was

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just on another level. But when things got serious

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and her father confronted them, the expectation

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was naturally... But Beauvoir had no dowry. And

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as we've established, she had no interest in

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the institution itself. She really, really hated

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the idea of marriage. She viewed it as a trap.

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She called it an alienating institution. She

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thought it was dangerous for men because they

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get saddled with the burden of providing. And

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it was enslaving for women because they become

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economically and emotionally dependent. There's

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a quote of hers. Any institution which solders

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one person to another, obliging people to sleep

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together who no longer want to, is a bad one.

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Right. So for her, marriage was a kind of institutionalized

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bad faith. It forced you to pretend feelings

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you might not have anymore. So instead of a wedding

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ring, Sartratra proposes a lease. A two -year

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lease. It's a very cinematic scene. They were

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sitting on a bench outside the Louvre, and he

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said, let's sign a two -year lease. A renewable

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one, but a lease nonetheless. It sounds so transactional.

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I'll take the apartment and the relationship

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for 24 months, please, with an option to renew.

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It was their attempt to structure freedom into

00:12:12.340 --> 00:12:15.240
commitment. And they came up with this famous

00:12:15.240 --> 00:12:17.720
distinction. They had their essential love, which

00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:19.419
was what they had between them. Yeah. And then

00:12:19.419 --> 00:12:21.759
there were contingent loves. Meaning they could

00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:24.220
see other people. Exactly. The essential love

00:12:24.220 --> 00:12:27.720
was the core, the primary, unshakable intellectual

00:12:27.720 --> 00:12:31.409
and emotional bond. contingent loves affairs

00:12:31.409 --> 00:12:34.169
flings even serious relationships with other

00:12:34.169 --> 00:12:36.309
people were permitted what was the main rule

00:12:36.309 --> 00:12:38.950
total transparency they promised to tell each

00:12:38.950 --> 00:12:41.970
other everything no secrets no lies every detail

00:12:41.970 --> 00:12:44.049
of their contingent loves had to be shared and

00:12:44.049 --> 00:12:46.629
they actually stuck to this for 51 years they

00:12:46.629 --> 00:12:48.809
never lived together they never married they

00:12:48.809 --> 00:12:51.409
never had children it was a sexual relationship

00:12:51.409 --> 00:12:53.889
especially at the beginning but it wasn't an

00:12:53.889 --> 00:12:56.539
exclusive one And more than anything, it was

00:12:56.539 --> 00:12:59.360
a profound intellectual symbiosis. They read

00:12:59.360 --> 00:13:01.500
everything the other wrote, didn't they? Before

00:13:01.500 --> 00:13:04.840
anyone else. Always. They were each other's first

00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:07.860
and most important reader and critic. There's

00:13:07.860 --> 00:13:10.279
still a huge debate among scholars about who

00:13:10.279 --> 00:13:13.600
influenced whom more. For a long time, the story

00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:16.200
was that she was his disciple. The junior partner.

00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:19.039
Right. Even she downplayed her own philosophical

00:13:19.039 --> 00:13:22.330
originality sometimes to her detriment. But modern

00:13:22.330 --> 00:13:24.509
scholarship, especially looking at her diaries

00:13:24.509 --> 00:13:27.190
and early essays, shows she was reading philosophers

00:13:27.190 --> 00:13:30.649
like Hegel and Leibniz independently. She influenced

00:13:30.649 --> 00:13:33.730
his seminal work being and nothingness just as

00:13:33.730 --> 00:13:36.509
much, if not more, in some areas as he influenced

00:13:36.509 --> 00:13:39.250
her. And he gave her that nickname, Castor. Yes,

00:13:39.330 --> 00:13:42.230
Castor, which is French for beaver. It was given

00:13:42.230 --> 00:13:44.649
to her by their friend René Mahou. It was partly

00:13:44.649 --> 00:13:47.000
a play on her name. Beauvoir sounds a bit like

00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:49.299
beaver in English, but also because, as Mahou

00:13:49.299 --> 00:13:51.480
said, beavers are animals that live in communities

00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:53.720
and have a constructive bent. She was a worker.

00:13:53.919 --> 00:13:56.000
She was an incredibly hard worker, always building.

00:13:56.139 --> 00:13:58.240
Yeah, building arguments, building books, building

00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:00.460
a life. So they have this open relationship.

00:14:00.799 --> 00:14:03.440
They're the undisputed power couple of the Parisian

00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:06.139
intellectual scene. But this wasn't just about

00:14:06.139 --> 00:14:08.440
living a bohemian lifestyle. They were turning

00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:11.190
their lives into philosophy. And Beauvoir started

00:14:11.190 --> 00:14:13.429
doing this through fiction. Fiction was a major

00:14:13.429 --> 00:14:16.429
vehicle for her philosophical ideas. She believed

00:14:16.429 --> 00:14:18.889
that philosophy wasn't just abstract logic you

00:14:18.889 --> 00:14:21.809
write in an essay. It had to be lived. It had

00:14:21.809 --> 00:14:24.490
to be experienced in the complexities of human

00:14:24.490 --> 00:14:26.990
relationships. And her first novel is a perfect

00:14:26.990 --> 00:14:29.330
example of this. She Came to Stay, published

00:14:29.330 --> 00:14:32.549
in 1943. Right. On the surface, it's a novel

00:14:32.549 --> 00:14:35.610
about a tense love triangle in Paris. But really,

00:14:35.789 --> 00:14:38.450
it's a thinly veiled, fictionalized account of

00:14:38.450 --> 00:14:45.759
a real -life menage a trois. Wait, actual sisters?

00:14:46.059 --> 00:14:49.179
Yes. Olga was one of Beauvoir's students. Beauvoir

00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:51.399
became, you could say, infatuated with her, perhaps

00:14:51.399 --> 00:14:53.919
obsessed is the better word. Sartre then tried

00:14:53.919 --> 00:14:56.220
to pursue Olga. Olga rejected him, so he moved

00:14:56.220 --> 00:14:58.840
on to her sister Wanda. It was incredibly messy

00:14:58.840 --> 00:15:01.179
and emotionally fraught. Vessi is an understatement.

00:15:01.259 --> 00:15:03.899
That sounds like a modern -day reality TV show,

00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:06.539
not high philosophy. But in the book... Beauvoir

00:15:06.539 --> 00:15:10.919
uses this very real, very painful drama to explore

00:15:10.919 --> 00:15:14.580
a deep philosophical concept, the relationship

00:15:14.580 --> 00:15:17.279
between the self and the other. It's about consciousness.

00:15:17.720 --> 00:15:20.639
How so? The book's core idea is that the existence

00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:23.340
of another person, another consciousness, is

00:15:23.340 --> 00:15:26.379
a threat to your own. When someone else enters

00:15:26.379 --> 00:15:28.820
the room, they steal the world from you because

00:15:28.820 --> 00:15:30.700
they see it from their own perspective, turning

00:15:30.700 --> 00:15:33.639
you into an object in their world. The novel

00:15:33.639 --> 00:15:37.039
ends in a... rather violent way to resolve this

00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:40.039
philosophical problem. So she's taking her real

00:15:40.039 --> 00:15:42.340
-life jealousy and emotional turmoil and turning

00:15:42.340 --> 00:15:44.879
it into a high -stakes analysis of human consciousness.

00:15:45.139 --> 00:15:47.659
Exactly. And she did it again and again. Her

00:15:47.659 --> 00:15:49.700
most famous novel is probably The Mandarins from

00:15:49.700 --> 00:15:52.720
1954. That book actually won the Prix Goncourt,

00:15:52.940 --> 00:15:55.340
which is France's highest literary prize, like

00:15:55.340 --> 00:15:57.019
the Booker or the Pulitzer. And that's another

00:15:57.019 --> 00:15:59.500
one based on her life, right? Yes. It's a Romana

00:15:59.500 --> 00:16:01.889
Cleffa novel with a key. It's about her intellectual

00:16:01.889 --> 00:16:04.509
circle after World War II grappling with their

00:16:04.509 --> 00:16:06.509
political commitments in the new Cold War era.

00:16:07.009 --> 00:16:08.990
All the characters are based on real people.

00:16:09.269 --> 00:16:11.950
Sartre, Camus, herself. And that one was dedicated

00:16:11.950 --> 00:16:14.129
to Nelson Algern, right? The American writer.

00:16:14.210 --> 00:16:16.169
We'll definitely get to him later. But it just

00:16:16.169 --> 00:16:19.509
shows again that for her, life, love, politics

00:16:19.509 --> 00:16:21.870
and philosophy were all completely intertwined.

00:16:21.950 --> 00:16:24.590
You can't separate them. And this feeds directly

00:16:24.590 --> 00:16:27.289
into her more explicit work on existentialist

00:16:27.289 --> 00:16:29.629
ethics. She wrote these important but lesser

00:16:29.629 --> 00:16:32.610
-known essays like Pyrrhus and Sineas and The

00:16:32.610 --> 00:16:35.289
Ethics of Ambiguity. And in them, she argued

00:16:35.289 --> 00:16:37.549
that existentialism is the only philosophy that

00:16:37.549 --> 00:16:40.129
really takes evil seriously. How so? Because

00:16:40.129 --> 00:16:42.809
usually people think existentialism means nothing

00:16:42.809 --> 00:16:44.909
matters, so do whatever you want. That's the

00:16:44.909 --> 00:16:48.110
common nihilist misinterpretation. But Beauvoir

00:16:48.110 --> 00:16:51.110
fought fiercely against that. She takes on Dostoevsky's

00:16:51.110 --> 00:16:53.759
famous lines from The Brothers Karamazov. If

00:16:53.759 --> 00:16:55.679
God does not exist, everything is permitted.

00:16:56.240 --> 00:16:58.440
But she flips it. She says, because there is

00:16:58.440 --> 00:17:00.919
no God, we are solely responsible for everything.

00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:03.240
The buck stops with us. Entirely. We don't have

00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:05.559
a divine rule book or a cosmic plan to hide behind.

00:17:05.740 --> 00:17:07.859
So freedom isn't just doing whatever you feel

00:17:07.859 --> 00:17:10.500
like. That's childish. Authentic freedom requires

00:17:10.500 --> 00:17:12.740
recognizing and willing the freedom of others.

00:17:12.900 --> 00:17:14.779
That is a crucial distinction. There's a quote

00:17:14.779 --> 00:17:17.940
here. No project can be defined except by its

00:17:17.940 --> 00:17:20.559
interference with other projects. Right. It means

00:17:20.559 --> 00:17:22.819
your freedom is bound up with everyone else's.

