Women's mutual understanding comes from the fact that they identify themselves with each other; but for the same reason each is against the others.
Simone de BeauvoirSociety, being codified by man, decrees that woman is inferior; she can do away with this inferiority only by destroying the male's superiority.
Simone de BeauvoirThe curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength -each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving. It is even more deceptive to dream of gaining through the child a plenitude, a warmth, a value, which one is unable to create for oneself; the child brings joy only to the woman who is capable of disinterestedly desiring the happiness of another, to one who without being wrapped up in self seeks to transcend her own existence.
Simone de Beauvoir