This book examines the contemporary situation of women in France and makes an essential contribution to the growing interdisciplinary interest in la condition feminine. It addresses both mainstream issues - such as women's paid and unpaid work, women in politics with particular reference to the current parity debates, leisure and contemporary women's writing - as well as under-represented areas, namely women in rural France, immigrant and exiled women and the situation of lesbians. Authors examine the problems facing women at home and at work and critically assess the policy initiatives to combat unemployment, occupation segregation and pay inequality. Despite their high levels of activity in employment, French women still shoulder the burden of domestic work, child rearing and care for relatives and there are many areas of political representation where they are notable for their absence. Leading experts survey leisure practices and language - fascinating indicators for social roles, power relations and gender differences - and provide us with new insights into the position of women, whether in rural France, the media or immigrant and exile communities.This interdisciplinary book is suitable for both specialists seeking information within a specific area of gender studies and non-specialists seeking a general overview of women's situation in contemporary metropolitan France and will therefore appeal to a wide range of readers across humanities and social sciences.

Simone de Beauvoir's work has not often been associated with film studies, which appears paradoxical when it is recognized that she was the first feminist thinker to inaugurate the concept of the gendered 'othering' gaze. This book is an attempt to redress this balance and reopen the dialogue between Beauvoir's writings and film studies. The authors analyse a range of films, from directors including Claire Denis, Michael Haneke, Lucille Hadzihalilovic, Sam Mendes, and Sally Potter, by drawing from Beauvoir's key works such as The Second Sex (1949), The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) and Old Age (1970).

Simone de Beauvoir's work has not often been associated with film studies, which appears paradoxical when it is recognized that she was the first feminist thinker to inaugurate the concept of the gendered 'othering' gaze. This book is an attempt to redress this balance and reopen the dialogue between Beauvoir's writings and film studies. The authors analyse a range of films, from directors including Claire Denis, Michael Haneke, Lucille Hadzihalilovic, Sam Mendes, and Sally Potter, by drawing from Beauvoir's key works such as The Second Sex (1949), The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) and Old Age (1970).

Series Information:
Routledge Critical Thinkers

The Spanish Communist exile and Francophone Holocaust writer Jorge Semprun (1923-) is a major contributor to contemporary debates on the politics and ethics of remembering the Franco era, Communism and the Holocaust in French, Spanish and broader European contexts. His sophisticated literary testimonies have become landmark texts not least for their commitment to represent the lived experience of history. In this first detailed study in English of Jorge Semprun s writing, Ursula Tidd shows how Semprun explores the parameters of self-writing as an address to the other in a richly intertextual corpus which weaves together history, fiction and auto/bio/thanatography, and gives voice to the traumatic experiences of geographical and political exile and concentration camp internment. Ursula Tidd is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Manchester, UK."

Simone de Beauvoir's groundbreaking work has transformed the way we think about gender and identity. Without her 1949 text The Second Sex, gender theory as we know it today would be unthinkable. A leading figure in French existentialism, Beauvoir's concepts of 'becoming woman' and of woman as 'Other' are among the most influential ideas in feminist enquiry and debate.
This book guides the reader through the main areas of Simone de Beauvoir's thought, including:
*existentialism and ethics
*gender studies and feminism
*literature and autobiography
*sexuality, the body and ageing
Drawing upon Beauvoir's literary and theoretical texts, this is the ideal introduction to her thought for students on a range of course including literature, cultural studies, gender, philosophy and modern languages.

This is a full-length study exploring Simone de Beauvoir's autobiographical and biographical writings in the context of ideas on selfhood formulated in Le deuxieme sexe and her other philosophical essays of the 1940s. Drawing on more recent work in autobiographical studies and working within a broadly Foucauldian framework, Ursula Tidd offers a detailed analysis of Beauvoir's auto/biographical strategy as a woman writer seeking to write herself into the male-constructed autobiographical canon. Tidd first analyses Beauvoir's notions of selfhood in her philosophical essays, and then discusses her four autobiographical and two biographical volumes, along with some of her unpublished diaries, in an attempt to explore notions of selectivity, and the politics of truth-production and reception. The study concludes that Beauvoir's vast auto/biographical project, situated in specific personal and historical contexts, can be read as shaped by a testimonial obligation rooted in a productive consciousness of the Other.

This is a full-length study exploring Simone de Beauvoir's autobiographical and biographical writings in the context of ideas on selfhood formulated in Le deuxieme sexe and her other philosophical essays of the 1940s. Drawing on more recent work in autobiographical studies and working within a broadly Foucauldian framework, Ursula Tidd offers a detailed analysis of Beauvoir's auto/biographical strategy as a woman writer seeking to write herself into the male-constructed autobiographical canon. Tidd first analyses Beauvoir's notions of selfhood in her philosophical essays, and then discusses her four autobiographical and two biographical volumes, along with some of her unpublished diaries, in an attempt to explore notions of selectivity, and the politics of truth-production and reception. The study concludes that Beauvoir's vast auto/biographical project, situated in specific personal and historical contexts, can be read as shaped by a testimonial obligation rooted in a productive consciousness of the Other.

This book examines the contemporary situation of women in France and makes an essential contribution to the growing interdisciplinary interest in la condition feminine. It addresses both mainstream issues - such as women's paid and unpaid work, women in politics with particular reference to the current parity debates, leisure and contemporary women's writing - as well as under-represented areas, namely women in rural France, immigrant and exiled women and the situation of lesbians.
Authors examine the problems facing women at home and at work and critically assess the policy initiatives to combat unemployment, occupation segregation and pay inequality. Despite their high levels of activity in employment, French women still shoulder the burden of domestic work, child rearing and care for relatives and there are many areas of political representation where they are notable for their absence. Leading experts survey leisure practices and language - fascinating indicators for social roles, power relations and gender differences - and provide us with new insights into the position of women, whether in rural France, the media or immigrant and exile communities.
This interdisciplinary book is suitable for both specialists seeking information within a specific area of gender studies and non-specialists seeking a general overview of women's situation in contemporary metropolitan France and will therefore appeal to a wide range of readers across humanities and social sciences.

Following its publication in 1949, "The Second Sex" quickly became one of the fundamental works of feminist thought. In it, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) offered up a statement that has informed nearly all feminist and gender scholarship that has followed, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." And it is the woman Beauvoir became who continues to fascinate, fostering a legend of coffee-drinking Parisian intellectuals debating existentialism in smoky cafes along the Left Bank. Beauvoir lived through some of the most dramatic and significant events of the twentieth century, and a time of enormous change for women across the world. Her personal and intellectual companions were one and the same--and as a result, her intimate relationships with Jean-Paul Sartre and Nelson Algren provide a captivating context to the development of her ideas. In this concise and up-to-date critical appraisal of both the life and words of Beauvoir, Ursula Tidd illuminates the many facets of the feminist icon's complex personality, including her relentless autobiographical drive, which led her to envision her life as a continuously unfolding narrative, her active involvement in twentieth-century political struggles, and how Beauvoir the woman has over the decades become Beauvoir the myth. 2008 marked the centenary of Beauvoir's birth, yet her ideas continue to reverberate throughout contemporary scholarship. This critical biography will benefit any reader seeking insight into one of the most prominent and intriguing intellectuals of the twentieth century.