00:17:22.859 --> 00:17:26.049
You cannot be truly free. if you are oppressing

00:17:26.049 --> 00:17:28.710
others. If you're a tyrant, you aren't free.

00:17:28.869 --> 00:17:31.410
You are dependent on your slaves for your identity.

00:17:31.710 --> 00:17:34.329
It's a deeply moral and responsible philosophy,

00:17:34.490 --> 00:17:36.950
contrary to what a lot of its critics claimed.

00:17:37.150 --> 00:17:39.130
And they try to put this into practice with their

00:17:39.130 --> 00:17:41.490
political journal, Les Temps Modernes, The Modern

00:17:41.490 --> 00:17:45.309
Times. Yes, co -founded in 1945 with Sarch and

00:17:45.309 --> 00:17:48.210
the philosopher Maurice Merleau -Ponty. The guiding

00:17:48.210 --> 00:17:51.849
philosophy was engagement. Writers and intellectuals

00:17:51.849 --> 00:17:54.190
must be engaged. They must take sides on the

00:17:54.190 --> 00:17:55.849
political issues of the day. You can't just be

00:17:55.849 --> 00:17:58.609
an ivory tower academic. Exactly. You can't sit

00:17:58.609 --> 00:18:01.430
on the sidelines of history. Sartre, in the journal's

00:18:01.430 --> 00:18:04.269
famous preface, blamed the writer Flaubert for

00:18:04.269 --> 00:18:06.269
the bloody repression of the Paris Commune in

00:18:06.269 --> 00:18:09.710
1871. Not because Flaubert was a soldier or a

00:18:09.710 --> 00:18:12.829
politician, but because, as Sartre put it, he

00:18:12.829 --> 00:18:16.900
did not write a line to stop it. Wow. That is

00:18:16.900 --> 00:18:19.759
a ridiculously high bar for a writer. If you

00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:22.400
don't actively write against injustice, you are

00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:25.160
complicit in it. That was their creed. Silence

00:18:25.160 --> 00:18:27.480
is not neutral. Silence is an act of support

00:18:27.480 --> 00:18:30.079
for the oppressor. It's a very demanding ethical

00:18:30.079 --> 00:18:32.940
position. OK, so she's established herself as

00:18:32.940 --> 00:18:35.579
a major philosopher, a pre -Goncourt winning

00:18:35.579 --> 00:18:38.980
novelist, a public intellectual. She is a giant

00:18:38.980 --> 00:18:42.359
in the French scene. But then comes 1949. The

00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:44.559
book that changed everything? The second sex.

00:18:45.259 --> 00:18:48.299
Leducium sex. This is the big one. It is, without

00:18:48.299 --> 00:18:50.779
exaggeration, the foundation of second wave feminism.

00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:53.480
And it gave us that dictum, probably one of the

00:18:53.480 --> 00:18:56.220
most famous sentences of the 20th century. One

00:18:56.220 --> 00:18:59.380
is not born, but rather becomes a woman. It's

00:18:59.380 --> 00:19:01.220
a line that has echoed through the decades. And

00:19:01.220 --> 00:19:03.059
we need to really, really unpack it because it's

00:19:03.059 --> 00:19:05.539
so often misunderstood or just quoted out of

00:19:05.539 --> 00:19:07.299
context. So what was she actually saying there?

00:19:07.339 --> 00:19:09.640
What does it mean to become a woman? She was

00:19:09.640 --> 00:19:12.319
making a radical distinction for the time between.

00:19:12.829 --> 00:19:15.210
Biological sex, being born with female anatomy,

00:19:15.390 --> 00:19:18.490
and the social construct of gender, the process

00:19:18.490 --> 00:19:21.109
of becoming a woman as society defines it. So

00:19:21.109 --> 00:19:24.690
female is biology, but woman is an idea. It's

00:19:24.690 --> 00:19:27.650
an idea that is imposed upon you. She's saying

00:19:27.650 --> 00:19:30.680
that womanhood... With all its associated traits,

00:19:30.900 --> 00:19:34.099
passivity, domesticity, being emotional, being

00:19:34.099 --> 00:19:36.640
focused on beauty and pleasing others, isn't

00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:39.259
a natural state. It's not your destiny. It's

00:19:39.259 --> 00:19:42.079
a process. It is something society forces upon

00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:44.480
you from the moment you are born, from the moment

00:19:44.480 --> 00:19:46.359
you're wrapped in a pink blanket and told to

00:19:46.359 --> 00:19:48.619
be a good little girl. It's the difference between

00:19:48.619 --> 00:19:51.420
biology and a script you're forced to perform.

00:19:51.930 --> 00:19:54.130
That's a great way to put it. And to explain

00:19:54.130 --> 00:19:56.630
how this happens, she reintroduces her concept

00:19:56.630 --> 00:19:59.269
of the other. She argues that throughout history,

00:19:59.509 --> 00:20:03.009
man has defined himself as the subject, the absolute,

00:20:03.130 --> 00:20:05.869
the default human being. And woman is always

00:20:05.869 --> 00:20:08.670
defined relative to him. She is the other. She's

00:20:08.670 --> 00:20:10.650
not her own person. She's defined by her relationship

00:20:10.650 --> 00:20:13.109
to the man. Precisely. And she dives deep into

00:20:13.109 --> 00:20:14.829
history for this, doesn't she? She goes through

00:20:14.829 --> 00:20:17.369
mythology, biology, psychoanalysis, and historical

00:20:17.369 --> 00:20:19.890
materialism to prove her point. She cites Aristotle.

00:20:20.269 --> 00:20:24.069
Right. She quotes Aristotle, who said women are

00:20:24.069 --> 00:20:26.690
female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities.

00:20:26.990 --> 00:20:29.589
She quotes St. Thomas Aquinas, who called women

00:20:29.589 --> 00:20:33.490
imperfect men or incidental beings. She shows

00:20:33.490 --> 00:20:36.049
how this isn't just a few misogynists. It's baked

00:20:36.049 --> 00:20:38.230
into the very foundation of Western thought.

00:20:38.410 --> 00:20:41.730
And she says men create a mystery around women.

00:20:41.849 --> 00:20:44.630
What does she mean by that? It's a tactic. She

00:20:44.630 --> 00:20:47.130
says that when men don't understand women or

00:20:47.130 --> 00:20:49.690
don't want to make the effort to, they label

00:20:49.690 --> 00:20:52.730
them mysterious. If women are these strange,

00:20:52.990 --> 00:20:55.589
unknowable, mystical creatures, then men are

00:20:55.589 --> 00:20:57.589
excused from treating them as equals or trying

00:20:57.589 --> 00:21:00.089
to understand their actual problems. It's a convenient

00:21:00.089 --> 00:21:02.920
myth to maintain power. And this all leads to

00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:05.660
her famous ideas of imminence versus transcendence.

00:21:05.660 --> 00:21:07.900
I love these terms because they sound very philosophical

00:21:07.900 --> 00:21:09.839
and fancy, but they're actually very practical.

00:21:10.099 --> 00:21:12.559
They really are. Transcendence is the goal of

00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:15.180
human existence for any existentialist. It's

00:21:15.180 --> 00:21:17.339
reaching out into the world, taking action, creating,

00:21:17.500 --> 00:21:20.500
having projects, shaping your future. It's building

00:21:20.500 --> 00:21:22.380
a bridge, writing a book, inventing a vaccine,

00:21:22.579 --> 00:21:24.779
starting a company. It's about transcending your

00:21:24.779 --> 00:21:27.710
current situation. And imminence is the opposite.

00:21:27.950 --> 00:21:30.490
Imminence is stagnation. It's passive existence.

00:21:30.869 --> 00:21:33.569
It's being acted upon rather than acting. It's

00:21:33.569 --> 00:21:35.730
the realm of maintenance, of repetition. And

00:21:35.730 --> 00:21:38.369
she argued that women are systematically forced

00:21:38.369 --> 00:21:41.250
into a life of imminence. Yes. She talks about

00:21:41.250 --> 00:21:44.089
housework in a very specific philosophical way.

00:21:44.369 --> 00:21:47.450
Cooking, cleaning, washing dishes. These are

00:21:47.450 --> 00:21:50.210
endless cycles of repetition. You wash the dishes

00:21:50.210 --> 00:21:52.769
just so they can get dirty again tomorrow. You

00:21:52.769 --> 00:21:54.829
aren't creating anything new that lasts, you

00:21:54.829 --> 00:21:57.490
are just maintaining the status quo. She argued

00:21:57.490 --> 00:22:00.210
that women are resigned to this world of imminence

00:22:00.210 --> 00:22:01.930
and the only way out is through transcendence,

00:22:01.990 --> 00:22:04.009
which for her requires economic independence

00:22:04.009 --> 00:22:06.410
above all else. You can't have projects if you

00:22:06.410 --> 00:22:08.910
can't pay your own rent. Basically, yes. Now,

00:22:08.930 --> 00:22:11.269
here's the absolute tragedy of this book. It

00:22:11.269 --> 00:22:14.309
comes out in France in 1949. It causes a massive

00:22:14.309 --> 00:22:17.170
scandal. The Vatican puts it on the Index of

00:22:17.170 --> 00:22:20.430
Prohibited Books. Albert Camus is furious about

00:22:20.430 --> 00:22:22.910
how she portrays men. But when it gets translated

00:22:22.910 --> 00:22:26.569
into English... Something goes terribly wrong.

00:22:26.670 --> 00:22:29.190
Something goes wrong is putting it very, very

00:22:29.190 --> 00:22:33.230
mildly. The American publisher, Alfred A. Knopf,

00:22:33.369 --> 00:22:35.970
hired a man named Howard Parsley to translate

00:22:35.970 --> 00:22:39.240
it in 1953. Parsley was a professor of zoology

00:22:39.240 --> 00:22:41.259
at Smith College. Wait, let me get this straight.

00:22:41.319 --> 00:22:44.099
A zoology professor to translate one of the most

00:22:44.099 --> 00:22:47.119
important and dense philosophical texts of the

00:22:47.119 --> 00:22:50.400
century. Yes. His academic expertise was in reproduction

00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:54.079
and insects, not existentialism or Hegelian philosophy.

00:22:54.619 --> 00:22:57.140
And the publisher's wife, Blanchnoff, who prompted

00:22:57.140 --> 00:23:00.019
the translation, urged him to simplify it, to

00:23:00.019 --> 00:23:02.079
cut things down to make it more palatable for

00:23:02.079 --> 00:23:04.259
an American audience. So what did he do? How

00:23:04.259 --> 00:23:06.779
bad was it? It was a disaster. First, he cut

00:23:06.779 --> 00:23:09.619
huge sections. About 15 % of the book just vanished.

