The book that sold out in a week and landed on the Vatican's banned list

Simone de Beauvoir was, alongside Sartre, a leading existentialist, but she was also the first to apply existentialist analysis specifically to women's lives. She set out to show that 'femininity' was not biological destiny but a role constructed by society.

Published in 1949, the first volume of 'The Second Sex' sold 22,000 copies in its first week and was controversial enough to be placed on the Vatican's Index of banned books. In it, Beauvoir argued that even the identity of 'woman' is not innate but learned and constructed over a lifetime.