The Second Sex
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season832 pages, about 17 hours: the length of 2.6 typical books on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbThe introduction asks what a woman is, then Book One opens by tracing reproduction from insects to mammals before turning to human biology.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesA reading list groups it with The Feminine Mystique, on the shelf at 410 pages, as essential feminist reading.
The case for it
on Parshley’s translation
“the translation is top-notch, and the translator’s notes throw further light on the subject”
Mary Lapsley · Cincinnati Enquirer, 1953 on the new translation
“the new translation has restored 145 pages of the original 972-page French original”
Nancy Bauer · Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2011 on the mythology chapter
“the first chapter that I found really engrossing was on mythology”
a Substack review on the Sexual Initiation chapter
“got the time and willpower to get through one chapter, make it “Sexual Initiation.””
Lydia Shoup · Ploughshares, 2017
The case against
on Parshley’s cuts
“cut 145 of the original 972 pages, or almost 15 per cent of the original.”
Toril Moi · London Review of Books, 2010 on the material
“the book is a tangle of facts, theories, lists of names, and pronouncements about women”
Christina Hoff Sommers · Claremont Review of Books, 2010 on Lived Experience
“Lived Experience is also informative but I felt that it was a bit repetitive”
a book blog on Women in Love
“Why was I struggling through her chapter, entitled, “Women in Love”?”
Anna Lynn · Usawa Literary Review, 2023
