Abstract

This article is a "review of reviews," a study of the critical response to Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Second Sex , published in 1949; it also reports the publishing history and provides some statistical information on the criticism and citations of the book. The claim here is that Beauvoir's work is a "classic" appreciated for its theoretical notion of "woman as absolute Other" and its accompanying description of patriarchal culture as a reflection of that notion. But it is a classic with a mercurial past. Though the book and its author were severely attacked following its French publication, the work received positive reviews four years later upon its translation into English. Yet until the onset of the feminist movement, Beauvoir's ideas were largely ignored. However, upon the development of feminist activism followed by feminist scholarship and feminist theory, the book's analysis quickly took on a foundational status. A survey of the criticism of the book provides insight into the history of contemporary feminist theory, for nearly all of the serious debates of contemporary feminism are reflected in the critical discussion of The Second Sex