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丕賱丿賷丕賱賷賰鬲賷丞 丕賱噩賳爻賷丞: 丿賮丕毓丕 毓賳 丕賱孬賵乇丞 丕賱賳爻賵賷丞
鬲賯賵賱 賲賯丿賲丞 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 "賵賱毓賱賾 兀賴賲賾 賲賷夭丕鬲 丕賱賰鬲丕亘貙 賮賷 賳馗乇賷貙 兀賳賾賴 賷賳夭毓 丕賱賳賯丕亘 毓賳 丕賱兀賵賴丕賲 丕賱鬲賷 鬲睾乇爻 賮賷 毓賯賵賱 丕賱亘賳丕鬲 賲賳匕 丕賱胤賮賵賱丞貙 賵賲賳賴丕 丕賱丨亘 丕賱毓匕乇賷 賵丕賱卮乇賮 賵丕賱毓匕乇賷丞 賵丕賱夭賵丕噩 賵丕賱兀賲賵賲丞 賵賮囟賷賱丞 丕賱胤丕毓丞 丕賱毓賲賷丕亍 賱賱爻賱胤丞 丕賱丨丕賰賲丞 賮賷 丕賱亘賷鬲 賵禺丕乇噩賴貙 亘兀賲賱 丿禺賵賱賴賳 丕賱噩賳丞 亘毓丿 丕賱賲賵鬲.
賰賲丕 賷賯賵賲 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 亘鬲毓乇賷丞 賳馗乇賷丕鬲 "爻賷噩賲賵賳丿 賮乇賵賷丿" 賲賳 睾胤丕卅賴丕 丕賱毓賱賲賷 丕賱賲賯丿爻 丕賱夭丕卅賮貙 賱賯丿 賯購賴乇鬲 丕賱賳爻丕亍 亘爻賱胤丞 丕賱毓賱賲 賵丕賱鬲丕乇賷禺 賵丕賱賮賱爻賮丞 賵丕賱賮賳 賵丕賱胤亘 丕賱噩爻丿賷 賵丕賱賳賮爻賷 賵丕賱毓賯賱賷 亘賲孬賱 賲丕 賯購賴乇賳 亘爻賱胤丞 丕賱兀丿賷丕賳 賵丕賱賳馗賲 丕賱爻賷丕爻賷丞 賵丕賱廿賯鬲氐丕丿賷丞 賵丕賱廿噩鬲賲丕毓賷丞 賵丕賱廿毓賱丕賲賷丞 丕賱丨丕賰賲丞.
廿賳賾 賴匕丕 丕賱乇亘胤 丕賱鬲丕乇賷禺賷 亘賷賳 丕賱爻賱胤丕鬲 賵丕賱賲噩丕賱丕鬲 丕賱賲禺鬲賱賮丞 賮賷 丕賱丨賷丕丞 丕賱毓丕賲丞 賵丕賱禺丕氐丞 賴賵 丕賱賵爻賷賱丞 丕賱賵丨賷丿丞 賱賰卮賮 丕賱兀爻亘丕亘 丕賱丨賯賷賯賷丞 賵乇丕亍 賲丌爻賷 丕賱賳爻丕亍 賮賷 丕賱毓丕賱賲 卮乇賯丕賸 賵睾乇亘丕賸 賵卮賲丕賱丕賸 賵噩賳賵亘丕賸.
賷購亘丿丿 賴匕丕 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 丕賱兀賮賰丕乇 丕賱賲睾賱賵胤丞 丨鬲賶 丕賱賷賵賲貙 丕賱鬲賷 鬲禺鬲夭賱 賲卮賰賱丞 丕賱賲乇兀丞 賮賷 丿賷賳 賵丕丨丿貙 丕賱廿爻賱丕賲 賲孬賱丕賸貙 丕賱賰丕鬲賵賱賷賰 賲孬賱丕賸貙 兀賵 胤亘賯丞 賵丕丨丿丞 兀賵 噩賳爻 賵丕丨丿 兀賵 賴賵賷丞 賵丕丨丿丞 兀賵 亘賷卅丞 賲毓賷賳丞 兀賵 睾賷乇賴丕."
賰賲丕 賷賯賵賲 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 亘鬲毓乇賷丞 賳馗乇賷丕鬲 "爻賷噩賲賵賳丿 賮乇賵賷丿" 賲賳 睾胤丕卅賴丕 丕賱毓賱賲賷 丕賱賲賯丿爻 丕賱夭丕卅賮貙 賱賯丿 賯購賴乇鬲 丕賱賳爻丕亍 亘爻賱胤丞 丕賱毓賱賲 賵丕賱鬲丕乇賷禺 賵丕賱賮賱爻賮丞 賵丕賱賮賳 賵丕賱胤亘 丕賱噩爻丿賷 賵丕賱賳賮爻賷 賵丕賱毓賯賱賷 亘賲孬賱 賲丕 賯購賴乇賳 亘爻賱胤丞 丕賱兀丿賷丕賳 賵丕賱賳馗賲 丕賱爻賷丕爻賷丞 賵丕賱廿賯鬲氐丕丿賷丞 賵丕賱廿噩鬲賲丕毓賷丞 賵丕賱廿毓賱丕賲賷丞 丕賱丨丕賰賲丞.
廿賳賾 賴匕丕 丕賱乇亘胤 丕賱鬲丕乇賷禺賷 亘賷賳 丕賱爻賱胤丕鬲 賵丕賱賲噩丕賱丕鬲 丕賱賲禺鬲賱賮丞 賮賷 丕賱丨賷丕丞 丕賱毓丕賲丞 賵丕賱禺丕氐丞 賴賵 丕賱賵爻賷賱丞 丕賱賵丨賷丿丞 賱賰卮賮 丕賱兀爻亘丕亘 丕賱丨賯賷賯賷丞 賵乇丕亍 賲丌爻賷 丕賱賳爻丕亍 賮賷 丕賱毓丕賱賲 卮乇賯丕賸 賵睾乇亘丕賸 賵卮賲丕賱丕賸 賵噩賳賵亘丕賸.
賷購亘丿丿 賴匕丕 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 丕賱兀賮賰丕乇 丕賱賲睾賱賵胤丞 丨鬲賶 丕賱賷賵賲貙 丕賱鬲賷 鬲禺鬲夭賱 賲卮賰賱丞 丕賱賲乇兀丞 賮賷 丿賷賳 賵丕丨丿貙 丕賱廿爻賱丕賲 賲孬賱丕賸貙 丕賱賰丕鬲賵賱賷賰 賲孬賱丕賸貙 兀賵 胤亘賯丞 賵丕丨丿丞 兀賵 噩賳爻 賵丕丨丿 兀賵 賴賵賷丞 賵丕丨丿丞 兀賵 亘賷卅丞 賲毓賷賳丞 兀賵 睾賷乇賴丕."