00:23:09.799 --> 00:23:12.339
He cut out dozens of historical figures she mentioned.

00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:14.500
He cut out entire arguments about the history

00:23:14.500 --> 00:23:17.059
of women's rights. But far worse than the cuts,

00:23:17.160 --> 00:23:19.559
he mistranslated key philosophical concepts.

00:23:19.859 --> 00:23:22.180
Can you give an example? Sure. When Beauvoir

00:23:22.180 --> 00:23:25.099
used a specific Hegelian or Heideggerian term

00:23:25.099 --> 00:23:27.920
for, say, consciousness or being for itself,

00:23:28.319 --> 00:23:30.420
he would just translate it with a generic English

00:23:30.420 --> 00:23:32.259
word that lost all the philosophical weight.

00:23:32.359 --> 00:23:35.240
He made it seem less like a rigorous... philosophical

00:23:35.240 --> 00:23:38.640
argument and more like a dry, if radical, sociological

00:23:38.640 --> 00:23:41.259
study about the sexes. So for decades, English

00:23:41.259 --> 00:23:43.859
speakers, including all major feminists in America

00:23:43.859 --> 00:23:47.380
and the UK in the 60s and 70s, were reading a

00:23:47.380 --> 00:23:49.880
butchered, dumbed -down version of the second

00:23:49.880 --> 00:23:52.880
sex. Yes. It fundamentally distorted her message.

00:23:53.039 --> 00:23:55.960
It made her seem less original, less philosophically

00:23:55.960 --> 00:23:59.039
rigorous than she actually was. A faithful, integral

00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:02.460
translation wasn't published until 2009, 60 years

00:24:02.460 --> 00:24:05.109
later. That is just mind -blowing. We spent half

00:24:05.109 --> 00:24:07.269
a century misunderstanding one of the most important

00:24:07.269 --> 00:24:09.630
books of the 20th century because of a bad translation

00:24:09.630 --> 00:24:12.609
by a bug expert. It really is a tragedy of intellectual

00:24:12.609 --> 00:24:15.049
history. It seriously delayed the full appreciation

00:24:15.049 --> 00:24:16.869
of her genius in the English -speaking world.

00:24:17.130 --> 00:24:19.710
Okay, so we have the philosopher, but let's look

00:24:19.710 --> 00:24:22.170
at the woman herself. We talked about the essential

00:24:22.170 --> 00:24:26.890
love with Sartre, but there are many contingent

00:24:26.890 --> 00:24:29.650
loves, and one of them seems to have been pretty

00:24:29.650 --> 00:24:32.829
essential too, Nelson Algren. This is such a

00:24:32.829 --> 00:24:35.250
fascinating and humanizing chapter of her life.

00:24:35.430 --> 00:24:37.329
It shows a completely different side of her.

00:24:37.589 --> 00:24:41.670
She met Nelson Algren in Chicago in 1947. She

00:24:41.670 --> 00:24:43.609
was doing a four -month lecture tour of the U

00:24:43.609 --> 00:24:45.990
.S., which she wrote about in her book, America

00:24:45.990 --> 00:24:48.089
Day by Day. And who was he? He wasn't part of

00:24:48.089 --> 00:24:50.490
her Paris circle. Not at all. He was the absolute

00:24:50.490 --> 00:24:52.789
opposite of the Parisian intellectual she knew.

00:24:53.490 --> 00:24:56.529
Algren was a gritty, tough American writer. He

00:24:56.529 --> 00:24:58.769
wrote The Man with the Golden Arm. He knew the

00:24:58.769 --> 00:25:01.210
streets, the junkies, the underbelly of Chicago.

00:25:01.710 --> 00:25:04.529
He was raw and masculine in a way Sartre wasn't.

00:25:04.529 --> 00:25:06.529
And they fell hard for each other. They did.

00:25:06.630 --> 00:25:09.130
It was an incredibly passionate, physical, and

00:25:09.130 --> 00:25:11.869
deeply emotional love affair. In her letters

00:25:11.869 --> 00:25:13.809
to him, which are just heartbreaking to read,

00:25:13.950 --> 00:25:17.269
she called him her beloved husband. Think about

00:25:17.269 --> 00:25:19.289
that. This is the woman who rejected marriage

00:25:19.289 --> 00:25:21.589
as an institution, calling this man her husband.

00:25:21.769 --> 00:25:24.509
That says so much. But the relationship, it didn't

00:25:24.509 --> 00:25:27.299
last. It couldn't. It couldn't. This was the

00:25:27.299 --> 00:25:29.759
pact in action, and this is where you see its

00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:32.720
brutal side. She would not leave Paris. She would

00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:34.859
not leave Sartre and her intellectual life there.

00:25:34.940 --> 00:25:37.680
That was the essential. Algren wanted her to

00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:39.859
move to Chicago and build a life with him. She

00:25:39.859 --> 00:25:42.819
refused. Ultimately, she chose her work and her

00:25:42.819 --> 00:25:45.099
partnership with Sartre over her romantic love

00:25:45.099 --> 00:25:47.259
for Algren. And Algren was bitter about it for

00:25:47.259 --> 00:25:49.710
the rest of his life. Extremely. He felt used

00:25:49.710 --> 00:25:52.529
and betrayed, especially because she took their

00:25:52.529 --> 00:25:54.670
intimate relationship and put it directly into

00:25:54.670 --> 00:25:57.589
her novel, The Mandarins. He felt his privacy,

00:25:57.809 --> 00:26:00.329
their love had been mined for literary material.

00:26:00.769 --> 00:26:03.509
He famously said, hell, love shouldn't be that

00:26:03.509 --> 00:26:05.950
one -sided. A woman who sleeps with you all night

00:26:05.950 --> 00:26:07.609
and then gets up and writes about it in a book.

00:26:07.710 --> 00:26:10.630
But she never forgot him. Never. Decades later,

00:26:10.710 --> 00:26:13.710
when she died in 1986, she was buried wearing

00:26:13.710 --> 00:26:16.049
a silver ring that Nelson Algren had given her.

00:26:16.190 --> 00:26:19.000
Wow. That just adds such a layer of sadness to

00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:21.319
the whole story. She made her existential choice

00:26:21.319 --> 00:26:23.420
to stick with Sartre and her freedom in Paris,

00:26:23.559 --> 00:26:26.200
but she carried that other love, that other possible

00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:28.900
life to her grave. And there were others, too.

00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:31.740
It wasn't just Algren. She lived with Claude

00:26:31.740 --> 00:26:34.380
Landsman, the filmmaker who later made the monumental

00:26:34.380 --> 00:26:39.170
documentary Shoah from 1952 to 1959. She had

00:26:39.170 --> 00:26:40.789
a long -term relationship with a writer named

00:26:40.789 --> 00:26:43.410
Jacques -Laurent Bost. She was a woman who lived

00:26:43.410 --> 00:26:46.150
fully in her body as well as her mind. She was

00:26:46.150 --> 00:26:49.339
not some cold, detached ascetic. But, and here's

00:26:49.339 --> 00:26:51.960
where the deep dive gets really difficult. Her

00:26:51.960 --> 00:26:54.799
romantic and sexual life wasn't just about consenting

00:26:54.799 --> 00:26:57.900
adults like Algren or Landsman. There are serious

00:26:57.900 --> 00:27:00.480
allegations that tarnish this image of the liberated

00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:02.779
woman. We have to talk about her time as a teacher.

00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:05.180
We do. And this is the part of her biography

00:27:05.180 --> 00:27:07.539
that often gets left out of the celebratory articles,

00:27:07.779 --> 00:27:10.279
but the sources are clear and we have to confront

00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:13.539
them. In 1943, during the Nazi occupation of

00:27:13.539 --> 00:27:16.039
Paris, Beauvoir was suspended from her teaching

00:27:16.039 --> 00:27:19.029
position. She was accused of seducing a 17 -year

00:27:19.029 --> 00:27:21.109
-old student named Natalie Sorokin. And this

00:27:21.109 --> 00:27:22.869
wasn't just a school board rumor. There were

00:27:22.869 --> 00:27:25.569
legal charges. Sorokin's parents pressed charges

00:27:25.569 --> 00:27:28.369
for debauching a minor. Now, the age of consent

00:27:28.369 --> 00:27:30.690
in France at the time was 13, but there were

00:27:30.690 --> 00:27:33.089
specific laws against the corruption of minors

00:27:33.089 --> 00:27:35.490
by people in positions of authority, like a teacher.

00:27:35.950 --> 00:27:38.690
As a result, Beauvoir's national teaching license

00:27:38.690 --> 00:27:41.309
was permanently revoked. It was later reinstated

00:27:41.309 --> 00:27:44.109
after the war, but the incident is on the record.

00:27:44.400 --> 00:27:46.440
And it gets worse and more detailed with the

00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:48.940
revelations from another former student, Bianca

00:27:48.940 --> 00:27:52.200
Lamblin. Yes. This is perhaps the most damning

00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:55.180
account we have. Bianca Lamblin, who was born

00:27:55.180 --> 00:27:58.460
Bianca Bienenfeld, wrote a book in the 1990s

00:27:58.460 --> 00:28:01.539
titled Memoirs of a Deranged Young Girl. She

00:28:01.539 --> 00:28:03.240
was a brilliant student of Beauvoir's during

00:28:03.240 --> 00:28:06.359
the war, and she alleges that Beauvoir groomed

00:28:06.359 --> 00:28:08.359
her starting when she was 16. Groomed her for

00:28:08.359 --> 00:28:10.460
what, exactly? For a sexual relationship that

00:28:10.460 --> 00:28:13.220
would involve both Beauvoir and Sartre. Bianca

00:28:13.220 --> 00:28:16.019
describes what she calls a trio dynamic. She

00:28:16.019 --> 00:28:18.740
says Beauvoir first seduced her, gained her absolute

00:28:18.740 --> 00:28:21.420
trust and love, and then introduced her to Sartre

00:28:21.420 --> 00:28:23.920
to become his lover as well. So it wasn't a relationship

00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:26.160
between three equals? Not according to Lamblin.

