Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Second Sex is a 1949 book by the French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir that examines the treatment of women in society and throughout history. It argues that man is treated as the default human being while woman is cast as the "Other," defined relative to him.
Simone de Beauvoir researched and wrote The Second Sex in about 14 months between 1946 and 1949, and published it in 1949. Some chapters first appeared in the journal Les Temps modernes.
The Catholic Church condemned The Second Sex and added it to its Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the list of prohibited books. It remained banned until the policy of prohibition itself was abolished in 1966.
The Second Sex was published in two volumes, titled Facts and Myths and Lived Experience. The first volume covers biology, history, and myths, while the second presents women's lived experience from childhood through old age.
The Second Sex is regarded as a starting inspiration point of second-wave feminism, and its attack on psychoanalysis helped inspire Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in 1963, Kate Millett's Sexual Politics in 1969, and Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch in 1970.
The 1953 English translation by H. M. Parshley was widely criticized as poor, with mistranslated philosophical vocabulary and large excised sections. Beauvoir requested a new translation in 1985, and Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier published a more complete version in November 2009.
Judith Butler reads the formulation as distinguishing the terms "sex" and "gender," suggesting that gender is an aspect of identity that is gradually acquired. This interpretation is contested by critics including Toril Moi and Nancy Bauer.