325 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
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About the author
Shulamith Firestone
6听books186听followersShulamith Firestone (also called Shulie) was a Jewish, Canadian-born feminist. She was a central figure in the early development of radical feminism, having been a founding member of the New York Radical Women, Redstockings, and New York Radical Feminists. In 1970, she authored The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, an important and widely influential feminist text.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 261 reviews
November 26, 2012
My first serious girlfriend was a feminist and through her I started to read and think about feminist arguments. Generally it is usual to start with De Beauvoir's The Second Sex or Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch. Not me. I started with this one! One of the more radical feminists, this really challenged my learnt behaviours and learnt ideas. I liked the way she used Marx's "means of production" argument and used it in relation to the "means of reproduction". I went on to read books by Dworkin, Brownmiller and the above texts, but this is the one that set me thinking.
March 17, 2017
A synthesis of Marxism and radical feminism is an interesting concept in theory, but Firestone doesn't really do a good job. To be blunt, this is a very racist book. Her chapter on racism - "Racism: The Sexism of the Family of Man" - is just disgusting. In order to prove her theory, Firestone has to show a causal link between racism and sexism. To do this, she takes a bizarre psychoanalytic perspective that characterizes white/Black race relations in the United States as Oedipus and Elektra complexes; the end result is basically spending a whole chapter victim blaming Black women and talking about how sexist the Black Power movement was in her eyes (in reality the Black Panthers were around 70% women according to some estimates and supported women's liberation more or less completely after 1969). She doesn't touch on any other race relations and in fact in another chapter belittles Indigenous struggles. This kind of racist analysis is really unacceptable.
August 31, 2012
Writing this because I'm thinking a lot of Shulamith Firestone's death tonight. A professor in media studies lent me his copy of Dialectic of Sex when I was 18 and i remember how it fundamentally changed my thinking. As a young feminist reading a lot of Marx and thinking of socialism, it really brought home the concept of reproductive labour. And I referenced the book a lot both in school and personally.
Plus, I really liked how she characterized childbirth and pregnancy as a completely dehumanizing experience.
I think I'll read it again and write a more thoughtful review 14 years after reading it.
I had so many questions for her and was hoping she would go on some speaking tour with Dialectic of Sex Revisited. Like, how she analyzes gender oppression with trans rights, if she really thought men couldn't love and if she feared that technology could further oppress women.
It's amazing she wrote this when she was 25, but also really sad died alone struggling with mental illness. I kind of wish I had the chance to tell her that her book really set me on the road of fighting for social justice and liberation.
RIP Shulamith!
Plus, I really liked how she characterized childbirth and pregnancy as a completely dehumanizing experience.
I think I'll read it again and write a more thoughtful review 14 years after reading it.
I had so many questions for her and was hoping she would go on some speaking tour with Dialectic of Sex Revisited. Like, how she analyzes gender oppression with trans rights, if she really thought men couldn't love and if she feared that technology could further oppress women.
It's amazing she wrote this when she was 25, but also really sad died alone struggling with mental illness. I kind of wish I had the chance to tell her that her book really set me on the road of fighting for social justice and liberation.
RIP Shulamith!
July 6, 2007
Firestone, part of the Women's Liberation Movement and a founder of the Redstockings, is an oft-quoted source of inspiration for one of my favorite blogs, I Blame the Patriarchy (IBTP). So when I ran across her book in a thrift store, I thought it a lucky find, as I could finally see what the big fuss over Firestone is all about.
There are aspects of Firestone's analysis of gender inequalities that I found quite compelling. She sees women's oppression as a class issue (thus the regular statement on IBTP of women as the 'sex class'), which I think makes it easier to talk about other types of oppression as linked to women's oppression. If 'women' is a class and not just a biological state, then it's possible to talk about men who culturally belong to this class, not because they blur or transgress (though they may) biological gender lines, but because they have been culturally/socially marked as belonging to the 'female' class, and thus are similarly oppressed by the male elite at the top of the patriarchy's hierarchical chain. Firestone uses this discussion of class to link sexism and racism, which I think is useful. She also discusses children as an oppressed class and charts some of the historical trends in how children have been regarded in society to make the case that they are potentially more oppressed now than several centuries ago.*
Notably, however, much of her analysis becomes extremely Freudian, which has its weaker and stronger points. She does some really interesting things with Freud, though; she refers to Freudianism as 'the misguided feminism.' She suggests that 'the only way that the Oedipus Complex can make full sense is in terms of power,' so that what happens in the complex is not so much transference of sexual desire but a realization of who has power in the family unit and a realignment of oneself along those axes of power. I think this may be a pretty plausible adaptation of Freud, but I'm interested in finding someone more versed in his work who had critiqued Firestone to see if there are things I'm missing.
I found the last third of the book much less satisfying. Firestone has a section on 'feminism and ecology' which is essentially an overly simplistic look at the ecological crisis, with all the blame placed on the 'population problem.' Thus the solution to environmental degradation is for women to overcome their own biology, and for reproduction to happen cybernetically, with children communally cared for. This view certainly dates Firestone, as modern feminism, especially eco-feminism, has recognized the problems of mandating birth control for all women, and especially for seeing population as the main contributing factor to environmental deterioration, ignoring issues like per capita consumption of natural resources. And we are only now beginning to understand some of the problems in technological control over the basic processes of life, such as in our attempts to genetically modify plant life (see for news reports confirming the danger of GMO food to human health). So, try though she may, I don't think that Firestone is able to lay out a plausible picture of what a future, patriarchy-free society might look like; I just don't think her hopes for a 'cybernetic socialism' are either realistic or desirable.
*"Yes, you say, but surely it would have been better for the children of the working class could they too have lived sheltered by this myth [of childhood]. At least they would have been spared their lives. So they could sweat out their spiritual lives in some schoolroom or office? The question is rhetorical, like wondering whether the suffering of blacks in America is authentic because they would be considered rich in some other country. Suffering is suffering. No, we have to think in broader terms here. Like, why were their parents being exploited in the first place? What was anybody doing down in that coal mine?"