00:28:26.740 --> 00:28:29.859
She describes feeling like a sexual toy. for

00:28:29.859 --> 00:28:32.660
the famous couple. She felt that they used her

00:28:32.660 --> 00:28:35.559
and other young women to spice up their own relationship,

00:28:35.720 --> 00:28:38.859
to test their philosophical ideas, and then discarded

00:28:38.859 --> 00:28:41.519
her when they got bored. That is just devastating.

00:28:41.759 --> 00:28:44.359
A sexual toy. It sounds like they were treating

00:28:44.359 --> 00:28:46.319
people not as subjects with their own freedom,

00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:48.920
but as objects for their own projects. And it

00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:51.259
gets even more chilling. Decades later, after

00:28:51.259 --> 00:28:54.039
Sartre died, his and Beauvoir's letters to each

00:28:54.039 --> 00:28:56.670
other were published. Bianca Lamblin read them

00:28:56.670 --> 00:28:58.869
and found that they referred to her by a cruel

00:28:58.869 --> 00:29:02.089
pseudonym, Louise Vidrine. She read what they

00:29:02.089 --> 00:29:04.009
wrote to each other about her while the affair

00:29:04.009 --> 00:29:07.069
was happening, analyzing her, mocking her insecurities,

00:29:07.230 --> 00:29:09.910
discussing her sexual performance. She said she

00:29:09.910 --> 00:29:12.650
felt nauseated. She realized the woman she had

00:29:12.650 --> 00:29:15.390
loved and admired, her teacher, had been systematically

00:29:15.390 --> 00:29:17.799
deceiving her. It really complicates the whole

00:29:17.799 --> 00:29:20.579
idea of the pact and its transparency, doesn't

00:29:20.579 --> 00:29:22.799
it? Their freedom, their honesty with each other.

00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:25.299
It seems it came at the direct expense of these

00:29:25.299 --> 00:29:28.180
vulnerable young women. It forces us to ask a

00:29:28.180 --> 00:29:30.740
very uncomfortable question. Was their brand

00:29:30.740 --> 00:29:34.180
of existentialist freedom predatory? Beauvoir

00:29:34.180 --> 00:29:36.799
argued in her philosophy that your freedom requires

00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:39.779
the freedom of others. But in these cases, it

00:29:39.779 --> 00:29:42.180
seems their project interfered destructively

00:29:42.180 --> 00:29:44.119
with the projects of these young women. They

00:29:44.119 --> 00:29:46.299
treated them as objects, not as free subjects.

00:29:46.480 --> 00:29:48.980
It's a profound contradiction. And looking at

00:29:48.980 --> 00:29:51.119
her political activism later in life, there's

00:29:51.119 --> 00:29:52.740
another controversy that jumps out, and it's

00:29:52.740 --> 00:29:56.309
a really shocking one. The 1977 petition. This

00:29:56.309 --> 00:29:58.130
is a very difficult context to understand today,

00:29:58.250 --> 00:30:01.849
but it's crucial. In 1977, the intellectual climate

00:30:01.849 --> 00:30:05.490
in post -1968 France was extremely libertarian,

00:30:05.549 --> 00:30:08.609
especially around issues of sexuality. And Beauvoir,

00:30:08.730 --> 00:30:11.230
along with Sarch, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida,

00:30:11.289 --> 00:30:13.369
and many other leading intellectuals signed a

00:30:13.369 --> 00:30:15.750
public petition. What was the petition for? It

00:30:15.750 --> 00:30:17.230
was supporting the release of three men who had

00:30:17.230 --> 00:30:19.230
been arrested for having sex with minors, some

00:30:19.230 --> 00:30:22.130
as young as 12 and 13. 12 and 13. That is just

00:30:22.130 --> 00:30:24.549
shocking to hear. It is. It was known as the

00:30:24.549 --> 00:30:27.690
Affair de Versailles. The petition argued against

00:30:27.690 --> 00:30:30.190
the age of consent laws. The argument, which

00:30:30.190 --> 00:30:32.710
seems completely alien to us now, was framed

00:30:32.710 --> 00:30:35.609
as a matter of sexual liberation. It argued that

00:30:35.609 --> 00:30:37.450
children had a right to their own desire and

00:30:37.450 --> 00:30:40.170
consent and that the state shouldn't police sexuality.

00:30:40.549 --> 00:30:42.920
It's hard to even process that logic. Looking

00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:46.220
back, it is profoundly disturbing to see these

00:30:46.220 --> 00:30:49.660
intellectual giants defending what we would unequivocally

00:30:49.660 --> 00:30:52.640
call pedophilia today. It's a stark reminder

00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:56.269
that even the most progressive icons can have

00:30:56.269 --> 00:30:58.890
moral blind spots that are horrifying in retrospect.

00:30:59.349 --> 00:31:01.230
Absolutely. You can't just gloss over that. It

00:31:01.230 --> 00:31:03.809
shows how the dogma of liberation, if it's not

00:31:03.809 --> 00:31:05.910
grounded in ethics of care and the protection

00:31:05.910 --> 00:31:08.549
of the vulnerable, can be taken to a very dangerous

00:31:08.549 --> 00:31:11.650
extreme. Let's pivot to her later years, where

00:31:11.650 --> 00:31:13.950
her activism took a more recognizable feminist

00:31:13.950 --> 00:31:16.730
shape. Because, interestingly, she didn't always

00:31:16.730 --> 00:31:19.190
call herself a feminist, did she? No, not at

00:31:19.190 --> 00:31:21.670
all. Initially, she was a socialist, first and

00:31:21.670 --> 00:31:24.690
foremost. Like many intellectuals of her generation,

00:31:24.970 --> 00:31:27.289
she believed that the class struggle was the

00:31:27.289 --> 00:31:29.930
primary struggle. The theory was that if you

00:31:29.930 --> 00:31:31.750
solved capitalism and had a socialist revolution,

00:31:32.190 --> 00:31:34.750
the woman question would just sort of resolve

00:31:34.750 --> 00:31:36.750
itself automatically. She changed her mind on

00:31:36.750 --> 00:31:39.480
that. she did by the 1970s she looked around

00:31:39.480 --> 00:31:42.000
and realized that wasn't happening she saw that

00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:44.480
sexism was just as rampant in leftist circles

00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:47.180
the male socialists were just as patriarchal

00:31:47.180 --> 00:31:50.900
as the capitalists so in 1972 she publicly and

00:31:50.900 --> 00:31:53.769
formally declared herself a feminist She joined

00:31:53.769 --> 00:31:55.569
the women's liberation movement. And she put

00:31:55.569 --> 00:31:58.670
her name and her body on the line with the manifesto

00:31:58.670 --> 00:32:02.009
of the 343. This was a huge deal. It was in 1971.

00:32:02.170 --> 00:32:04.650
Abortion was completely illegal in France and

00:32:04.650 --> 00:32:08.089
very dangerous. So 343 prominent women signed

00:32:08.089 --> 00:32:10.890
a public manifesto, which Beauvoir wrote, admitting

00:32:10.890 --> 00:32:12.970
that they had had illegal abortions. So they

00:32:12.970 --> 00:32:16.049
were admitting to a crime. A serious crime. They

00:32:16.049 --> 00:32:19.410
were risking prosecution. Beauvoir signed it.

00:32:19.450 --> 00:32:22.190
Her sister Helene signed it. Famous actresses

00:32:22.190 --> 00:32:25.009
like Catherine Deneuve signed it. It was a massive

00:32:25.009 --> 00:32:27.450
act of civil disobedience designed to show how

00:32:27.450 --> 00:32:30.089
widespread the practice was and to demand reproductive

00:32:30.089 --> 00:32:33.269
rights. It was nicknamed the Manifesto of the

00:32:33.269 --> 00:32:36.910
343 Sluts. And it worked eventually. It was a

00:32:36.910 --> 00:32:39.130
major catalyst. It paved the way for the Vail

00:32:39.130 --> 00:32:42.990
Law in 1975, which legalized abortion in France.

00:32:43.480 --> 00:32:45.839
It was a huge, concrete political victory. But

00:32:45.839 --> 00:32:47.859
even in her feminist phase, she still had some

00:32:47.859 --> 00:32:50.539
pretty controversial or at least very rigid views

00:32:50.539 --> 00:32:53.380
on women's roles. I was reading about an interview

00:32:53.380 --> 00:32:55.599
she did with Betty Friedan, the American feminist,

00:32:55.819 --> 00:32:58.180
and she was totally against the idea of paying

00:32:58.180 --> 00:33:01.579
women for housework. She was, vehemently. Friedan

00:33:01.579 --> 00:33:03.480
and others in the Wages for Housework movement

00:33:03.480 --> 00:33:06.220
suggested that maybe women should be compensated

00:33:06.220 --> 00:33:08.750
for the labor they do in the home. Beauvoir was

00:33:08.750 --> 00:33:11.130
completely opposed. She believed that if you

00:33:11.130 --> 00:33:14.009
paid women for housework, it would just institutionalize

00:33:14.009 --> 00:33:15.630
their oppression. It would trap them in the home

00:33:15.630 --> 00:33:18.269
forever. It would make being a housewife a formal

00:33:18.269 --> 00:33:20.990
profession. Exactly. And she took it a step further.

00:33:21.029 --> 00:33:22.950
She said, and this is a direct quote from that

00:33:22.950 --> 00:33:25.549
interview, no woman should be authorized to stay

00:33:25.549 --> 00:33:28.809
at home to raise her children. Authorized? That

00:33:28.809 --> 00:33:31.529
sounds incredibly authoritarian. It does to our

00:33:31.529 --> 00:33:34.980
ears. Her reasoning was that as long as the choice

00:33:34.980 --> 00:33:38.079
to stay home exists, social and family pressure

00:33:38.079 --> 00:33:41.039
will always push women into taking it. She wanted

00:33:41.039 --> 00:33:43.920
to essentially force women into the public sphere,

00:33:44.079 --> 00:33:46.740
into the workforce, because she saw that as the

00:33:46.740 --> 00:33:49.099
only possible path to transcendence and equality.

