Personal traits become meaningful to me only through my own chosen stance toward them.

Evidence

These unrealizables, however, are not only appresented to us as unrealizables; in fact in order that they may have the character of unrealizables, they must be revealed in the light of some project aiming at realizing them. … This means once again that they are for the Other but that they can be for me only if I choose them. The law of my freedom which makes me unable to be without choosing myself applies here too: I do not choose to be for the Other what I am, but I can try to be for myself what I am for the Other, by choosing myself such as I appear to the Other—i.e., by an elective assumption. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1238

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies ‘elective assumption’ — the core mechanism by which the for-itself adopts its being-for-others.
• XREF: Directly anticipates Beauvoir’s account of how women assume or refuse the category ‘woman’ — this is the systematic backdrop the reader is after. — connects to: Others’ meanings present themselves to me as objective, not as my own choices — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1207; My death is meaningful only through the Other who remains to preserve my meanings.