There are aspects of Firestone's analysis of gender inequalities that I found quite compelling. She sees women's oppression as a class issue (thus the regular statement on IBTP of women as the 'sex class'), which I think makes it easier to talk about other types of oppression as linked to women's oppression. If 'women' is a class and not just a biological state, then it's possible to talk about men who culturally belong to this class, not because they blur or transgress (though they may) biological gender lines, but because they have been culturally/socially marked as belonging to the 'female' class, and thus are similarly oppressed by the male elite at the top of the patriarchy's hierarchical chain. Firestone uses this discussion of class to link sexism and racism, which I think is useful. She also discusses children as an oppressed class and charts some of the historical trends in how children have been regarded in society to make the case that they are potentially more oppressed now than several centuries ago.*
Notably, however, much of her analysis becomes extremely Freudian, which has its weaker and stronger points. She does some really interesting things with Freud, though; she refers to Freudianism as 'the misguided feminism.' She suggests that 'the only way that the Oedipus Complex can make full sense is in terms of power,' so that what happens in the complex is not so much transference of sexual desire but a realization of who has power in the family unit and a realignment of oneself along those axes of power. I think this may be a pretty plausible adaptation of Freud, but I'm interested in finding someone more versed in his work who had critiqued Firestone to see if there are things I'm missing.
I found the last third of the book much less satisfying. Firestone has a section on 'feminism and ecology' which is essentially an overly simplistic look at the ecological crisis, with all the blame placed on the 'population problem.' Thus the solution to environmental degradation is for women to overcome their own biology, and for reproduction to happen cybernetically, with children communally cared for. This view certainly dates Firestone, as modern feminism, especially eco-feminism, has recognized the problems of mandating birth control for all women, and especially for seeing population as the main contributing factor to environmental deterioration, ignoring issues like per capita consumption of natural resources. And we are only now beginning to understand some of the problems in technological control over the basic processes of life, such as in our attempts to genetically modify plant life (see for news reports confirming the danger of GMO food to human health). So, try though she may, I don't think that Firestone is able to lay out a plausible picture of what a future, patriarchy-free society might look like; I just don't think her hopes for a 'cybernetic socialism' are either realistic or desirable.
*"Yes, you say, but surely it would have been better for the children of the working class could they too have lived sheltered by this myth [of childhood]. At least they would have been spared their lives. So they could sweat out their spiritual lives in some schoolroom or office? The question is rhetorical, like wondering whether the suffering of blacks in America is authentic because they would be considered rich in some other country. Suffering is suffering. No, we have to think in broader terms here. Like, why were their parents being exploited in the first place? What was anybody doing down in that coal mine?"
November 24, 2017
"(inauthentic) racism"
I think the general position on her is that she was a brilliant thinker who sometimes missed the mark.
My thoughts are she's a very weak thinker who had one or two insights. It's not just her virulent racism. It's her sloppy arguments re freudianism, overpopulation, childhood and incest etc.
(TBH my position on her has been shaped by the fact that the first thing I heard about her was that she argued that racism is just sexism extended and I've been contemptuous of her and people who think highly of her ever since.)
I think the general position on her is that she was a brilliant thinker who sometimes missed the mark.
My thoughts are she's a very weak thinker who had one or two insights. It's not just her virulent racism. It's her sloppy arguments re freudianism, overpopulation, childhood and incest etc.
(TBH my position on her has been shaped by the fact that the first thing I heard about her was that she argued that racism is just sexism extended and I've been contemptuous of her and people who think highly of her ever since.)
October 5, 2012
This book is total whiplash. Firestone is totally brilliant one moment, and totally ridiculous the next. Even though I agreed with many of her premises, and some of her conclusions, I was often bewildered by her thought process -- she really needed to lay off the Freud, and maybe go out and meet some actual children. Her tone, too, is hard to take. She reads like an out-of-touch guidance counselor or a hopelessly square academic.
February 2, 2017
Best read in the sociology of gender that radicalized notions of what feminism could and should be for me.
January 18, 2022
This is a really good book, I read it in one breath, maybe it's a little dated, especially with all the new reproductive technologies that changed almost nothing regarding family life. But I wouldn鈥檛 call it 鈥榬adical鈥�. What exactly is radical about it? Firestone is writing facts about this society 鈥� men and women are not equal because of the fact that only women can give birth. Isn鈥檛 that a fact? Society just never adopted to this fact in a righteous way. When two people have the same job position, and one goes off to have a baby, the other has a better chance of getting a promotion, or keeping a job if somebody has to get laid off, right? We could say that women get something else, the joy of children, the love鈥�. But this may or may not be true. Sure some get joy. Others get depression, guilt 鈥�
Maybe Firestone鈥檚 solutions are radical (artificial ways to have kids). They are also a little idealistic. Because artificial ways of reproduction have to be paid, which bring us to the class question. Only the privileged would have the privilege anyhow. Don鈥檛 we have third world women getting pregnant for women from USA or Europe today?
But her solutions aside, the real question after reading Firestone remains: it possible to reach equality in a society where only women are responsible for giving birth and most of childrearing? This is still debatable today.
Maybe Firestone鈥檚 solutions are radical (artificial ways to have kids). They are also a little idealistic. Because artificial ways of reproduction have to be paid, which bring us to the class question. Only the privileged would have the privilege anyhow. Don鈥檛 we have third world women getting pregnant for women from USA or Europe today?
But her solutions aside, the real question after reading Firestone remains: it possible to reach equality in a society where only women are responsible for giving birth and most of childrearing? This is still debatable today.
January 22, 2008
A wonderful combination of Marxism & Feminism. A radical (sometimes to the point of absurdity?), powerful, honest, dated, and frequently very funny work.
Pregnancy is barbaric. I do not believe, as many women are now saying, that the reason pregnancy is viewed as not beautiful is due strictly to cultural perversion. The child's first response, "What's wrong with that Fat Lady?"; the husband's guilty waning of sexual desire; the woman's tears in front of the mirror at eight months -- all are gut reactions, not to be dismissed as cultural habits. Pregnancy is the temporary deformation of the body of the individual for the sake of the species.
Moreover, childbirth hurts. And it isn't good for you. Three thousand years ago, women giving birth "naturally" had no need to pretend that pregnancy was a real trip, some mystical orgasm (that far-away look). The Bible said it: pain and travail. The glamour was unnecessary: women had no choice. They didn't dare squawk. But at least they could scream as loudly as they wanted during their labour pains. And after it was over, even during it, they were admired in a limited way for their bravery; their valour was measured by how many children (sons) they could endure bringing into the world.
