Simone de Beauvoir

About Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a towering French writer, intellectual, and social theorist whose primary historical importance stems from her groundbreaking contributions to existentialist philosophy and modern feminism. Her seminal 1949 work, *The Second Sex*, provided an extensive analysis of women's historical subjugation and remains a foundational text for contemporary feminist thought, cementing her #460 ranking in historical influence according to the Pantheon project.

Despite her profound influence, De Beauvoir's contemporary internet attention appears modest compared to her historical standing. She garnered approximately 709K annualized Wikipedia views in 2025, giving her an Attention Gap of roughly 1x, meaning her online presence aligns closely with her historical rank. Interestingly, this places her far behind contemporaries in the writer pool, such as Oscar Wilde (#541 importance) who draws 2.0M views, or even Ayn Rand (#569 importance) with 1.4M views, indicating a relative gap in digital visibility within her own field.

Furthermore, her online interest shows a slight contraction, with a year-over-year change of -0.2% and a Q1 versus Q3 momentum drop of -9%, suggesting that while her historical importance is secure, her current cultural resonance on the web is stable but not surging.