SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR – The Feminist Icon Café Philo – Debate / 30th June 2021, 6.30 pm on Zoom
On the occasion of
Publishing in 2020 an intimate work by Beauvoir withheld during her lifetime Generation Equality Forum 2021, Mexico-Paris
Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir - Philosopher and
Simone de Beauvoir’s adopted daughter
Divya Dwivedi – Philosopher
Marine Rouch – Historian, PhD student in
contemporary history (FRAMESPA)
Aditi Maheshwari - Publisher at Vani Prakashan
Monica Singh - Hindi translator of The Second Sex
Moderator: Arunava Sinha - Indian translator and
Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Ashoka
University.
To attend register at:
https://ifindia.in/equality/simone-de-beauvoir
French author and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir has exerted considerable influence on feminist theory and gender studies around the world. In the context of the Generation Equality Forum 2021 and the publication of the book, The Inseparables (France, 2020), by Beauvoir’s adopted daughter, Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, the ‘Café Philo’ organized by the French Institute in India will delve deeper into how the work’s protagonist brought about a feminist awakening in Beauvoir. Her landmark book considered the Bible of the feminist movement, The Second Sex (1949), will soon be translated in Hindi
The Inseparables
This captivating unpublished novel from 1954 tells
the first passionate and tragic friendship between two
rebellious young girls, Simone de Beauvoir & Zaza.
Beauvoir referred to women as the Second Sex
because they always seemed to be defined in relation
to men. This work speaks about Beauvoir’s early life
and a relationship that formed her views on sexism
and gender inequality. This book also offers insights
into Beauvoir’s journey as a writer.
Having met during their early childhood, Simone and
Zaza dreamed of independence and higher education
in an age when this was not a given. Family pressure
caused Zaza to give up studies eventually and she
pursued a relationship thereafter that was doomed.
She died at 21, defeated by the very forces that she
wanted to fight against. Zaza finds her way into many
of Beauvoir’s works especially, ‘Memoirs of a
Dutiful Daughter’. The two were ‘inseparable’,
inspiring the book’s content and title.
More of Beauvoir’s unpublished works are on the anvil. of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Inseparables.
In the words of Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir:
Among the archives that Simone de Beauvoir entrusted to me, when she adopted me as her literary heir, there are many unpublished manuscripts, including a short story that she left untitled, the one that became “Les Inséparables” (The Inseparables). She gave me guidelines for managing this collection. A writer may have his reasons for not publishing a text immediately: but if s/he does not destroy it, it is because s/he may be planning to get back to it, to correct it, to make it public even after a long time, as Simone de Beauvoir herself did when, in 1979, she published “When Things of the Spirit Come First”, which dates back from 1938. After her death, the perspective changed. With this long novella, I found myself before a finished work, which Simone de Beauvoir had preserved, which she had even had typed. A valuable work that deserved to exist by itself. Occupied for a long time with other publications, I was only able to devote myself to it in 2020. A title quickly became obvious: I chose a term that haunts its pages.
Simone de Beauvoir wrote it in 1954. She had just spent four years on a vast novel, “The Mandarins”, which had won her the Goncourt Prize, and she wanted to take a break from fiction in favor of autobiography. For a long time, she had dreamed of reviving her childhood and her youth. But strangely, in spite of herself, her pen deviated from it: she centered the story not on the desired self-writing, but on the transposed evocation of the destiny of her great childhood friend Élisabeth Lacoin, known as Zaza. Thus, she found herself once again drawn to the fiction
genre, which explains her dissatisfaction and why she had discarded this text. She hence dived, without any detour, into the writing of the “Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter” (1958), the first volume of her great autobiographical enterprise.
The tragedy of Zaza’s brutal death at the age of 21 had left a mark on Simone de Beauvoir and she never stopped trying to do justice to her friend. At the time when she herself was emancipated, conquered her freedom and dashed towards the future, Zaza, instead of accompanying her, was destroyed. Elsewhere she confided: “The assassination of Zaza by her environment was for me a shattering and unforgettable experience.” An experience that certainly contributed to the foundation of her philosophical enterprise of demystification, and to the development of the feminist consciousness of the future author of “The Second Sex”. Zaza died because, like so many other women of her time but also of today, she was not allowed to become herself. The international success of “The Inseparables” can be explained by the various resonances, tender and profound, that this work triggers in readers. For some, it is an initiation, the discovery of Simone de Beauvoir, for others, a fascinating document. I am happy that it serves to confirm the influence of Simone de Beauvoir.