00:33:49.500 --> 00:33:52.559
So it's a very rigid, almost unforgiving form

00:33:52.559 --> 00:33:55.579
of liberation. You must be free in this specific

00:33:55.579 --> 00:33:58.190
way, even if you don't want to be. That's a very

00:33:58.190 --> 00:34:00.430
Beauvoir way of putting it. She demanded a lot

00:34:00.430 --> 00:34:02.130
from women because she believed they were capable

00:34:02.130 --> 00:34:05.210
of a lot, and she saw domesticity as an existential

00:34:05.210 --> 00:34:07.630
trap. As she got older, she also made some interesting

00:34:07.630 --> 00:34:10.170
and unconventional moves regarding her own family,

00:34:10.289 --> 00:34:13.210
or lack thereof. She adopted a daughter late

00:34:13.210 --> 00:34:16.309
in life. Yes, Sylvie Le Bon. But this wasn't

00:34:16.309 --> 00:34:18.590
a traditional adoption of a child. Sylvie was

00:34:18.590 --> 00:34:20.469
a philosophy student and a close friend of hers

00:34:20.469 --> 00:34:23.429
for years, and she was in her late 30s when Beauvoir

00:34:23.429 --> 00:34:26.969
legally adopted her in 1980. So why adopt a grown

00:34:26.969 --> 00:34:29.650
woman? There were two main reasons. Part of it

00:34:29.650 --> 00:34:32.030
was practical. She needed a literary executor.

00:34:32.070 --> 00:34:34.510
She wanted someone she trusted absolutely to

00:34:34.510 --> 00:34:37.409
manage her literary estate, to handle her copyrights

00:34:37.409 --> 00:34:40.409
and legacy, especially after seeing the conflicts

00:34:40.409 --> 00:34:43.329
that arose over Sartre's estate after he died.

00:34:43.469 --> 00:34:45.719
And the other reason. The other reason was philosophical.

00:34:46.179 --> 00:34:48.260
Scholars see it as another act of resistance

00:34:48.260 --> 00:34:51.219
against the traditional family. She was resisting

00:34:51.219 --> 00:34:54.639
the bio -heteronormative family unit. Just as

00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:56.519
she had created her own relationship structure

00:34:56.519 --> 00:34:58.960
with Sartre, she was creating her own family

00:34:58.960 --> 00:35:01.000
structure. She chose her daughter. It was an

00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:03.599
act of will. Speaking of Sartre, his decline

00:35:03.599 --> 00:35:06.400
in his final years was brutal, and she wrote

00:35:06.400 --> 00:35:10.449
about it very unflinchingly. In a dew. A Farewell

00:35:10.449 --> 00:35:13.050
to Sartre, published in 1981, a year after his

00:35:13.050 --> 00:35:15.869
death, is a painful, raw, almost clinical account

00:35:15.869 --> 00:35:19.090
of his last decade. He went blind, he lost control

00:35:19.090 --> 00:35:21.469
of his bodily functions, his mind started to

00:35:21.469 --> 00:35:24.130
slip, and she chronicled it all. And that caused

00:35:24.130 --> 00:35:27.570
controversy too, right? A huge controversy. Many

00:35:27.570 --> 00:35:29.570
in their circle felt it was a betrayal, that

00:35:29.570 --> 00:35:31.469
she was exposing him at his most vulnerable.

00:35:31.670 --> 00:35:33.889
But for her, it was the ultimate act of transparency,

00:35:34.269 --> 00:35:36.369
the final fulfillment of their pact to tell each

00:35:36.369 --> 00:35:39.369
other, and the world, everything. But again,

00:35:39.610 --> 00:35:42.530
conflict followed. She edited Sartre's letters

00:35:42.530 --> 00:35:45.369
after his death, omitting things, using pseudonyms

00:35:45.369 --> 00:35:47.829
to protect people, which led to accusations of

00:35:47.829 --> 00:35:50.130
censorship. It seems like conflict just followed

00:35:50.130 --> 00:35:52.349
her everywhere she went. It did. But she kept

00:35:52.349 --> 00:35:55.030
working until the very end. She wrote a powerful

00:35:55.030 --> 00:35:58.110
book about aging called The Coming of Age, which

00:35:58.110 --> 00:36:00.449
is a brutal look at how society discards the

00:36:00.449 --> 00:36:02.949
elderly, and a heartbreaking book about her mother's

00:36:02.949 --> 00:36:06.329
death from cancer called A Very Easy Death. She

00:36:06.329 --> 00:36:07.969
never stopped analyzing the human condition.

00:36:08.130 --> 00:36:10.849
And she died in 1986. Of pneumonia at the age

00:36:10.849 --> 00:36:13.929
of 78. She is buried next to Sartre at Montparnasse

00:36:13.929 --> 00:36:17.250
Cemetery in Paris in a single grave. So we've

00:36:17.250 --> 00:36:18.829
covered the bourgeois rebel, the existential

00:36:18.829 --> 00:36:21.489
lover, the feminist pioneer, and the alleged

00:36:21.489 --> 00:36:24.369
predator. It is a lot to hold in one's head about

00:36:24.369 --> 00:36:27.420
one person. It is. And I think that complicated

00:36:27.420 --> 00:36:31.039
legacy is best summed up by a famous anecdote,

00:36:31.380 --> 00:36:33.179
something that happened when she was speaking

00:36:33.179 --> 00:36:35.360
at Harvard. Oh, I know this one. It's so telling.

00:36:35.579 --> 00:36:38.019
A male scholar who was on stage with her became

00:36:38.019 --> 00:36:41.019
exasperated and chastised the audience. He said,

00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:43.820
every question you've asked about Sartre concerned

00:36:43.820 --> 00:36:47.019
his work, his philosophy. But all the questions

00:36:47.019 --> 00:36:49.320
you've asked about Beauvoir have concerned her

00:36:49.320 --> 00:36:52.039
personal life. That is the tragedy right there,

00:36:52.099 --> 00:36:54.300
isn't it? Even at Harvard, even at the height

00:36:54.300 --> 00:36:56.659
of her fame, she was still the woman, the personality,

00:36:56.820 --> 00:36:59.320
the partner, while he was the philosopher. But

00:36:59.320 --> 00:37:02.360
look at where we are now. Her influence is undeniable

00:37:02.360 --> 00:37:05.280
and, in many ways, has outlasted Sartre's in

00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:08.199
popular culture. Kate Millett, Germaine Greer,

00:37:08.260 --> 00:37:11.099
Betty Friedan, the titans of second wave feminism

00:37:11.099 --> 00:37:13.579
all cited the second sex as their starting point.

00:37:13.849 --> 00:37:16.449
And today, a thinker like Judith Butler takes

00:37:16.449 --> 00:37:19.429
Beauvoir's idea of becoming a woman and expands

00:37:19.429 --> 00:37:21.829
it into the modern theory of gender performativity.

00:37:22.070 --> 00:37:24.070
So you can't tell the story of the 20th century

00:37:24.070 --> 00:37:27.150
without her. Her work is the bedrock for so much

00:37:27.150 --> 00:37:30.210
of what came after. It is. And in 2019, Time

00:37:30.210 --> 00:37:32.349
magazine, as part of a project to correct its

00:37:32.349 --> 00:37:35.250
history, retroactively awarded her Woman of the

00:37:35.250 --> 00:37:38.750
Year for 1949, the year The Second Sex was published.

00:37:39.010 --> 00:37:41.650
A little late to the party, but deserved. Better

00:37:41.650 --> 00:37:44.519
late than never. So as we wrap up this deep dive,

00:37:44.659 --> 00:37:46.780
I'm left thinking about that quote on faith we

00:37:46.780 --> 00:37:48.679
talked about at the beginning. She said, faith

00:37:48.679 --> 00:37:51.159
allows an evasion of those difficulties which

00:37:51.159 --> 00:37:54.360
the atheist confronts honestly. She wanted to

00:37:54.360 --> 00:37:57.300
confront the void, to live without excuses. Which

00:37:57.300 --> 00:37:59.559
I think raises a really provocative final thought

00:37:59.559 --> 00:38:02.460
for you, our listener, to take away. Beauvoir

00:38:02.460 --> 00:38:05.659
wanted to live without bad faith. She wanted

00:38:05.659 --> 00:38:08.019
to be totally responsible for her actions in

00:38:08.019 --> 00:38:10.699
a godless universe. So when we look at her whole

00:38:10.699 --> 00:38:13.219
life, the incredible triumphs of freedom she

00:38:13.219 --> 00:38:15.159
achieved for herself and for millions of women,

00:38:15.260 --> 00:38:17.820
but also the real damage she caused to people

00:38:17.820 --> 00:38:20.059
like Bianca Lamblin and her pursuit of that freedom,

00:38:20.260 --> 00:38:22.840
does her life serve as the ultimate test of her

00:38:22.840 --> 00:38:25.099
own existentialist ethics? Did she pass her own

00:38:25.099 --> 00:38:28.139
test? That is for you to decide. But one thing

00:38:28.139 --> 00:38:30.980
is for sure. She certainly didn't evade the difficulty

00:38:30.980 --> 00:38:33.059
of living. Thank you for listening to The Deep

00:38:33.059 --> 00:38:36.000
Dive. We'll see you next time. Welcome to The

00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:39.059
Debate. Today we're opening what is, well, it's

00:38:39.059 --> 00:38:41.980
arguably the Bible of modern feminism. We are

00:38:41.980 --> 00:38:44.440
traveling back to the smoke -filled cafes of

00:38:44.440 --> 00:38:48.099
Paris, 1949, to discuss a book that didn't just

00:38:48.099 --> 00:38:51.239
describe women's lives, it completely re -engineered

00:38:51.239 --> 00:38:53.579
how the Western world understands the concept

00:38:53.579 --> 00:38:56.619
of woman. We're discussing Simone de Beauvoir

00:38:56.619 --> 00:39:00.440
and her magnum opus, The Second Sex. It's a massive

00:39:00.440 --> 00:39:04.539
text, over 800 pages of history, biology, and

00:39:04.539 --> 00:39:07.980
existentialist philosophy. And while its impact

00:39:07.980 --> 00:39:10.599
is undeniable, I don't think either of us would

00:39:10.599 --> 00:39:12.719
dispute that it shifted the tectonic plates of

00:39:12.719 --> 00:39:15.239
culture, we're here to question the cost of that

00:39:15.239 --> 00:39:17.800
shift. The central question we need to wrestle

00:39:17.800 --> 00:39:20.699
with is this. Does Beauvoir's framework of absolute

00:39:20.699 --> 00:39:24.230
freedom actually liberate women? Or does it impose

00:39:24.230 --> 00:39:26.510
a cold, almost masculine standard of success

00:39:26.510 --> 00:39:29.190
that devalues the lived experiences of mothers,

00:39:29.429 --> 00:39:32.369
caregivers, and, well, anyone who doesn't want

00:39:32.369 --> 00:39:34.150
to live their life as a public intellectual?

00:39:34.389 --> 00:39:37.369
I represent the position that the second sex

00:39:37.369 --> 00:39:40.130
is the indispensable toolkit for liberation.

