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At the age of 21, Simone de Beauvoir became the youngest person to take the philosophy exams at France's most esteemed university.
在21岁时，西蒙娜·德·波伏娃成为法国最权威大学的哲学考试中最年轻的考生。
She passed with flying colors. But as soon as she mastered the rules of philosophy, she wanted to break them.
她出色地通过了考试。但是随着她逐步掌握哲学的原则，她想要打破他们。
She'd been schooled on Plato's Theory of Forms, which dismissed the physical world as a flawed reflection of higher truths and unchanging ideals.
她一直被灌输着柏拉图的理型论，它忽视了物质世界实为非理型的反映，展示着更高的真理和不变的理念。
But for de Beauvoir, earthly life was enthralling, sensual, and anything but static.
但是对于波伏娃而言，世俗生活是迷人、感性等，但是波澜不惊。
Her desire to explore the physical world to its fullest would shape her life, and eventually, inspire a radical new philosophy.
她对现实世界探索的渴望影响了她的生活，最终，激发出革命性的新哲学观。
Endlessly debating with her romantic and intellectual partner Jean Paul Sartre,
在与她的亲密爱人，同时也是聪慧的伴侣让·保罗·萨特无止尽的辩论中，
de Beauvoir explored free will, desire, rights and responsibilities, and the value of personal experience.
德·波伏娃探索着自由意志、渴望、权利和责任，以及个人经验的价值。
In the years following WWII, these ideas would converge into the school of thought most closely associated with their work: existentialism.
在接下来的二战期间，这些想法融合成为与他们的作品关系最密切的思想流派：存在主义。
Where Judeo-Christian traditions taught that humans are born with preordained purpose, de Beauvoir and Sartre proposed a revolutionary alternative.
犹太教和基督教的传统都宣扬人类天生带有命中注定的目的，德·波伏娃和萨特提出另一个革命性的观点。
They argued that humans are born free, and thrown into existence without a divine plan.
他们认为人类生而自由，并不是为了实现神圣计划而存在。
As de Beauvoir acknowledged, this freedom is both a blessing and a burden.
正如德·波伏娃所承认的，这种自由既是福赐也是负担。
In "The Ethics of Ambiguity" she argued that our greatest ethical imperative is to create our own life's meaning, while protecting the freedom of others to do the same.
在《模糊性的道德》一书中，她认为我们最大的道德使命在于创造我们自己生命的意义，同时也要守护他人如此做的自由。
As de Beauvoir wrote, "A freedom which is interested only in denying freedom must be denied."
正如德·波伏娃所写，“仅仅为了否定自由本身的自由必须被摈弃。”
This philosophy challenged its students to navigate the ambiguities and conflicts our desires produce, both internally and externally.
这种哲学挑战了学生探究欲望所产生内外部的模糊性和冲突。
And as de Beauvoir sought to find her own purpose, she began to question:
正如德·波伏娃探索她自己的目的，她开始质疑：
if everyone deserves to freely pursue meaning, why was she restricted by society's ideals of womanhood?
如果人人都有权自由追求人生的意义，那为什么她受到社会对女性理想的束缚呢？
Despite her prolific writing, teaching and activism, de Beauvoir struggled to be taken seriously by her male peers.
尽管她在写作、教学和行动主义上都很活跃，德·波伏娃仍然很难被同业男性的认真对待。
She'd rejected her Catholic upbringing and marital expectations to study at university, and write memoirs, fiction and philosophy.
她背离了天主教家庭的束缚以及他人对她婚姻的期待，进入大学学习，开始写自传、小说和哲学论文。
But the risks she was taking by embracing this lifestyle were lost on many of her male counterparts, who took these freedoms for granted.
但这样的生活方式也让她失去了很多男性同行，他们视这些自由为理所当然。
They had no intellectual interest in de Beauvoir's work, which explored women's inner lives, as well the author's open relationship and bisexuality.
在学术上，他们对于德·波伏娃的作品毫无兴趣，因为这些作品探索的是女性的内心活动，以及作者的开放式关系和双性恋。
To convey the importance of her perspective, de Beauvoir embarked on her most challenging book yet.
为了表明她观点的重要性，德·波伏娃在她最具挑战性的著作里做了阐释。
Just as she'd created the foundations of existentialism, she'd now redefine the limits of gender.
正如她曾创造了存在主义的基石，现在她要重新定义性别的边界。
Published in 1949, "The Second Sex" argues that, like our life's meaning, gender is not predestined.
1949年出版的《第二性》认为，正如生命的意义，性别也不是事先决定的。
As de Beauvoir famously wrote, "one is not born, but rather becomes, woman."
正如德·波伏娃名言，“女人不是天生的，而是后天形成的。”
And to "become" a woman, she argued, was to become the Other.
关于“后天形成”的女性，她论证为，是成为“她者”。
De Beauvoir defined Othering as the process of labeling women as less than the men who'd historically defined, and been defined as, the ideal human subjects.
德·波伏娃定义“她者”是女性标签化的过程，将女性标识为不如男性，而在历史上一直由男性自己来把男性定义为理想的人类。
As the Other, she argued that women were considered second to men, and therefore systematically restricted from pursuing freedom.
身为“她者”，她认为女性被认为次于男性，因此在追求自由时，便会受到体制上的限制。
"The Second Sex" became an essential feminist treatise, offering a detailed history of women's oppression and a wealth of anecdotal testimony.
《第二性》成为了女权主义里程碑式的著作，提供了关于女性受压迫的详细历史和大量的传闻证实。
"The Second Sex"'s combination of personal experience and philosophical intervention provided a new language to discuss feminist theory.
《第二性》融合了个人经历和哲学思想产生了谈论女权主义理论的全新语言。
Today, those conversations are still informed by de Beauvoir's insistence that in the pursuit of equality, "there is no divorce between philosophy and life."
今天，这些谈话仍然深受德·波伏娃对追求平等的坚持，“哲学和生活息息相关。”
Of course, like any foundational work, the ideas in "The Second Sex" have been expanded upon since its publication.
当然，如任何基础原理著作，《第二性》的观点自从出版后，就开始被拓展开来。
Many modern thinkers have explored additional ways people are Othered that de Beauvoir doesn't acknowledge.
许多当代思想家都探究了德·波伏娃尚未认知到的人类被区别对待的其他形式。
These include racial and economic identities, as well as the broader spectrum of gender and sexual identities we understand today.
这些包括种族和经济的认同感，以及我们如今对性别和性有更广泛认知。
De Beauvoir's legacy is further complicated by accusations of sexual misconduct by two of her university students.
德·波伏娃对后世的影响也是褒贬不一，她被所执教大学的两个学生以不当性行为所指控。
In the face of these accusations, she had her teaching license revoked for abusing her position.
面对这些指控，她因滥用职权被吊销了教师证。
In this aspect and others, de Beauvoir's life remains controversial -- and her work represents a contentious moment in the emergence of early feminism.
或多或少，德·波伏娃的一生是富有争议的，她的作品也代表了富有争议的早期女权主义。
She participated in those conversations for the rest of her life; writing fiction, philosophy, and memoirs until her death in 1986.
她一生都处于这些争论之中；写小说、哲学著作和自传，直到1986年与世长辞。
Today, her work offers a philosophical language to be reimagined, revisited and rebelled against -- a response this revolutionary thinker might have welcomed.
如今，她的著作提供了一种哲学表达方式，让大家可以重新想象，重新审视，以及反对驳斥--这位革命性的思想者若尚在世，或许会很欢迎这样的反应。
