In both sexes, the same drama of flesh and spirit, of finitude and transcendence, is played out; both are gnawed by time, death lurks for both, they both have the same need for one another; and they can draw the same glory from their freedom; if they knew how to enjoy it, they would not be tempted to claim illusory privileges; and then brotherhood could be born between them.

An excerpt from the book "The Second Sex" does not mean the prohibition of a woman's relationships with a man, but the denial of her entrapment in these relationships. The publication of "The Second Sex" in France in 1949 caused an unprecedented scandal; the 50,000 copies of the first edition sold out within a week, while the Vatican placed it on its "black" list. The book that triumphed in America and made Beauvoir famous worldwide remains one of the key theoretical pillars of the feminist movement to this day.

With "The Second Sex," her opus magnum, Beauvoir aimed to liberate women from the inferior position that forced them to be the Other of men, without granting them the right or the opportunity to be structured as Other in turn.

Seventy years after the first publication of "The Second Sex," Beauvoir's critique of the sexual, economic, and political alienation of women, of civil marriage, and of repressive laws on contraception and abortion has been inscribed in all the achievements of the women's movement.

Her thought managed to provoke immense changes, which have continually transformed the agenda of women's emancipation that is always "yet to be born." From the preface by Katerina Schina