00:39:40.590 --> 00:39:43.769
Beauvoir provided the first. rigorous philosophical

00:39:43.769 --> 00:39:47.110
argument for separating biological sex from social

00:39:47.110 --> 00:39:50.070
gender. She gave women the intellectual weaponry

00:39:50.070 --> 00:39:53.449
to stop being the other and become free subjects

00:39:53.449 --> 00:39:56.519
capable of choosing their own destiny. And I

00:39:56.519 --> 00:39:59.059
take the position that while her diagnosis of

00:39:59.059 --> 00:40:01.960
the problem was sharp and necessary, her cure

00:40:01.960 --> 00:40:05.260
was elitist and ethically dangerous. I'll argue

00:40:05.260 --> 00:40:07.880
that Beauvoir's definition of transcendence,

00:40:07.920 --> 00:40:11.320
her ideal of freedom, explicitly demonizes domestic

00:40:11.320 --> 00:40:14.460
life and motherhood. And furthermore, I believe

00:40:14.460 --> 00:40:17.119
her philosophy of existence precedes essence,

00:40:17.380 --> 00:40:20.519
when applied to real human beings, led to a form

00:40:20.519 --> 00:40:22.780
of narcissism that justified the exploitation

00:40:22.780 --> 00:40:26.159
of vulnerable people in her own life. Okay, so

00:40:26.159 --> 00:40:28.820
let's ground this discussion in the woman herself

00:40:28.820 --> 00:40:31.260
before we get into the density of the philosophy.

00:40:31.579 --> 00:40:34.239
Simone de Beauvoir wasn't merely Sartre's girlfriend,

00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:37.559
as the 1940s press just loved to paint her. She

00:40:37.559 --> 00:40:40.440
was an intellectual phenomenon. She passed the

00:40:40.440 --> 00:40:43.739
aggregation in philosophy at age 21, the youngest

00:40:43.739 --> 00:40:47.179
person ever to do so. For our listeners who aren't

00:40:47.179 --> 00:40:49.139
familiar with the French system, this isn't just

00:40:49.139 --> 00:40:52.059
a final exam. It is a grueling, highly competitive

00:40:52.059 --> 00:40:54.849
ranking of the best minds in the country. Though,

00:40:54.869 --> 00:40:58.429
to be fair to the history, she did come in second.

00:40:58.730 --> 00:41:01.550
John Paul Sartre came in first. Right, but only

00:41:01.550 --> 00:41:03.650
because Sartre had failed it the year prior and

00:41:03.650 --> 00:41:06.570
was retaking it. The jury actually debated awarding

00:41:06.570 --> 00:41:08.730
it to her because she was younger, passed on

00:41:08.730 --> 00:41:10.690
her first attempt, but, you know, ultimately

00:41:10.690 --> 00:41:13.090
they gave it to the senior student. The point

00:41:13.090 --> 00:41:15.349
is, she possessed a rigorous systematic mind.

00:41:16.010 --> 00:41:18.449
The second sex is not a memoir or a complaint.

00:41:18.650 --> 00:41:21.269
It is a dismantling of a millennial old myth.

00:41:21.769 --> 00:41:24.409
Her core thesis is that throughout history, humanity

00:41:24.409 --> 00:41:26.989
has been defined as male. Man is the absolute.

00:41:27.250 --> 00:41:29.909
Man is the subject. Woman is defined only in

00:41:29.909 --> 00:41:33.309
relation to him. She is the other. Right. I don't

00:41:33.309 --> 00:41:35.710
dispute the historical accuracy of that observation.

00:41:35.989 --> 00:41:38.630
When she cites Aristotle saying women are female

00:41:38.630 --> 00:41:41.289
by virtue of a certain lack of qualities, or

00:41:41.289 --> 00:41:44.349
Thomas Aquinas calling women imperfect men, the

00:41:44.349 --> 00:41:47.170
evidence is just damning. That historical survey

00:41:47.170 --> 00:41:50.719
she does is brilliant. It is foundational. Beauvoir

00:41:50.719 --> 00:41:54.239
argued that this othering isn't natural. It's

00:41:54.239 --> 00:41:57.820
a story men tell to maintain power. By identifying

00:41:57.820 --> 00:42:00.880
femininity as a historical and social construction,

00:42:01.280 --> 00:42:04.840
she breaks the spell. She tells women, your inferiority

00:42:04.840 --> 00:42:07.179
isn't written in your DNA. It's written in your

00:42:07.179 --> 00:42:09.719
laws, in your culture. And because it was made

00:42:09.719 --> 00:42:13.079
by humans, it can be unmade by humans. I grant

00:42:13.079 --> 00:42:16.500
you the power of the diagnosis. But we have to

00:42:16.500 --> 00:42:18.579
look at the philosophical engine driving this

00:42:18.579 --> 00:42:22.480
car. Beauvoir is an existentialist. We need to

00:42:22.480 --> 00:42:25.360
be clear about what that means because existentialism

00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:27.139
is a word people throw around at parties without

00:42:27.139 --> 00:42:30.639
really defining it. She operates on the maxim

00:42:30.639 --> 00:42:34.139
that existence precedes essence. A concept that

00:42:34.139 --> 00:42:36.460
is often quoted but rarely understood in its

00:42:36.460 --> 00:42:39.699
full weight. So let's define it then. It means

00:42:39.699 --> 00:42:42.539
we are born as a blank slate. That's existence.

00:42:42.800 --> 00:42:46.420
We have no predefined purpose, no human nature.

00:42:46.829 --> 00:42:50.329
no God -given soul that tells us who to be. We

00:42:50.329 --> 00:42:53.030
create our essence solely through our actions

00:42:53.030 --> 00:42:56.329
and our choices. Precisely. We are what we do.

00:42:56.630 --> 00:42:59.650
We are the sum of our actions. But here is the

00:42:59.650 --> 00:43:02.510
tension, and it's a big one. Beauvoir argues

00:43:02.510 --> 00:43:06.130
that existence precedes essence, meaning we are

00:43:06.130 --> 00:43:09.170
radically free to define ourselves. Yet the second

00:43:09.170 --> 00:43:12.389
sex spends hundreds of pages arguing that women

00:43:12.389 --> 00:43:15.769
are almost entirely constructed by society, biology,

00:43:15.949 --> 00:43:19.769
and men. If we are radically free, how can we

00:43:19.769 --> 00:43:22.130
be the victims of such total social conditioning?

00:43:22.530 --> 00:43:24.969
It feels like she's trying to have it both ways.

00:43:25.190 --> 00:43:28.250
Women are victims of a trap, but they are also

00:43:28.250 --> 00:43:30.570
somehow responsible for not breaking out of it.

00:43:30.809 --> 00:43:33.070
I think you're conflating freedom with power.

00:43:33.630 --> 00:43:36.510
Beauvoir argues that women possess the ontological

00:43:36.510 --> 00:43:39.670
freedom, the potential to define themselves,

00:43:40.070 --> 00:43:42.670
but they are in a situation where that freedom

00:43:42.670 --> 00:43:46.010
is blocked. The tragedy of the other is that

00:43:46.010 --> 00:43:48.429
she is a free subject who is forced to live as

00:43:48.429 --> 00:43:51.329
an object. She isn't saying the trap isn't real.

00:43:51.510 --> 00:43:55.750
She's saying the trap isn't natural. Hmm. I think

00:43:55.750 --> 00:43:58.809
it goes deeper than just being blocked. I think

00:43:58.809 --> 00:44:01.409
Beauvoir views the specific reality of being

00:44:01.409 --> 00:44:05.309
female, the biological reality, not just as a

00:44:05.309 --> 00:44:08.989
situation, but as a curse. She seems to view

00:44:08.989 --> 00:44:11.949
the female body as a trap that drags women back

00:44:11.949 --> 00:44:15.250
into the muck of nature, preventing them from

00:44:15.250 --> 00:44:18.309
achieving the kind of abstract intellectual freedom

00:44:18.309 --> 00:44:21.269
she valued so much. That is a harsh reading.

00:44:21.449 --> 00:44:24.150
She's analyzing how the body is used against

00:44:24.150 --> 00:44:27.389
women, not attacking the body itself. Is it?

00:44:27.800 --> 00:44:30.159
Let's look at the text. She describes the female

00:44:30.159 --> 00:44:32.599
body with words that, I mean, they evoke horror.

00:44:33.099 --> 00:44:35.599
She talks about the tyranny of reproduction.

00:44:36.039 --> 00:44:39.000
She calls the fetus a parasite that feeds on

00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:41.539
the woman's resources. She describes the pregnant

00:44:41.539 --> 00:44:44.619
body as life -passive and uncontrolled. This

00:44:44.619 --> 00:44:48.179
isn't just analysis. This is revulsion. But it's

00:44:48.179 --> 00:44:50.800
revulsion at the loss of autonomy. You have to

00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:54.599
remember, she's writing in 1949. No pill. No

00:44:54.599 --> 00:44:57.579
legal abortion. Pregnancy often was a tyranny

00:44:57.579 --> 00:44:59.719
for women who had no choice in the matter. Fair

00:44:59.719 --> 00:45:01.980
point on the context. But it feels like she is

00:45:01.980 --> 00:45:03.840
trying to solve the problem of women's oppression

00:45:03.840 --> 00:45:06.960
by suggesting women should become more like men.

00:45:07.079 --> 00:45:10.599
You know, detached, autonomous, project -oriented.

00:45:11.059 --> 00:45:13.960
She doesn't seem to want to validate a female

00:45:13.960 --> 00:45:17.139
experience. She wants to transcend it. She wants

00:45:17.139 --> 00:45:19.679
women to escape their bodies to become minds.

00:45:20.059 --> 00:45:23.159
Because historically, validating that experience

00:45:23.550 --> 00:45:26.530
was the trap. Oh, you're so good at nurturing,

00:45:26.650 --> 00:45:29.130
you stay in the kitchen while I go run the government.

00:45:29.710 --> 00:45:32.690
Both Warr saw that glorifying the mystery of

00:45:32.690 --> 00:45:35.570
motherhood was just a consolation prize given

00:45:35.570 --> 00:45:38.090
to women to keep them docile. And this leads

00:45:38.090 --> 00:45:40.369
us directly to the most famous concept in the

00:45:40.369 --> 00:45:42.750
book, the one that launched a thousand gender

00:45:42.750 --> 00:45:46.829
studies departments. One is not born, but becomes

00:45:46.829 --> 00:45:50.869
a woman. It is the bedrock of the entire modern

00:45:50.869 --> 00:45:53.860
debate. And for good reason. Before Beauvoir,

00:45:54.099 --> 00:45:57.099
woman was seen as a static, biological destiny.