Today all this has been confused. The cult of natural childbirth itself tells us how far we've come from true oneness with nature. Natural childbirth is only one more part of the reactionary hippie-Rousseauean Return-to-Nature, and just as self-conscious. Perhaps a mystification of childbirth, true faith, makes it easier for the woman involved. Psuedo-yoga exercises, twenty pregnant women breathing deeply on the floor to the conductor's baton, may even help some women develop "proper" attitudes (as in "I didn't scream once"). The squirming husband at the bedside, like the empathy pains of certain tribesmen ("Just look what I go through with you, dear"), may make a woman feel less alone during her ordeal. But the fact remains: childbirth is at best necessary and tolerable. It is not fun.
Pregnancy is barbaric. I do not believe, as many women are now saying, that the reason pregnancy is viewed as not beautiful is due strictly to cultural perversion. The child's first response, "What's wrong with that Fat Lady?"; the husband's guilty waning of sexual desire; the woman's tears in front of the mirror at eight months -- all are gut reactions, not to be dismissed as cultural habits. Pregnancy is the temporary deformation of the body of the individual for the sake of the species.
Moreover, childbirth hurts. And it isn't good for you. Three thousand years ago, women giving birth "naturally" had no need to pretend that pregnancy was a real trip, some mystical orgasm (that far-away look). The Bible said it: pain and travail. The glamour was unnecessary: women had no choice. They didn't dare squawk. But at least they could scream as loudly as they wanted during their labour pains. And after it was over, even during it, they were admired in a limited way for their bravery; their valour was measured by how many children (sons) they could endure bringing into the world.
Today all this has been confused. The cult of natural childbirth itself tells us how far we've come from true oneness with nature. Natural childbirth is only one more part of the reactionary hippie-Rousseauean Return-to-Nature, and just as self-conscious. Perhaps a mystification of childbirth, true faith, makes it easier for the woman involved. Psuedo-yoga exercises, twenty pregnant women breathing deeply on the floor to the conductor's baton, may even help some women develop "proper" attitudes (as in "I didn't scream once"). The squirming husband at the bedside, like the empathy pains of certain tribesmen ("Just look what I go through with you, dear"), may make a woman feel less alone during her ordeal. But the fact remains: childbirth is at best necessary and tolerable. It is not fun.
August 17, 2015
People don't understand this book, and it's easy to misinterpret it and label Firestone as a delusional antiquated radical feminist who disappeared into obscurity anyway, but the thing is this book is the best starting point for social change that I have ever come across. I intend to show the world how perceptive Shulamith Firestone really was. It's scary facing the possibility that truth doesn't lie in absolutes, and that freedoms can actually exist and be possible without everyone killing each other or the "inherent darker truth of human nature" coming out. It's safer to believe humans are evil - laws and governments and establishments and authorities make sense that way. Firestone has ruthlessly deconstructed so many social conventions it seems preposterous to most people. Social notions about childhood, incest, race, sexuality, politics, economic structure - they're all dispensed with. Firestone does have a certain bias against homosexuality which is one of the biggest reasons why I think of this book as a starting point and not a complete analysis, strategy or understanding of world politics. As for outdated? The world hasn't actually changed that much since the Sixties. It's just become more prettily embellished.
August 18, 2016
I never want to see the term "racial Oedipal complex" ever
May 13, 2017
Great introduction but as I read more, i realized her analysis on race is really, really bad. I think she's racist...She belittles indigenous resistance and Black Panthers among others. This is all my fault. If i finish Angela Davis's Women Race and Class (she criticized this book in Chapter 11), i wouldn't buy this book!!
There is some good ideas, yes, but i cannot get pass this blatant racism.
There is some good ideas, yes, but i cannot get pass this blatant racism.
December 19, 2019
'Maybe it would be funny if it weren't so serious.' (Proposed tagline for the dialectic of the sexes ever since the abolition of couverture, dated August 17, 1920.)
I don't know if the author was infleuenced by Marcuse and Adorno in her thesis, but it certainly shares much in common with the neo-Marxist underpinnings of Marcuse and other 'New Left' thought: it is one possible subset of the entire revisionist material dialectic 'critical theory' superstructure established by them, with some psychobabble to boot.
It demonstrates this similarity by reimagining the Marxist dialectic in terms of 'the Patriarchy' and 'womyn' instead of economic class, and in terms of, I quote, 'the means of reproduction, which must be seized [from men]' instead of the means of production.
A curdling synthesis of seemingly every strand and phase of corrosive Jewish thought from Spinoza to Marx to Freud to Friedan to Marcuse (whether or not she independently discovered the usefulness of redefining material dialectic and Marxian economics - and the ease with which they are lent - in terms of some or the other 'oppressed' group and 'the power structure' instead of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and in terms of politically economizing a non-economic activity, respectively), the goal of this book, if secured, would ensure the existence of a 'Matriarchy' for one or maybe two generations before a general (and well-deserved) civilizational collapse.
As desiderata of her thesis have been imperfectly and partially though increasingly secured in the Western world (especially in the university - so-called 'rape culture' -- in the human resources department -- in the metamorphosed Marcusianism of the SJW movements and related strands of the alt-left), the gestalt of her thesis - whether by her created, or just by her expressed - is certainly here, now, in the decadence of late capitalism, pouring fuel on the fire melting the girders of civilization. No race can survive without its women: in this, and this alone, was the author correct...
If you want to see the purest and radical blueprint and attempted justification for the nth-wave feminist plague, skip everything else: you've come to the right place. (If you're part of the plague, you will love it with a righteous love such as I can not describe! if you've reached this far, give a reading to Benatar, 'The Second Sexism' [academic] or van Creveld, 'The Privilged Sex' [popular], to which - if you have any intellectual honesty - you will likely have the same mixed but largely negative reaction a Radical Traditionalist or Neoreactionary such as myself has to his tome.)
To give respect where respect is due, it is a simply amazing accomplishment from a twenty-something student, to either (or both) tap the zeitgeist, or (and) to further mold it so well.
