  Sartre’s phenomenology in Being and Nothingness became the philosophical foundation for his popular philosophy of existentialism, sketched in his famous lecture “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1945).  In Being and Nothingness Sartre emphasized the experience of freedom of choice, especially the project of choosing one’s self, the defining pattern of one’s past actions. Through vivid description of the “look” of the Other, Sartre laid groundwork for the contemporary political significance of the concept of the Other (as in other groups or ethnicities). Indeed, in The Second Sex (1949) Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre’s life-long companion, launched contemporary feminism with her nuanced account of the perceived role of women as Other.