Love and Annihilation: Beauvoir on the Future of Romantic Love

Abstract

<p>My thesis contributes to the general area of scholarship that examines the intersection of contemporary radical feminist theory with our dominant ideologies of romantic love. To this end, the philosophical work of 20^th century novelist and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir informs my critical feminist perspective that love is for women the "dream of annihilation". I argue that while our dominant ideologies of romantic love are far from being an ideal forum for the maintenance and development of women's existential subjectivity, these ideologies can indeed be reconceived in a way that allow women to love in their strength and not in their weakness.</p>