The rating is hard to come by, as the book is enlightening as to part of the predicament we find ourselves in in the West but entirely destructive in its thesis and application (which has become too real, if still marginal); prescient, but a self-fulfilling prophecy of collapse and regress; dogmatic yet evil, and above all obtuse and murky in that ineffable way of neo-Marxists, social scientists and pomo historians who really don't know what they're trying to say (or know all too well and desire to sneak it past their betters: the Sokal affair makes me hopeful this is not often the case). There is no part of the book I can give a five; few parts I can give a four; quite a few parts I can give a three, and a panoply of sections - including the overarching thesis - to which negative value can be justly assigned. In light of the importance and influence of the work, and the revelatory character of some passages with regard to lifting a flickering and dim lantern to the decaying and leprous corners of our world (yes, while capturing, propagandizing, and rationalizing a good part of one of the many Aristotelian causes responsible for their condition), a zero or one-star rating seems inadequate, so I leave a reluctant two stars, rounded up from somewhere in the one-decimals.
It is, in any case, reluctantly recommended reading, in the same league as Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals', but on one of the theoretical sides.
(Pre-Nov 2018 review)
I don't know if the author was infleuenced by Marcuse and Adorno in her thesis, but it certainly shares much in common with the neo-Marxist underpinnings of Marcuse and other 'New Left' thought: it is one possible subset of the entire revisionist material dialectic 'critical theory' superstructure established by them, with some psychobabble to boot.
It demonstrates this similarity by reimagining the Marxist dialectic in terms of 'the Patriarchy' and 'womyn' instead of economic class, and in terms of, I quote, 'the means of reproduction, which must be seized [from men]' instead of the means of production.
A curdling synthesis of seemingly every strand and phase of corrosive Jewish thought from Spinoza to Marx to Freud to Friedan to Marcuse (whether or not she independently discovered the usefulness of redefining material dialectic and Marxian economics - and the ease with which they are lent - in terms of some or the other 'oppressed' group and 'the power structure' instead of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and in terms of politically economizing a non-economic activity, respectively), the goal of this book, if secured, would ensure the existence of a 'Matriarchy' for one or maybe two generations before a general (and well-deserved) civilizational collapse.
As desiderata of her thesis have been imperfectly and partially though increasingly secured in the Western world (especially in the university - so-called 'rape culture' -- in the human resources department -- in the metamorphosed Marcusianism of the SJW movements and related strands of the alt-left), the gestalt of her thesis - whether by her created, or just by her expressed - is certainly here, now, in the decadence of late capitalism, pouring fuel on the fire melting the girders of civilization. No race can survive without its women: in this, and this alone, was the author correct...
If you want to see the purest and radical blueprint and attempted justification for the nth-wave feminist plague, skip everything else: you've come to the right place. (If you're part of the plague, you will love it with a righteous love such as I can not describe! if you've reached this far, give a reading to Benatar, 'The Second Sexism' [academic] or van Creveld, 'The Privilged Sex' [popular], to which - if you have any intellectual honesty - you will likely have the same mixed but largely negative reaction a Radical Traditionalist or Neoreactionary such as myself has to his tome.)
To give respect where respect is due, it is a simply amazing accomplishment from a twenty-something student, to either (or both) tap the zeitgeist, or (and) to further mold it so well.
The rating is hard to come by, as the book is enlightening as to part of the predicament we find ourselves in in the West but entirely destructive in its thesis and application (which has become too real, if still marginal); prescient, but a self-fulfilling prophecy of collapse and regress; dogmatic yet evil, and above all obtuse and murky in that ineffable way of neo-Marxists, social scientists and pomo historians who really don't know what they're trying to say (or know all too well and desire to sneak it past their betters: the Sokal affair makes me hopeful this is not often the case). There is no part of the book I can give a five; few parts I can give a four; quite a few parts I can give a three, and a panoply of sections - including the overarching thesis - to which negative value can be justly assigned. In light of the importance and influence of the work, and the revelatory character of some passages with regard to lifting a flickering and dim lantern to the decaying and leprous corners of our world (yes, while capturing, propagandizing, and rationalizing a good part of one of the many Aristotelian causes responsible for their condition), a zero or one-star rating seems inadequate, so I leave a reluctant two stars, rounded up from somewhere in the one-decimals.
It is, in any case, reluctantly recommended reading, in the same league as Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals', but on one of the theoretical sides.
(Pre-Nov 2018 review)
September 21, 2014
A thought-provoking book with strong analysis in certain areas, but major flaws in others. Firestone is strongest in her analysis of the history of feminism, the failings of Freudian psychology, and the role of love and romanticism in heterosexuality (although she doesn't name it as heterosexuality), and she doesn't sugarcoat her critique of men's oppression of women. Despite being written over 40 years ago, her analysis is still very relevant. Her discussion of the social construction of childhood is fascinating, especially as it relates to the nuclear family and schooling system, but her ideas about child sexuality 鈥� and child/adult and parent/child sexuality in particular 鈥� are troubling. When it comes to race, her analysis is very lacking; she tries to force white/black relations into the framework provided by her reinterpretation of Freud, and she relies significantly on racist stereotypes (black men want white women) and misogynist texts like Soul on Ice to support her case. Gay and lesbian issues are another area in which the book deserves criticism. Firestone does an excellent job of showing how the institution of heterosexuality hurts women, but she fails to discuss "homosexuals" 鈥� although she occasionally sympathizes with them 鈥� as anything more than examples of abnormal psychology, and her comment that "homosexual men" are "often misogynists of the worst order" smacks of homophobia. She is unable to offer a full critique of heterosexuality, including PIV, and her heteronormative perspective is revealed in her claims that, given all choices, people would naturally gravitate towards heterosexuality due to the "sheer physical fit" of male鈥揻emale bodies in sex. When it comes to her discussion of technology, Firestone offers a hopelessly naive image of a utopian techno-fix. Of course, her visions of artificial wombs and technology to alleviate women of domestic chores are products of the time, with the book written in 1969, but it is nevertheless unfortunate that she cannot see the connection between men's domination of women and "man's" domination of nature, instead seeing the latter as part of the solution to the former. I was very interested in seeing what her vision of a feminist revolution would look like, but the technologically-dependent, controlling state she describes strikes me as not only thoroughly unrealistic but also very unappealing. While the book does come together well as a whole, each chapter forms a coherent, independent unit and can be read separately.
October 20, 2017
Endlessly anti-black.
I was also annoyed and low key grossed out by her need to psychologize white supremacy (and patriarchy sometimes) as some sort of repressed, unsolved, psychosexual failing.
Yikes.
I was also annoyed and low key grossed out by her need to psychologize white supremacy (and patriarchy sometimes) as some sort of repressed, unsolved, psychosexual failing.
Yikes.
