Abstract

This chapter is a reprint of a book review of the new translation of _The Second Sex, which_ raises questions about its success in rendering Beauvoir’s thought into English. Siding with critical scholars like Toril Moi, Bauer argues that Borde and Malovany-Chevallier’s translation is disappointing. The translation obscures Beauvoir’s philosophical insights by too often sacrificing readability and clear renditions of Beauvoir’s reasoning to word-by-word translations of Beauvoir’s long sentences and uncommon stylistic choices. This is due to the inexperience of the translators, who, Bauer claims, had never before translated such French theoretical writing and had no experience dealing with the “conceptual and rhetorical challenges” of _Le deuxiéme sexe_. Overall, Bauer’s review echoes the long history of the discounting of and underappreciation of feminist work as reflected in translation practices that assume women’s interests, writing, and scholarship to be tangential to scholarly research.