Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination and emotional abuse.

hooks asserts that women become obsessed with love not at their first feelings of romantic attraction but rather when they realize that society values them less than men. Regardless of what women do, they aren’t good enough within a patriarchal society, making them feel unworthy of love. hooks states that women grow up with fault-finding mothers and fathers that they cannot please. Women fear losing their fathers’ affection as they grow older and mature. Women feel rejected and abandoned by their parents, especially their fathers, who withdraw early, making them think they must earn love.

Since femaleness is viewed negatively in society, women seek to remake themselves into people deserving of love while seeking love from others, as patriarchal culture molds women to believe themselves incapable of practicing self-love. Unable to find love within themselves and feeling unloved within the family unit, girls begin to look for love from boys, in playground crushes and a broad desire for male approval. This gendered expectation of women’s search for love validates their belief that if they step outside the patriarchal paradigm, they will become unworthy of love.