Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier are the translators of the first ever unabridged English edition of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. After their successful tours of the US, France, the UK, Canada and Australia, the ANU Gender Institute is bringing Sheila and Constance to Canberra to talk about their translation and the relevance of The Second Sex today. Until very recently there has existed only one English translation, that of zoologist H.M. Parshley. Now Sheila and Constance will talk about the challenge of retrieving missed meaning and restoring missing text. Along the way they will engage in dialogue with ANU philosopher Fiona Jenkins.

Simone de Beauvoir’s masterwork weaves together history, philosophy, economics, biology, and a host of other disciplines to analyse the Western notion of ‘woman’. It resonates as much today as when it first came out in French 60 years ago. Her famous sentence, ‘On ne naît pas femme, on le devient’ (‘One is not born, but rather becomes a woman’), became a signature phrase for one of the most revolutionary conceptual and political upheavals of the 20th century. De Beauvoir shook the foundations of Western philosophy and political thought: biology was not destiny, and there was nothing ‘natural’ about women’s place in the world. For the first time English-speaking readers can read this ground-breaking work in full.

The lecture will be followed by light refreshments to mark the first year of the ANU Gender Institute. Books will also be for sale and Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier are available for signings.

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This event is sponsored by the ANU Gender Institute.

Image: Intellectual property of Sylvie Le Bon Le Beauvoir and Editions Gallimard