An oft-quoted phrase, to be sure, but permissible perhaps again here for reasons of a particular timeliness and relevance. For not only did Beauvoir's feminist classic The Second Sex celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in 1999, but this phrase, probably the best known formulation from all Beauvoir's work, occurs at the beginning of the second book, entitled "L'expérience vécue"—lived experience—grievously mistranslated in English as "Woman's Life Today." In such manner was the phenomenological orientation and influence threading through class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">The Second Sex obscured.¹