Simone de Beauvoir

Running Head : Beauvoir 's Views

On Beauvoir 's Views : Woman as the Other and as the Other Woman

Amber Floyd College /University /Institution

Professor McLemore

PHL 101

On Beauvoir 's Views : Woman as the Other and As the Other Woman

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986 , French existentialist , writer , and social essayist , passed on just over two decades ago . Putting it this way makes her ideas so much more alive . She did not just write about how she lived . She wrote , and she lived what she wrote about : she refused to be

the Other , but she was also , in a manner of putting it the Other Woman

Simone 's Life and Love (s ) in Philosophy

Simone de Beauvoir is now noted and appreciated as a philosopher . She was not always considered a philosopher however , but a writer , and has only been given the distinction of being a noted philosopher in more recent years . Her works became considered philosophical ' only after her death

Beauvoir was born in France in 1908 . She belonged to a bourgeoisie family , and had one sister . As a teenager , she declared herself an atheist , and devoted her life to feminism and writing (Marvin , 2000

Apparently , her parent 's disposition and stature were a major influence on her . Her father was extremely interested in pursuing a career in theater , but because of his societal position (and with a noble lineage , he became a lawyer (which was expected , and hated it . Her mother , on the other hand , was a strict Catholic . Some authors have noted that Simone struggled between her mother 's religious morals and her father 's more pagan inclinations , and this purportedly led to her atheism and shaped her philosophical work . As a child , Simone was religious and had a relationship with God . She wrote in early work about her thankfulness that heaven had given her the immediately family that she had , but this feeling (at least the religious aspects of it dissipated as she aged (Flaherty , 2008

When she was around 15 , Simone de Beauvoir decided she would be a famous writer . She did well in many subjects , but was especially attracted to philosophy , which she went on to study at the University of Paris . There she met many other young creative geniuses , including Jean-Paul Sartre who became her best friend and life-long companion . The group of friends that she spent her time with was considered a bad ' group , a circle of rebels . Such perceptions did not matter however for Simone and Sartre whose fondness for each other only grew over the years . Their works were frequently linked as they read and critiqued each other 's writings , and she was sort of considered as his `student ' - the Other However , she was not just the Other , she was a significant Other , as it were . Their relationship became intimate and Sartre even proposed to her . She however declined the proposal because she felt that marriage was such a constricting institution and that they should , instead , be free to love...