The Second Sex is a seminal text of Second Wave feminism. The chapter on "Sexual Initiation" was published in the magazine Les Temps Modernes followed by a couple of other chapters. At the time of its publication, it was considered quite provocative and even scandalous, selling 20,000 copies in its first week of publication. The Vatican added it to its list of forbidden texts, some considering certain chapters pornographic and corrupting. The Second Sex is de Beauvoir's most famous and widely read work, though The Mandarins is the novel for which she won the Prix Goncourt.
The Second Sex was amongst the most influential texts of Second Wave Feminism, alongside Betty Friedan's The...
