The Beauvoir Sisters

In this intimate biography, readers learn not only about the close relationship of Helene and Simone de Beauvoir and their artistic influence on one another, but also about the jealousy, condescension and rivalry that plagued them.

Beauvoir and Her Sisters investigates how women's experiences, as represented in print culture, led to a political identity of an "imagined sisterhood" through which political activism developed and thrived in postwar France. Through the lens of women's political and popular writings, Sandra Reineke presents a unique interpretation of feminist and intellectual discourse on citizenship, identity, and reproductive rights. Drawing on feminist writings by Simone de Beauvoir, feminist reviews from the women's liberation movement, and cultural reproductions from French women's fashion and beauty magazines, Reineke illustrates how print media created new spaces for political and social ideas. This sustained study extends from 1944, when women received the right to vote in France, to 1993, when the French government outlawed anti-abortion activities. Touching on the relationship between consumer culture and feminist practice, Reineke's analysis of a selection of women's writings underlines how these texts challenged traditional gender models and ideals. In revealing that women collectively used texts to challenge the state to redress its abortion laws, Reineke renders the act of writing as a form of political action and highlights the act of reading as an essential but often overlooked space in which marginalized women could exercise dissent and create solidarity.

The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.

This definitive biography is based on five years of interviews with de Beauvoir, and is written with her full cooperation. Bair penetrates the mystique of this brilliant and often paradoxical woman, who has been called one of the great minds of the 20th century, and surely, one of the most famously unconventional figures of her generation. "As a reference work . . . Simone de Beauvoir can be considered definitive".--The Atlantic. 16-page photographic insert.

L'une blonde, l'autre brune. L'une peintre, l'autre écrivain ; l'une sage, l'autre rebelle. Malgré leurs différences, Hélène et Simone de Beauvoir sont unies par un amour indéfectible que ni le temps ni les divergences esthétiques ou politiques ne parviendront à entamer. Alors que Simone obtient l'agrégation de philosophie et rencontre Jean-Paul Sartre, Hélène réalise sa première exposition de peinture sous le regard de Picasso. Lorsque la Seconde Guerre mondiale éclate, les deux sœurs sont séparées. Hélène épouse à Lisbonne l'un des élèves de Sartre, Lionel de Roulet, défenseur actif de la France libre, et réalise une première série de tableaux sur la vie quotidienne au Portugal. Restée en France pendant l'Occupation, Simone publie son premier roman, L'Invitée. La Libération rassemble les deux sœurs qui sont alors entraînées dans le tourbillon de la création et dans les affres de la guerre froide. Simone et Hélène parcourent le monde, se croisent, se rejoignent, se séparent encore. L'une atteint la célébrité, l'autre y aspire mais, malgré de nombreuses expositions, reste moins connue. Jalousies, amours déçues, rivalités, fascination, conflits politiques peuplent l'univers des deux sœurs et alimentent leurs confidences. Mai 1968 les réunit à nouveau dans l'aventure des droits des femmes que Claudine Monteil vécut à leur côté. L'auteure raconte, dans l'intimité, les joies, les chagrins et les luttes de ces deux femmes exceptionnelles, dont l'une laisse une œuvre littéraire colossale et l'autre plus de huit cents tableaux et gravures. Une histoire fascinante du xxe siècle.

These six women all wrote the stories of their own lives, creating powerful narratives that channelled cultural forces at the same time as parrying them.

The 1933 killing by the Papin sisters of their mistress and her daughter was an act of unexampled violence by women against women, whose repercussions have been felt in French culture ever since. It received wide journalistic coverage at the time, and subsequently prominent literary figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Genet have dealt with the case, which has also formed the basis of a stage play (by Wendy Kesselmann) and films by Nico Papatakis, Nancy Meckler and Claude Chabrol. The case casts fascinating light on French provincial life between the wars, the role of women (especially unmarried ones) in French society, and French views of the criminal outsider. Its impact on psychoanalytic discourse, through the work first of Jacques Lacan, then of Francis Dupré and Marie-Magdeleine Lessana, has also been considerable, notably in its contribution to the development of the key notion of the mirror-phase. The almost obsessive recurrence of the case makes of it a fascinating prism through which to examine multiple aspects of recent French culture.