00:45:57.619 --> 00:46:00.539
Anatomy was destiny. If you had a womb, your

00:46:00.539 --> 00:46:03.159
purpose was to be a mother. Beauvoir shattered

00:46:03.159 --> 00:46:06.320
that. She distinguished between female, the biological

00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:10.159
fact, and woman, the social construct of femininity,

00:46:10.260 --> 00:46:13.039
the makeup, the passivity, the domestic role.

00:46:13.280 --> 00:46:16.940
This distinction, sex versus gender, is something

00:46:16.940 --> 00:46:20.949
we take for granted in 2026. But in 1949, it

00:46:20.949 --> 00:46:24.550
was absolute heresy. It was revolutionary. It

00:46:24.550 --> 00:46:27.070
implies that femininity is a learned performance.

00:46:27.570 --> 00:46:29.949
This anticipates thinkers like Judith Butler

00:46:29.949 --> 00:46:33.389
by 40 years. Butler, who cites Beauvoir extensively,

00:46:33.869 --> 00:46:36.929
argues that gender is a stylized repetition of

00:46:36.929 --> 00:46:39.889
acts. It's something we do, not something we

00:46:39.889 --> 00:46:42.949
are, Beauvoir is saying. You don't have to accept

00:46:42.949 --> 00:46:45.409
the script society handed you just because of

00:46:45.409 --> 00:46:47.789
your biology. That is the essence of liberation.

00:46:48.840 --> 00:46:51.280
I understand the utility of that argument for

00:46:51.280 --> 00:46:53.940
liberation. It's a powerful tool. But there's

00:46:53.940 --> 00:46:57.099
a risk in taking it too far. If woman is entirely

00:46:57.099 --> 00:46:59.360
a social construct, something we just become,

00:46:59.659 --> 00:47:02.679
where is the ground to stand on? It seems to

00:47:02.679 --> 00:47:05.280
erase the material reality of the female experience.

00:47:05.619 --> 00:47:08.159
And this brings me to my major critique, her

00:47:08.159 --> 00:47:11.099
ethical system, the battle between transcendence

00:47:11.099 --> 00:47:14.519
and eminence. These are the key terms. We need

00:47:14.519 --> 00:47:16.739
to unpack them carefully because she uses them

00:47:16.739 --> 00:47:20.000
in a very specific existentialist way. Please,

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:23.019
go ahead. Transcendence is the gold standard

00:47:23.019 --> 00:47:25.780
for an existentialist. It's the act of reaching

00:47:25.780 --> 00:47:28.940
out into the future. It is action, creativity,

00:47:29.380 --> 00:47:32.780
building, engineering, writing. It is changing

00:47:32.780 --> 00:47:35.840
the world. It is the project. It is doing something

00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:38.960
that hasn't been done before. And imminence?

00:47:39.440 --> 00:47:42.750
Imminence is stagnation. It is repetition. It

00:47:42.750 --> 00:47:45.670
is circular. Washing dishes that will just get

00:47:45.670 --> 00:47:47.989
dirty again. Cooking meals that will just be

00:47:47.989 --> 00:47:50.670
eaten. Cleaning a house that will get dusty tomorrow.

00:47:50.949 --> 00:47:54.090
It is maintaining life rather than creating something

00:47:54.090 --> 00:47:58.070
new. Beauvoir argues that men have claimed transcendence

00:47:58.070 --> 00:48:02.050
for themselves, war, politics, art, and relegated

00:48:02.050 --> 00:48:04.710
women to imminence. And this is where I get off

00:48:04.710 --> 00:48:08.190
the train. She creates a hierarchy where career

00:48:08.190 --> 00:48:12.000
is good and care is bad. She looks at the work

00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:15.179
of raising a child or maintaining a home, work

00:48:15.179 --> 00:48:18.159
that is essential for the survival of the species,

00:48:18.519 --> 00:48:22.019
work that is foundational to civilization, and

00:48:22.019 --> 00:48:25.659
she dismisses it as mere repetition. She calls

00:48:25.659 --> 00:48:29.019
it torture and a waste. She calls it a waste

00:48:29.019 --> 00:48:31.699
because it produces nothing lasting for the individual

00:48:31.699 --> 00:48:34.880
woman. The woman puts her energy in, and at the

00:48:34.880 --> 00:48:36.900
end of the day she has nothing to show for it

00:48:36.900 --> 00:48:39.610
but a clean floor that will be dirty again. But

00:48:39.610 --> 00:48:43.409
that is a profoundly capitalistic, almost masculine

00:48:43.409 --> 00:48:46.030
way of looking at value. If you aren't building

00:48:46.030 --> 00:48:48.710
a skyscraper or writing a novel, you aren't doing

00:48:48.710 --> 00:48:52.489
anything. That is elitist. It invalidates the

00:48:52.489 --> 00:48:56.050
lived reality of millions of women who find profound

00:48:56.050 --> 00:48:59.130
meaning in the imminent sphere of care and connection.

00:48:59.530 --> 00:49:02.250
It's an intellectual from the left bank telling

00:49:02.250 --> 00:49:05.550
a mother in the suburbs that her life is meaningless.

00:49:06.269 --> 00:49:09.369
But do they find meaning or are they told to

00:49:09.369 --> 00:49:12.650
find meaning? That's Beauvoir's point. She warns

00:49:12.650 --> 00:49:15.690
us about using happiness as a metric. She writes

00:49:15.690 --> 00:49:18.050
that we shouldn't ask if women are happy in their

00:49:18.050 --> 00:49:21.409
chains. We should ask if they are free. The happiness

00:49:21.409 --> 00:49:23.889
of the housewife is often just a coping mechanism

00:49:23.889 --> 00:49:26.690
for a lack of freedom. But she doesn't just ask

00:49:26.690 --> 00:49:29.250
the question. She wants to dictate the answer.

00:49:29.590 --> 00:49:32.329
We have to talk about her 1975 interview with

00:49:32.329 --> 00:49:34.760
Betty Friedan. This is years after the book,

00:49:34.860 --> 00:49:37.860
so these are her mature, solidified views. This

00:49:37.860 --> 00:49:39.679
isn't just theory anymore. This is prescription.

00:49:40.079 --> 00:49:43.820
I know the one you're referring to. It is. Uncompromising.

00:49:44.019 --> 00:49:46.380
Friedan asked her a simple question. Should we

00:49:46.380 --> 00:49:49.139
pay women for housework? Should there be a wage

00:49:49.139 --> 00:49:51.659
for raising children? It was a popular feminist

00:49:51.659 --> 00:49:54.619
idea at the time to give economic value to domestic

00:49:54.619 --> 00:49:57.840
labor. And Beauvoir said no. She said no because

00:49:57.840 --> 00:50:00.380
she believed it would trap women in the home

00:50:00.380 --> 00:50:03.670
forever. If you pay them to stay, they will never

00:50:03.670 --> 00:50:06.829
leave. She went much further than that. She said,

00:50:07.030 --> 00:50:09.750
and I'm quoting, no woman should be authorized

00:50:09.750 --> 00:50:12.789
to stay at home to raise her children. Authorized?

00:50:12.909 --> 00:50:15.570
It's a strong word, I admit. It's a tyrannical

00:50:15.570 --> 00:50:18.530
word. She continued, women should not have that

00:50:18.530 --> 00:50:21.369
choice, precisely because if there is such a

00:50:21.369 --> 00:50:24.369
choice, too many women will make that one. That

00:50:24.369 --> 00:50:28.170
is not liberation, my friend. That is authoritarianism.

00:50:28.599 --> 00:50:31.380
She is saying you are too stupid or too conditioned

00:50:31.380 --> 00:50:34.159
to know what is good for you. So I, the philosopher,

00:50:34.460 --> 00:50:37.199
will remove the option. She wanted to outlaw

00:50:37.199 --> 00:50:39.539
the choice of motherhood as a primary vocation.

00:50:39.659 --> 00:50:42.360
You're reading it as authoritarianism. I read

00:50:42.360 --> 00:50:45.559
it as structural intervention. Beauvoir understood

00:50:45.559 --> 00:50:48.579
that choice does not exist in a vacuum. As long

00:50:48.579 --> 00:50:50.840
as the path of least resistance, the path of

00:50:50.840 --> 00:50:53.579
imminence, is available and glorified by society,

00:50:53.880 --> 00:50:56.409
women will be pressured into it. If you want

00:50:56.409 --> 00:50:59.150
equality, true equality, you have to burn the

00:50:59.150 --> 00:51:01.650
bridge behind you. You have to force women into

00:51:01.650 --> 00:51:04.289
the economy because economic independence is

00:51:04.289 --> 00:51:06.750
the sine qua non of freedom. You cannot be a

00:51:06.750 --> 00:51:08.969
free subject if you are dependent on a man for

00:51:08.969 --> 00:51:12.010
your food. So to save women, she has to destroy

00:51:12.010 --> 00:51:15.590
the things many women love? It implies that the

00:51:15.590 --> 00:51:18.469
only way to be a successful woman is to act like

00:51:18.469 --> 00:51:21.409
a successful man. It replaces the patriarchy

00:51:21.409 --> 00:51:24.510
with a matriarchy of the intelligentsia. It's

00:51:24.510 --> 00:51:27.369
saying your freedom only counts if it looks like

00:51:27.369 --> 00:51:30.130
my freedom. It's not about acting like a man.

00:51:30.210 --> 00:51:33.230
It's about participating in the human enterprise.

00:51:33.789 --> 00:51:36.610
And Beauvoir lived this. She didn't just write

00:51:36.610 --> 00:51:40.010
about it. She refused to be a mother. She refused

00:51:40.010 --> 00:51:42.969
to be a wife, which I think brings us to the

00:51:42.969 --> 00:51:46.130
third dimension of our debate, her lived philosophy.

00:51:46.670 --> 00:51:49.650
She and Sartre were the ultimate power couple,

00:51:49.789 --> 00:51:52.769
but they rejected the bourgeois rules of ownership.

