DD Support Board and Research Team

[BullNBear52]

If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically. Jean-Paul Sartre

De Beauvoir had declared that whatever her many books and literary prizes, whatever her role in the women's movement or as an intellectual ambassador championing causes such as Algerian independence, her greatest achievement in life was her relationship with Sartre - philosopher, playwright, philanderer, born 100 years ago this month.

There is something mysterious in De Beauvoir's insistence. Given Sartre's other liaisons, and that this was the height of the women's movement, it seems to fly in the face of common sense. Yet the Simone who had flouted convention in the 20s by entering into an open liaison with an ugly, charismatic young unknown was not about to conform to expectations.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/10/gender.politicsphilosophyandsociety


The Bogart and Bacall of existentialism ... De Beauvoir and Sartre in 1946. Photo: Getty Images