Séverine Auffret narrates her visit to Simone de Beauvoir, the author of Deuxieme Sexe (Second Sex), in 1965, while she was a young student, she feels the generosity of a woman who receives a young girl, reads her text and returns it to her with comments from the perspective of an editor.

Clearly, Auffret found in Simone de Beauvoir an inspiration for her commitment to feminism. In this book, she unrolls an immense fresco of the gestures of women before our eyes; what they were, what they did, what they said, what they wrote, what they endured, what they combatted before all the gods, in all the seasons, from Hellenistic Greece to present times. Here, it is about an encyclopaedia of feminine ideas — from Eve to Séverine Auffret, while passing by some others, among whom is Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc).

Evidently, this is a considerable and exhaustive amount which constitutes a document and reflection in favour of a new feminism. The archaeological work of Séverine Auffret in fact doubles as an invitation not to stop there and to write the following page, then the next chapter.

Auffret constructs a history of feminism over three millennia and across civilizations. This book is as much a historical narrative as it is a theoretical and ideological journey and a spirited exposition of feminism across cultures.