A Vindication of Love (Pt I)

From a book that I happen to be reading - "A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance in the Twenty-First Century" by Cristina Nehring (2009) ...

"For women authors in general, love - whether it be reciprocal or spurned, happy or sad, chaste or promiscuous - seems to be a public relations gaffe, a death blow to one's credibility as a thinker... To be respected as a thinker in our world, a woman must cease to be a lover. To pass for an intellectual of any distinction, she must either renounce romantic love altogether or box it into a space so small in her life that it attracts no attention."

"The reputation of a male thinker is either untouched or improved by an erotically charged biography. The reputation of a female thinker is either subtly undermined or squarely destroyed."

"Men, in other words, are defined by the missions they have accomplished, the dragons they have slain, the prizes they have won, while women are defined by the men they have loved. This is indeed unforgivably reductive..."

True that. (sigh)

I intend to return to this topic post-chaotic employment mess.