Abstract

This article engages closely with Beauvoir’s claim that risk is the criterion of value. The article first discusses the meaning of “risk” and its role as the yardstick of values and then questions the contrast Beauvoir establishes between giving life and risking life by examining the experience of pregnancy. The author argues that a close reading of Beauvoir’s The Second Sex demonstrates that, once we remove the lens of patriarchy, the opposition between giving life and risking life crumbles.