Two volumes of the book “The Second Sex” by the French writer Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) - “a born philosopher,” according to her husband J.-P. Sartre, are still considered the most complete historical and philosophical study of the entire range of problems associated with women. What is “women’s destiny”, what is behind the concept of “natural purpose of sex”, how and why the position of a woman in this world differs from the position of a man, is a woman, in principle, capable of becoming a full-fledged person, and if so, in what conditions, what circumstances limit a woman’s freedom and how to overcome them. Simone de Beauvoir turns in her narration to myths and legends about the “mystery of sex”, about the “mystery of the female soul”, created, in her words, by men. Based on the highest examples of world literature, she speaks again and again about the monstrous injustice of the ordinary female fate, about the traditional neglect of the weaker sex and the humiliating everyday discrimination associated with this. The famous book of Simone de Beauvoir was revered by more than one generation of women in the West as a new Bible. They sought and found in it answers to their most secret questions. Such a book cannot fail to find a response in our country of emerging democracy.