Writing to Simone de Beauvoir in order to exist: letters from her readers
- by Marine Rouch
“You are the star of hope that shines through the frontiers, above the gloomy chorus of so many paths [sic] of unhappy, mistreated and despised women" (September 27, 1958). This sentence, written by a reader in 1958, sums up the hopes that thousands of women have placed on Simone de Beauvoir.
The writer received nearly 20 000 letters between 1943, the year that marked the beginning of her literary career with the publication of her novel She Came to Stay, and 1986, the year of her death. When she published The Second Sex in 1949, it was a scandal. The intellectual world was outraged; François Mauriac, then a central French intellectual figure, launched a survey in Le Figaro littéraire on the decline of literature. But in the received letters, no ignition. Rather, relief, even recognition…and hope. But the book was still too theoretical, difficult to access for women – and men – who were not used to such reading. Ten years later, in 1958, Simone de Beauvoir published the first volume of her memoirs, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. It was followed by The Prime of Life in 1960 and Force of Circumstance in 1963. The autobiographical block was then considered by women as a “work-mode of employment”, as the long-awaited demonstration of the philosophy of The Second Sex.
Thus, the letters from her women readers reveal a long and painful process of appropriation of the Beauvoirian work by women, even before feminist movements of the 1970s took up the theses of The Second Sex. The 1950s and 1960s therefore became the scene for the constitution of a collective space by women, with the objective of understanding and sharing a common experience.
Through my research, I wish to give voice to those who wished to testify about their condition to Simone de Beauvoir. In this collection, we come across women who struggle to reconcile their professional life with their personal life; women who are housewives, exhausted by the repetitiveness of household chores and lack recognition from their close entourage and society in general; also women belittled by their husbands, who seek at all costs to divorce at a time when the weight of tradition is still too heavy… All of them find in writing – literary or the more intimate letter to Simone de Beauvoir – a way to reflect on their condition. Writing to exist, that is the credo of these women.
Many of the
letters echo our contemporary experiences despite an undeniable contextual
evolution. Simone de Beauvoir still touches, still helps. The letters she
received during her lifetime are a wonderful way to (re)discover her
work.
ABOUT THE GENERATION EQUALITY
FORUM
The Generation
Equality Forum which, kicked off in Mexico City on 29th March and will
culminate in Paris on 2nd July, is the most significant milestone
for gender equality since the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995.
This ground-breaking multi-generational campaign and global gathering is
convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France.
Considering that
no country has so far achieved full gender equality, the Forum will foster a
series of transformative actions to accelerate the progress for gender
equality by 2030. Action Coalitions will announce concrete plans of
action and bold commitments to this effect, especially in the light of the
COVID-19 pandemic which has pushed back progress with respect to
equality.
The joint press
release of 8th March of the President of the French Republic, H.E. Mr Emmanuel
Macron, and the Executive Director of UN Women, Mme Phumzile
Mlambo-Ngcuka, states: “During this crisis, we did not give up.
Despite the pandemic, because of the pandemic, we have redoubled our efforts.
We are more determined than ever to make progress and go forward…. We
will convene Governments, international organizations, civil society,
youth, the private sector and activists from the entire world to make
concrete, ambitious and sustainable commitments towards achieving gender
equality.”
In India, a series of events, organised by the Embassy of France/French Institute in India, in collaboration with the Alliance Françaises network in India and their partners, have been scheduled from March to July. Announcing the programme of activities, H.E. Mr Emmanuel Lenain, Ambassador of France to India, said, “Gender parity and diversity are the cornerstones of civil society and are vital criteria for economic growth. Gender equality is a priority for the French government and is being taken into account in all domains, including sustainable development, security, defence, environment, economic policy, the creative and cultural industries, scientific research and education.”
Gender Equality Festival initiatives at : https://ifindia.in/equality
For queries and interactions with the participants of the debate contact –
Shaifali Jetli-Sury, Communications & Partnerships, French Institute in India
sjs@ifindia.in / +91-9811261088
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