Abstract

Simone de Beauvoir’s discussion of the place of aging and menopause in The Second Sex offers only brief glimmers of older women’s agency tucked in among descriptions of the female elderly frantically, but futilely, searching for meaningful roles. Aging is particularly difficult to think through from an existentialist perspective that emphasizes agency and control over one’s world. Beauvoir’s later work in The Coming of Age offers more carefully detailed perspective for considering aging and the meaning of the sacrifice of life’s projects. The difficulty of maintaining a sense of identity and meaning increases as agency becomes limited and the weight of one’s past life and decisions becomes greater. Moving from The Second Sex to The Coming of Age in dialogue with Beauvoir clarifies when loss of control and agency destroys life’s value, but also when a deliberate choice to sacrifice agency may be meaningful and value-laden.