Love becomes life-giving only when women love from strength rather than weakness

Evidence

The day when it will be possible for the woman to love in her strength and not in her weakness, not to escape from herself but to find herself, not out of resignation but to affirm herself, love will become for her as for man the source of life and not a mortal danger. For the time being, love epitomizes in its most moving form the curse that weighs on woman trapped in the feminine universe, the mutilated woman, incapable of being self-sufficient. Innumerable martyrs to love attest to the injustice of a destiny that offers them as ultimate salvation a sterile hell. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1885

Categorization

• SEED: The contrast between loving to find oneself vs. loving to escape oneself is a clean analytic lens for an essay on romantic love as self-constitution.
• XREF: connects to: Male desire is fleeting while women become emotionally bound after love; Male love requires woman as an object who remains unconscious of herself — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 614; A man’s enduring love can transform woman’s sexual submission into transcendence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1859 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Male love requires woman as an object who remains unconscious of herself #complicates (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 614
• A man’s enduring love can transform woman’s sexual submission into transcendence #contradicts (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1859
• Romantic interdependence makes both sexes invested in preserving gender hierarchy #complicates (0.75)