January 9, 2021
Reading a classic text, published in 1970, it is helpful to put aside the intervening 50 years and avoid imposing today鈥檚 debates and values; they just get in the way and it is in any case a good thing to build a picture of how things stood in 1970. When it comes to applying its ideas to problems in 2021, it is likely that only broad concepts and insights will be reasonably applicable, the details mostly a distraction. However, it would be a pity to be unaware of Firestone鈥檚 arguments: the book is a classic for good reasons and if the reader cannot see this, then the problem is not in the book.
Firestone gives a broad overview of feminist struggle in America over the preceding century. She does not see winning the vote as a crowning achievement, but rather a dangerous dilution of what feminists had attempted. It was followed by 鈥渇ifty years of ridicule鈥� in which women鈥檚 energies and resources were repeatedly diverted to serve futile or distracting goals. The great feminists of the past were forgotten and buried from history. Firestone鈥檚 generation had the task of rediscovering and refreshing feminist principles in the light of their contemporary challenges.
Firestone proposed to construct her theory on the towering foundations of the two most imposing cultural icons of the times, and she vigorously wrestled both Marx and Freud into service, having insouciantly revised their central theories into a form suitable for her purpose. It is interesting that she did not attempt a similar appropriation of Darwin, to complete the trinity of cultural giants.
From Marx and Engels she adopts the principle of dialectical materialism but disagrees with their reading of history. She claims that the primary foundation for social class was the oppression of women by men, arising from their reproductive functions and associated biology, as well as the extended dependency of human infants. The dynamics of capitalism was beginning, in the 20th century, to relieve women of this fundamental dependency (e.g. through improved birth control and a reduced need for domestic labour thanks to technology), while the nature and even the necessity of waged work was also being transformed. Inevitably, these material changes would lead to a revolutionary transformation in the relations of men and women and in the structure of social life.
Firestone makes the interesting observation that Freud and the early women鈥檚 movement were active at the same time, and indeed that there was a widespread debate about the nature of sex differences which I would have expected her to link with the impact of Darwin himself, and also of Social Darwinism (the latter being ideological, and at odds with the science of Darwin himself). The crux of the conflict between psychoanalysis and feminism was that the first conceived of sexual politics in terms of individual psychology, the second in terms of social roles and conflict. These would be powerful insights to pursue in a social science context but that is not her discipline. Instead she develops quite a complex, psychoanalytical model of sex differences, and in a later chapter also considers US racism, by adapting Freud鈥檚 Oedipus and Elektra complexes to her feminist perspective. Because I do have a social science background, I found this exercise curious but unhelpful and certainly not persuasive.
Firestone argues strongly that childhood is oppressive, largely an invention of the modern era (from the 17th Century) and intensely exploited by consumer capitalism. She appeals to the way children in the past, and in other societies, were not segregated from the social and economic life of their community, and argues that modern education inculcates discipline while extinguishing creativity. Using rather ambiguous and unhelpful Freudian terminology, she specifically advocates sexual freedom for children, removal of the incest taboo and the value of intimate relationships between a child and an adult. I don鈥檛 think any of her ideas have stood the test of time or should be accepted today; it is worth being aware that she was not unusual in holding such views, which continue to be held in some academic and other circles, but that was never a good thing.
Among other topics, Firestone explores the concept of [supposedly] contrasting feminine and masculine cultural styles, the first idealistic or imaginative, the second scientific or empirical. She explores these [projected] differences in a range of contexts and has many provocative remarks on the topic. Ultimately, she argues that in this respect, as also in those mentioned earlier, there are deep structural contradictions which will lead to a point where revolutionary change becomes unavoidable, the contradictions having to be resolved and a new way of living must emerge that integrates the two cultural styles. This is, of course, intended to be entirely analogous to the similar propositions of Marx and Engels.
She argues that it is not necessary for her (nor presumably for Marx or Engels) to specify in any way what type of future lies in wait beyond that point; it is sufficient to demonstrate that things cannot go on as they are. She nevertheless does (as did Marx and Engels) speculate on the form which a feminist revolution might take, based on the same criteria used to describe the nature of patriarchy: 1. Freeing women from the tyranny of reproduction 2. Economic independence for all (based on 鈥渃ybernetic communism鈥�) 3. Complete integration of women and children into larger society 4. Sexual freedom. These principles are more significant than the details of her speculation.
Indeed, it would be perfectly reasonable to consider this a utopian text in the tradition that began with Plato鈥檚 Republic and if I was an academic teacher, I would enjoy setting the two books side by side and inviting comparison.
I understand; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth?
In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other.
I think so, he said. [Republic: Book IX]
Quotes
To get the word 'male' out of the constitution cost the women of this country 52 years of pauseless campaign... During that time they were forced to conduct 56 campaigns of referenda to male voters, 480 campaigns to get legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to the voters, 47 campaigns to get state constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions, 277 campaigns to get state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks, 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms and 19 successive campaigns with 19 successive congresses.
Thus defeat was so frequent and victory so rare - and that achieved by such small margins - that even to read about the struggle for suffrage is exhausting, let alone to have lived through it and fought for it.
A hundred years of brilliant personalities and important events have also been erased from American history. The women orators who fought off mobs, in the days when women were not allowed to speak in public, to attack Family, Church and State, who travelled on poor railways to cow towns of the West to talk to small groups of socially starved women, were quite a bit more dramatic than the Scarlet O鈥橦aras and Harriet Beecher Stowes and all the Little Women who have come down to us. Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, freed slaves who went back time and again, with huge prices on their heads, to free other slaves on their own plantations, were more effective in their efforts than the ill fated John Brown. But most people today have never heard of Myrtilla Miner, Prudence Crandell, Abigail Scott Duniway, Mary Putnam Jacobi, Ernestine Rose, the Craflin sisters, Crystal Eastman, 鈥� 鈥�. Alice Paul. And yet we know about Louisa May Alcott, Claire Barton and Florence Nightingale鈥� The omission of vital characters from standard versions of American history in favour of such goody-goodies cannot be tossed off. 鈥�
Firestone gives a broad overview of feminist struggle in America over the preceding century. She does not see winning the vote as a crowning achievement, but rather a dangerous dilution of what feminists had attempted. It was followed by 鈥渇ifty years of ridicule鈥� in which women鈥檚 energies and resources were repeatedly diverted to serve futile or distracting goals. The great feminists of the past were forgotten and buried from history. Firestone鈥檚 generation had the task of rediscovering and refreshing feminist principles in the light of their contemporary challenges.
