Later this month, on January 9, is the birth anniversary of Simone de Beauvoir, one of the most influential voices who spoke for feminism and liberty. Her book The Second Sex was a groundbreaking work of feminist philosophy that was the foundational text for the second wave of feminism and continues to inspire women 76 years after it was published.

At the risk of offending conservatives, she was the first to articulate that femininity is a social construct and that biology is a fact but should not become a woman’s destiny. She questioned and critiqued the “myths” of femininity—always nurturing and supportive mother, muse, wife—as traps to keep women in a state of submissiveness and justify male dominance.

When The Second Sex was first published, it was met with as much admiration as outrage and hostility and was even placed on the Vatican’s list of prohibited books. However, by the 1960s, it became the "Bible" for a new generation of activists and influenced writers like Betty Friedan, the author of The Feminine Mystique; Kate Millett, the author of Sexual Politics; and Germaine Greer, the author of The Female Eunuch.

Her intellectual output was prodigious—novels, essays, short stories, biographies, her memoirs, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues.

Rather than being an armchair activist, she led radical legal changes in France. In 1971, she authored and signed the Manifesto of the 343, in which 343 women (including celebrities) admitted to having had illegal abortions. At the time, abortion was........

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