Fascinating French-language autograph manuscript, penned entirely in the hand of Simone de Beauvoir for an article entitled “Valentina et la promotion de la femme [Valentina and the Advancement of Women],” unsigned, 14 pages, 8.25 x 10.75, no date [circa 1963]. After the triumph of Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who became the first woman in space when she flew her Vostok 6 spacecraft on June 16, 1963, Beauvoir demanded that women be given a chance, pointing to the low representation of French women in the liberal professions, and in the world of work in general. She blames limited ambitions, the presumption of marriage, male solidarity, the burdens of motherhood and the home. A portion of the manuscript (translated): “A woman in the cosmos. What a triumph for women! …from now on there is no longer any distance between men and them. But no, answered those who hold female inferiority to be a dogma: it simply proves that anyone can be a cosmonaut. In truth, if Valentina's exploit did not transform the female condition, it has the great merit of making ridiculous the stubbornness of those who claim to stop it. 'Impossible to send a woman into space' estimated the American experts; and - American airwomen have complained bitterly about this, they have not even considered - training, in the years to come, female cosmonauts. 'The woman does not have the nervous resistance, the balance, the control necessary for a cosmonaut and already difficult to find in a man' wrote French journalists, marking by this already the naive assurance of their virile prejudices. A woman comes up against this kind of obstacle on all sides: her physiology, her psychology would prohibit her from certain careers and would relegate her, in others, to secondary places. She protests, or smiles.” In fine condition. Accompanied by a full English translation.
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