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She traces this evolution from prehistory and classical antiquity, through the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment into our own time. Particularly interesting are her insights into mythology and her close analysis of images of women in the works of Montherlant, D. H. Lawrence, Claudel, Breton, and Stendhal. The work's greatest significance rests on the premise that woman is not biologically predetermined to become mother and wife but free to determine her own fate. Contemporary critics point to flaws in Beauvoir's argument: hasty generalization resulting from insufficient and dated evidence, for instance. They also deplore her negative attitude toward the female body and motherhood. Furthermore, many have deemed her whole approach Eurocentric and phallocentric. Although Beauvoir had previously described women in her novels, The Second Sex marked a turning point in her writing career: The Woman Destroyed and Les Belles Images would discuss women's issue even more overtly. Until her death in 1986, Beauvoir continued her political and philosophical pursuits. A lifelong opponent of colonialism, she supported the independence of both French Indochina and Algeria. In Djamila Boupacha (1962), she exposed the torture of an Algerian girl by the French military. The Long March is a detailed account of Communist China in the late 1950s. Several of her last works discussed the impact of old age and death.
Despite her many other accomplishments, we remember Beauvoir as a pioneering feminist. This reputation originated in The Second Sex and continued with her involvement in the French women's struggle for equal rights and greater participation in the politic arena. She also took a firm stand in favor of abortion. Due to the current interest in post-structural and post-modern criticism and dismissal of existentialist ideas, French feminists such as Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous have dismissed Beauvoir's ideas as well. Publication of Beauvoir's correspondence and notebooks has, however, opened up new possibilities for the study of the Sartre-Beauvoir relationship and Beauvoir's gender identity. A survey of recent feminist writing reveals that many authors, indeed, owe a great deal to Simone de Beauvoir--even if it is only their efforts in rejecting her ideas
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