The Second Sex

Why are so few women judges, university presidents or newspaper editors ? Why is equal pay for women still several generations away ? The Second Sex is required reading for anyone who believes in equality. Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote, 'One is not born, but rather becomes, woman'. In this book she defines the situation of women, explodes the myths of femininity and highlights the limits to women's freedom.
She shatters our perceptions of the social relationship between men and women and argues that women's economic independence is the key to their freedom. Drawing on sociology, anthropology and biology, The Second Sex is a passionate and important book as relevant today as when it was first published in 1949.

In this acclaimed new translation Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany- Chevallier have produced the first integral translation, reinstating a fifth of the original work. This definitive edition includes a foreword by Sheila Rowbotham.