00:51:53.320 --> 00:51:55.780
They certainly rejected the rules, but looking

00:51:55.780 --> 00:51:58.400
back, I'm not sure they replaced them with something

00:51:58.400 --> 00:52:02.059
better. They had a soul partnership. They never

00:52:02.059 --> 00:52:04.860
married, they never lived together, they had

00:52:04.860 --> 00:52:08.119
other lovers, often many of them, but they maintained

00:52:08.119 --> 00:52:11.139
total transparency with one another. It was a

00:52:11.139 --> 00:52:14.500
radical experiment in honesty and freedom. They

00:52:14.500 --> 00:52:16.619
wanted to prove that you could love someone without

00:52:16.619 --> 00:52:19.260
possessing them. Experiment is the right word.

00:52:19.519 --> 00:52:22.179
And like many experiments, there was collateral

00:52:22.179 --> 00:52:25.010
damage. significant damage. They were attempting

00:52:25.010 --> 00:52:27.429
to break the mold of the dutiful wife and the

00:52:27.429 --> 00:52:29.969
cheating husband. But if we look at the historical

00:52:29.969 --> 00:52:32.789
record, specifically the memoirs of the women

00:52:32.789 --> 00:52:35.630
who were pulled into their orbit, Bianca Lamblin,

00:52:35.809 --> 00:52:39.050
Natalie Sorokini, the picture isn't one of noble

00:52:39.050 --> 00:52:43.210
transparency. It looks like predation. You are

00:52:43.210 --> 00:52:46.409
referring to the trio relationships. I am referring

00:52:46.409 --> 00:52:48.769
to the fact that Beauvoir as a teacher in her

00:52:48.769 --> 00:52:51.989
30s would cultivate intense sexual and romantic

00:52:51.989 --> 00:52:54.570
relationships with her teenage female students.

00:52:55.070 --> 00:52:57.489
She would then groom them, to use the modern

00:52:57.489 --> 00:53:00.650
terminology, and pass them over to Sartre. These

00:53:00.650 --> 00:53:03.070
were complex relationships in a time of very

00:53:03.070 --> 00:53:05.949
different sexual mores. Let's not relativize

00:53:05.949 --> 00:53:08.769
this away. Bianca Lamblin, who was originally

00:53:08.769 --> 00:53:11.289
known as Bianca Beanfeld, she wrote that she

00:53:11.289 --> 00:53:14.070
felt she was a sexual toy for the couple. She

00:53:14.070 --> 00:53:15.730
said their letters, which were published after

00:53:15.730 --> 00:53:17.769
their deaths, revealed they laughed about her.

00:53:18.110 --> 00:53:21.230
used her, and then just discarded her. Beauvoir's

00:53:21.230 --> 00:53:24.329
philosophy was, existence precedes essence. I

00:53:24.329 --> 00:53:27.090
am free to do what I want. But she seemed to

00:53:27.090 --> 00:53:29.670
forget the other half of the equation, responsibility.

00:53:30.030 --> 00:53:32.610
I admit, the letters were a shock to the scholarly

00:53:32.610 --> 00:53:37.170
community. They revealed a coldness, a callousness

00:53:37.170 --> 00:53:40.070
toward these third parties that is hard to reconcile

00:53:40.070 --> 00:53:42.969
with her public stance on justice. It's not just

00:53:42.969 --> 00:53:45.590
hard to reconcile. It's a direct violation of

00:53:45.590 --> 00:53:48.670
her own ethics. She wrote in The Ethics of Ambiguity

00:53:48.670 --> 00:53:51.130
that no project can be defined except by its

00:53:51.130 --> 00:53:53.570
interference with other projects. Basically,

00:53:53.710 --> 00:53:57.030
my freedom ends where yours begins. Yet she treated

00:53:57.030 --> 00:53:58.989
these young women not as projects or subjects,

00:53:59.070 --> 00:54:02.090
but as objects. They were props in her and Sartre's

00:54:02.090 --> 00:54:05.309
grand narrative of freedom. I won't defend the

00:54:05.309 --> 00:54:07.789
abuse of power dynamics. It was exploitative.

00:54:08.010 --> 00:54:10.429
Her teaching license was actually revoked in

00:54:10.429 --> 00:54:14.010
1943 because of a complaint from Natalie Sorkini's

00:54:14.010 --> 00:54:17.409
parents. It was a serious feeling. However, I

00:54:17.409 --> 00:54:19.909
have to ask, does the personal failing of the

00:54:19.909 --> 00:54:22.730
architect cause the building to collapse? Does

00:54:22.730 --> 00:54:24.929
the fact that Beauvoir was manipulative in her

00:54:24.929 --> 00:54:27.789
love life negate the structural analysis of the

00:54:27.789 --> 00:54:30.789
second sex? It makes us question the philosophy

00:54:30.789 --> 00:54:34.210
itself. If absolute freedom leads to treating

00:54:34.210 --> 00:54:37.650
other people like disposable tissues, maybe absolute

00:54:37.650 --> 00:54:40.510
freedom is a bad goal. And it wasn't just her

00:54:40.510 --> 00:54:44.559
sex life. In 1977, Beauvoir, along with Sartre

00:54:44.559 --> 00:54:47.079
and Foucault, the giants of French intellect,

00:54:47.280 --> 00:54:50.019
signed a petition to decriminalize sex with children.

00:54:50.340 --> 00:54:52.800
The petition regarding the age of consent, yes.

00:54:52.980 --> 00:54:55.340
That is a difficult document to look at today.

00:54:55.820 --> 00:54:59.079
They argued that a 12 or 13 -year -old child

00:54:59.079 --> 00:55:02.300
could consent and that laws protecting them were

00:55:02.300 --> 00:55:05.539
oppressive. This is the logical endpoint of a

00:55:05.539 --> 00:55:08.579
philosophy that idolizes liberty above all else.

00:55:08.699 --> 00:55:10.940
When you strip away all social norms because

00:55:10.940 --> 00:55:13.789
you view them as constructs, You lose the protective

00:55:13.789 --> 00:55:17.030
barriers that keep vulnerable people safe. She

00:55:17.030 --> 00:55:20.389
was so obsessed with freedom that she couldn't

00:55:20.389 --> 00:55:23.429
see the power imbalance. That petition was a

00:55:23.429 --> 00:55:26.750
catastrophic error in judgment, shared by an

00:55:26.750 --> 00:55:29.250
entire generation of French libertarians who

00:55:29.250 --> 00:55:32.789
confused liberation with license. It is a stain

00:55:32.789 --> 00:55:35.869
on her record, and it shows the danger of abstracting

00:55:35.869 --> 00:55:38.409
everything. But I would argue we must separate

00:55:38.409 --> 00:55:41.250
the tool from the user. Beauvoir gave us the

00:55:41.250 --> 00:55:43.829
tool to analyze oppression. We can use that tool

00:55:43.829 --> 00:55:46.630
to analyze her oppression of others. That is

00:55:46.630 --> 00:55:49.610
a convenient way to salvage the legacy. She gave

00:55:49.610 --> 00:55:52.389
us the weapon we use against her. It is a necessary

00:55:52.389 --> 00:55:55.570
way. Look, without Beauvoir, we don't have second

00:55:55.570 --> 00:55:58.369
-wave feminism. Betty Friedan, Kate Millett,

00:55:58.469 --> 00:56:01.250
Shalameth Firestone, they all stood on her shoulders.

00:56:01.510 --> 00:56:03.809
Even if we reject her specific prescriptions

00:56:03.809 --> 00:56:06.710
on motherhood or her personal behavior, her core

00:56:06.710 --> 00:56:10.090
insight that women are made not born, is the

00:56:10.090 --> 00:56:12.750
oxygen that modern sociology breathes. If we

00:56:12.750 --> 00:56:15.550
throw that out, we are back to biological essentialism.

00:56:15.610 --> 00:56:18.150
We are back to women are naturally submissive.

00:56:18.230 --> 00:56:21.250
I agree that the second sex is historically vital.

00:56:21.389 --> 00:56:23.789
You cannot tell the story of the 20th century

00:56:23.789 --> 00:56:27.309
without it. But I maintain it is a cautionary

00:56:27.309 --> 00:56:30.190
tale. It shows what happens when you prioritize

00:56:30.190 --> 00:56:33.489
abstract concepts over human beings. She offered

00:56:33.489 --> 00:56:36.250
a brilliant diagnosis. Women were second -class

00:56:36.250 --> 00:56:40.019
citizens. But her cure was to demand women become

00:56:40.019 --> 00:56:42.960
super beings, stripped of their biological ties,

00:56:43.219 --> 00:56:46.420
stripped of the imminence of home, operating

00:56:46.420 --> 00:56:50.440
in a cold, competitive world of projects. And

00:56:50.440 --> 00:56:52.199
I would argue that what you call coldness was

00:56:52.199 --> 00:56:54.920
a necessary hardness. To break a chain that had

00:56:54.920 --> 00:56:57.800
held for 5 ,000 years, she couldn't be soft.

00:56:57.980 --> 00:57:00.679
She had to be absolute. She had to demand that

00:57:00.679 --> 00:57:02.599
women step into the frightening light of responsibility.

00:57:03.199 --> 00:57:05.300
She knew it would be hard. She knew it would

00:57:05.300 --> 00:57:07.710
be alienating. but she believed it was the only

00:57:07.710 --> 00:57:11.230
way to be fully human. Perhaps. But in doing

00:57:11.230 --> 00:57:14.929
so, she created a new set of expectations that

00:57:14.929 --> 00:57:18.269
weigh heavily on women today. The pressure to

00:57:18.269 --> 00:57:21.909
have it all, to be the intellectual, the worker,

00:57:22.130 --> 00:57:25.909
the creator. And the shame women feel when they

00:57:25.909 --> 00:57:28.849
just want to be mothers, or when they find joy

00:57:28.849 --> 00:57:32.289
in the imminent. That shame is Beauvoir's ghost

00:57:32.289 --> 00:57:35.780
haunting us. And yet, because of her, that shame

00:57:35.780 --> 00:57:38.420
is a choice, not a destiny. The door is open.

00:57:38.699 --> 00:57:40.980
Whether you walk through it and what you carry

00:57:40.980 --> 00:57:43.820
with you, a briefcase, a diaper bag, or both,

00:57:43.960 --> 00:57:47.719
is now up to you. A complex freedom, indeed.

00:57:48.099 --> 00:57:50.800
And one that we are still figuring out how to

00:57:50.800 --> 00:57:53.539
inhabit safely. That is the challenge she left

00:57:53.539 --> 00:57:56.599
us. To take the freedom she fought for and perhaps

00:57:56.599 --> 00:57:59.500
build a more ethical world with it than she managed

00:57:59.500 --> 00:58:02.539
to do herself. I can agree with that. Thank you

00:58:02.539 --> 00:58:03.920
for listening to The Debate.