Sir, – A professor writes to suggest that reading the work of Simone de Beauvoir may serve as an antidote to the depredations of men like Harvey Weinstein (Carl Cederström, "How to be a good man", Features, October 2nd).
Unfortunately, the suggested cure is worse than the disease.
Several modern biographies of de Beauvoir have attributed to her what would now be characterised as sexually predatory behaviour, conducted alongside her lover, Jean-Paul Sartre, during a time when de Beauvoir was a secondary-school teacher. Such was de Beauvoir’s desperate need for Sartre’s approval that she initiated affairs with her own female secondary school students, the aim of which was effectively to procure more interesting female companions for the superstar philosopher Sartre (echoes of today’s Hollywood abuse, surely).
Therefore, as a modest proposal from someone not schooled in the feminist canon, I would suggest that there is very little of practical ethical use to learn from de Beauvoir. – Yours, etc,
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LENNON O’NARAIGH,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.