Existentialist Feminism

This essay re-evaluates Simone de Beauvoir's philosophical contributions in The Second Sex, particularly her theorization of the concept of 'situation.' Stavro argues that Beauvoir was not merely a follower of Sartre but critically transformed existentialism through embodied, situated subjectivity, establishing a unique foundation for feminist theory.

This groundbreaking 1980 essay analyzes the particularity of feminine bodily experience through a phenomenological lens. Young combines Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body with de Beauvoir's existentialist feminism to explore how patriarchal society shapes women's bodily comportment, movement patterns, and spatial perception, revealing how gendered bodily experience limits women's agency and self-realization.