Bauer's aim is to show that in answering this question The Second Sex dramatizes the extent to which being a woman poses a philosophical problem. This beautifully written book is a call for philosophers to turn to The Second Sex as a work that is important and relevant to their enterprise -- and for feminists to return to the book as well.

Bauer argues that the extraordinary effect The Second Sex has had on women's lives, then and now, can be traced to Beauvoir's discovery of a new way to philosophize -- a way grounded in her identity as a woman. Bauer points out that Beauvoir's originality goes far beyond extending the ideas of her life-long partner, Jean-Paul Sartre. In exploring what it might mean to philosophize as a woman, Beauvoir produced a book that not only sparked the contemporary feminist movement but also, Bauer argues, made an important but still profoundly undervalued contribution to the philosophical tradition. In offering a new interpretation of The Second Sex, Bauer shows how philosophy can be politically productive for women while remaining genuinely philosophical.