Firestone proposed to construct her theory on the towering foundations of the two most imposing cultural icons of the times, and she vigorously wrestled both Marx and Freud into service, having insouciantly revised their central theories into a form suitable for her purpose. It is interesting that she did not attempt a similar appropriation of Darwin, to complete the trinity of cultural giants.
From Marx and Engels she adopts the principle of dialectical materialism but disagrees with their reading of history. She claims that the primary foundation for social class was the oppression of women by men, arising from their reproductive functions and associated biology, as well as the extended dependency of human infants. The dynamics of capitalism was beginning, in the 20th century, to relieve women of this fundamental dependency (e.g. through improved birth control and a reduced need for domestic labour thanks to technology), while the nature and even the necessity of waged work was also being transformed. Inevitably, these material changes would lead to a revolutionary transformation in the relations of men and women and in the structure of social life.
Firestone makes the interesting observation that Freud and the early women鈥檚 movement were active at the same time, and indeed that there was a widespread debate about the nature of sex differences which I would have expected her to link with the impact of Darwin himself, and also of Social Darwinism (the latter being ideological, and at odds with the science of Darwin himself). The crux of the conflict between psychoanalysis and feminism was that the first conceived of sexual politics in terms of individual psychology, the second in terms of social roles and conflict. These would be powerful insights to pursue in a social science context but that is not her discipline. Instead she develops quite a complex, psychoanalytical model of sex differences, and in a later chapter also considers US racism, by adapting Freud鈥檚 Oedipus and Elektra complexes to her feminist perspective. Because I do have a social science background, I found this exercise curious but unhelpful and certainly not persuasive.
Firestone argues strongly that childhood is oppressive, largely an invention of the modern era (from the 17th Century) and intensely exploited by consumer capitalism. She appeals to the way children in the past, and in other societies, were not segregated from the social and economic life of their community, and argues that modern education inculcates discipline while extinguishing creativity. Using rather ambiguous and unhelpful Freudian terminology, she specifically advocates sexual freedom for children, removal of the incest taboo and the value of intimate relationships between a child and an adult. I don鈥檛 think any of her ideas have stood the test of time or should be accepted today; it is worth being aware that she was not unusual in holding such views, which continue to be held in some academic and other circles, but that was never a good thing.
Among other topics, Firestone explores the concept of [supposedly] contrasting feminine and masculine cultural styles, the first idealistic or imaginative, the second scientific or empirical. She explores these [projected] differences in a range of contexts and has many provocative remarks on the topic. Ultimately, she argues that in this respect, as also in those mentioned earlier, there are deep structural contradictions which will lead to a point where revolutionary change becomes unavoidable, the contradictions having to be resolved and a new way of living must emerge that integrates the two cultural styles. This is, of course, intended to be entirely analogous to the similar propositions of Marx and Engels.
She argues that it is not necessary for her (nor presumably for Marx or Engels) to specify in any way what type of future lies in wait beyond that point; it is sufficient to demonstrate that things cannot go on as they are. She nevertheless does (as did Marx and Engels) speculate on the form which a feminist revolution might take, based on the same criteria used to describe the nature of patriarchy: 1. Freeing women from the tyranny of reproduction 2. Economic independence for all (based on 鈥渃ybernetic communism鈥�) 3. Complete integration of women and children into larger society 4. Sexual freedom. These principles are more significant than the details of her speculation.
Indeed, it would be perfectly reasonable to consider this a utopian text in the tradition that began with Plato鈥檚 Republic and if I was an academic teacher, I would enjoy setting the two books side by side and inviting comparison.
I understand; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth?
In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other.
I think so, he said. [Republic: Book IX]
Quotes
To get the word 'male' out of the constitution cost the women of this country 52 years of pauseless campaign... During that time they were forced to conduct 56 campaigns of referenda to male voters, 480 campaigns to get legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to the voters, 47 campaigns to get state constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions, 277 campaigns to get state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks, 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms and 19 successive campaigns with 19 successive congresses.
Thus defeat was so frequent and victory so rare - and that achieved by such small margins - that even to read about the struggle for suffrage is exhausting, let alone to have lived through it and fought for it.
A hundred years of brilliant personalities and important events have also been erased from American history. The women orators who fought off mobs, in the days when women were not allowed to speak in public, to attack Family, Church and State, who travelled on poor railways to cow towns of the West to talk to small groups of socially starved women, were quite a bit more dramatic than the Scarlet O鈥橦aras and Harriet Beecher Stowes and all the Little Women who have come down to us. Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, freed slaves who went back time and again, with huge prices on their heads, to free other slaves on their own plantations, were more effective in their efforts than the ill fated John Brown. But most people today have never heard of Myrtilla Miner, Prudence Crandell, Abigail Scott Duniway, Mary Putnam Jacobi, Ernestine Rose, the Craflin sisters, Crystal Eastman, 鈥� 鈥�. Alice Paul. And yet we know about Louisa May Alcott, Claire Barton and Florence Nightingale鈥� The omission of vital characters from standard versions of American history in favour of such goody-goodies cannot be tossed off. 鈥�
September 24, 2016
I really wanted to like The Dialectic of Sex, but unfortunately a lot of the ideas were extremely dated or questionable. Firestone's reworking of Marxism through a feminist lens and her appraisal of American feminism (chapters one and two) were interesting, thought-provoking, and well-argued, but it all quickly starts to go downhill. Starting from chapter three, 'Freudianism: The Misguided Feminism', Firestone attempts to analyse all aspects of patriarchal and capitalist culture using purely Freudian terminology and concepts, which results in super problematic assumptions regarding parent/child relations, homosexuality, and race relations, and a really weird fixation on the 'incest taboo'.
