ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Adam Kjellgren argues that Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist classic The Second Sex is a valuable resource in assessing the role of myth in contemporary politics, and feminism in particular. Starting from recent feminist and political theoretical reappraisals of myth, Kjellgren challenges the popular assumptions that myth belongs to irrational and so-called non-civilized societies—an assumption that also echoes in contemporary political theory when only populism and the alt-right movement are associated with myth. In fact, however, Beauvoir’s chapter on the ‘Eternel Feminine’ suggests that myth constitutes a troublesome but well-integrated aspect of life in all modern, patriarchal societies. Beauvoir, according to Kjellgren, has often been wrongly accused of trying to discard myth. However, she never states that all myths must be eliminated. Kjellgren assesses what, according to Beauvoir, distinguishes harmful from non-harmful myths, arguing that Beauvoir develops an ethically (rather than ontologically) grounded critique of myth. Harmful myths are those that have negative consequences in that they circumscribe human freedom. Kjellgren concludes by suggesting that the success of Beauvoir’s argument follows in part from her capacity as a myth-maker.
