Looking for Simone

When The Second Sex was published in 1949, it sent shockwaves through society: a thousand-page manifesto advocating gender equality, women’s independence, and liberation from rigid social norms. For the first time, a woman offered such a sharp and unprecedented analysis of the mechanisms of male domination in a postwar world that had yet to recognize the term “patriarchy.” The scandal was immense, and its success, global.

Few people know, however, that the inspiration for The Second Sex originated in the United States, during Simone de Beauvoir’s lecture tour in 1947. Over the course of four months, she observed the country with the keen eye of an entomologist: scrutinizing the behavior of privileged young women, astonished by the rigid expectations imposed on New York women, outraged by the subjugation of wives, and shocked by the brutality of racial segregation in the South.

The film by Nathalie Masduraud and Valérie Urrea is conceived as an initiatory journey into the origins of Simone de Beauvoir’s thought—an intimate and political expedition that brings her writings to life, brilliantly interpreted by French actress Noémie Merlant.

At the same time, the film becomes a space for reflection led by some of today’s leading feminist thinkers: Judith Butler, Laure Murat, Silvia Federici, Kellie Carter Jackson, Caitlin Keliiaa, and Françoise Vergès. They examine the revolutionary ideas of The Second Sex, as well as its limitations and blind spots—making the film not only a tribute but also a critical dialogue with one of the most important texts of the twentieth century.