Chapters which I liked:
1. The Dialectic of Sex
2. On American Feminism
Chapters which are worth reading (but are occasionally questionable):
3. Freudianism: The Misguided Feminism
4. Down with Childhood
8. (Male) Culture
Chapters which are just questionable:
6. Love (see the first half of bell hooks' All About Love for a much better analysis of love and romance)
7. The Culture of Romance
9. Dialectics of Cultural History
Most of 10. The Ultimate Revolution: Demands and Speculations
Chapters which made me go, "Yikes!":
5. Racism: The Sexism of the Family of Man
The last few pages of 10. Namely:
Chapters which I liked:
1. The Dialectic of Sex
2. On American Feminism
Chapters which are worth reading (but are occasionally questionable):
3. Freudianism: The Misguided Feminism
4. Down with Childhood
8. (Male) Culture
Chapters which are just questionable:
6. Love (see the first half of bell hooks' All About Love for a much better analysis of love and romance)
7. The Culture of Romance
9. Dialectics of Cultural History
Most of 10. The Ultimate Revolution: Demands and Speculations
Chapters which made me go, "Yikes!":
5. Racism: The Sexism of the Family of Man
The last few pages of 10. Namely:
March 8, 2011
I can't say what the relative merits of this book are -- I can only say that when I read it as a teenager I couldn't begin to understand half of what she was saying and yet it somehow changed the direction of my life. I wanted to understand. I wanted to respond to the anger, the power, the independence portrayed within its mass-market bindings. I hid it in my underwear drawer, next to the pilfered pack of Winstons I'd stolen from my Dad, so my mother wouldn't get that sad, nervous look on her face, like I hated her because I wanted something different; like I'd go off to college and get too much education and forget about God and start taking drugs and date inappropriate people and never come home and not end up being a missionary or a Gospel singer.
And come to think of it. That's pretty much what happened. Thank you, Shulamith.
And come to think of it. That's pretty much what happened. Thank you, Shulamith.
June 4, 2015
Firestone was truly one of a kind. In less than two hundred pages, she presented her case clearly : Biological inequality is the root of social division. It gave rise to sexual class and division of labour (men for production ; women for reproduction). While claiming that Marxist analysis of class struggle based on economic factor failed to grasp the true cause of social division, she took us back to our own bodies and see for ourselves the inherent inequality in our biology.
It is this inequality that also gave birth to the creation of family and superficial sense of love and romance. However, as a fan of Butler and Foucault, her analysis lack foundational critique which characterized the embodiment of our identity particularly through the creation of gender itself. No one who has an interest in gender studies should ignore this radical piece.
It is this inequality that also gave birth to the creation of family and superficial sense of love and romance. However, as a fan of Butler and Foucault, her analysis lack foundational critique which characterized the embodiment of our identity particularly through the creation of gender itself. No one who has an interest in gender studies should ignore this radical piece.
July 30, 2017
Strange, Radical and Unthinkable. Those were the three words that refused to leave my head when I was reading this book. Firestone herself would say that the fact that I think this is unthinkable, just as every other man and woman out there would, is an indication of how deep the sex dialectic goes.
She provides helpful summaries at the end of almost every chapter, and frankly, they were the ones that really stunned me. To summarize her whole "destroy to create a better new world", she says:
1. throw out genders and sex roles: all reproduction will be artificial and neither women nor men would have any special attachment to the child as "their own"
2. throw out culture as we know it: all the culture we have till now has only been created by men and the subjects have been women. after #1, we will now have a new culture which will have equal, voluntary participation from all humans (remember that there are no sex roles anymore and to refer to men and women as men and women after #1 would be of no particular importance)
3. throw out childhood, schools, the special care for children: i.e. children are little adults. they should be assimilated into the adult society as soon as they are physically capable of it. there's no need to have separate games, separate play-things or separate literature for them. in fact, there's even a need to believe that children should be asexual. (throw back to the medieval ages)
4. throw out economic dependence by incorporating the communist policy: control of the means of production in the hands of the public, and every human will be given a basic income from the government for physical sustenance.
There are several loopholes that I could think of in her principles, even if you allow for the fact that the cybernation and the completely artificial reproduction society is just around the corner (47 years ago, she said "soon"). I realise why Radical feminism is so controversial, it openly says that the complete present system is useless and the only way to redeem it is to completely destroy it and go back to the Medieval Ages, only this time, we would have the technology to not have to toil everyday.
She provides helpful summaries at the end of almost every chapter, and frankly, they were the ones that really stunned me. To summarize her whole "destroy to create a better new world", she says:
1. throw out genders and sex roles: all reproduction will be artificial and neither women nor men would have any special attachment to the child as "their own"
2. throw out culture as we know it: all the culture we have till now has only been created by men and the subjects have been women. after #1, we will now have a new culture which will have equal, voluntary participation from all humans (remember that there are no sex roles anymore and to refer to men and women as men and women after #1 would be of no particular importance)
3. throw out childhood, schools, the special care for children: i.e. children are little adults. they should be assimilated into the adult society as soon as they are physically capable of it. there's no need to have separate games, separate play-things or separate literature for them. in fact, there's even a need to believe that children should be asexual. (throw back to the medieval ages)
4. throw out economic dependence by incorporating the communist policy: control of the means of production in the hands of the public, and every human will be given a basic income from the government for physical sustenance.
There are several loopholes that I could think of in her principles, even if you allow for the fact that the cybernation and the completely artificial reproduction society is just around the corner (47 years ago, she said "soon"). I realise why Radical feminism is so controversial, it openly says that the complete present system is useless and the only way to redeem it is to completely destroy it and go back to the Medieval Ages, only this time, we would have the technology to not have to toil everyday.
August 20, 2014
Although I do not agree with some of the minutae of this book, it is impossible to overstate the importance (and relevance) of this book to Women's Liberation.
As with Kate Millett's "Sexual Politics", there is no feminism today worthy of the name that has not grown out of the seeds that Firestone planted.
As with Kate Millett's "Sexual Politics", there is no feminism today worthy of the name that has not grown out of the seeds that Firestone planted.
June 30, 2013
Shulamith Firestone understood better than anyone that has ever lived the way in which women's oppression intersects with the oppression of youth. Anyone interested in feminism or youth liberation needs to read this book.
October 1, 2008
Simply a must read. I don't care who you are or what you think you think about sex differences or what you think about Marx. Shulamith will set your ass straight on key issues.
July 25, 2015
Great book and I especially love her focus on love and relationships and the way patriarchy affects them. But the book is limited by its Eurocentrism and its 2nd wave feminism.
March 6, 2024
Only one star cause I can鈥檛 go lower. Suggests living in sexually open communes which involve children and elderly
October 12, 2014
gave this 5 stars because firestone is about as radical as possible which makes for a fun read
Childhood is hell???? Men can't love???? The nuclear family makes everyone neurotic b/c of the taboo against incest???
Holy shit, girl.
Childhood is hell???? Men can't love???? The nuclear family makes everyone neurotic b/c of the taboo against incest???
Holy shit, girl.
June 2, 2007
The chapter about ectogenesis has altered my views on reproductive rights. It's great.
April 25, 2021
I finally read this, the most famous radical feminist books of the 1970s, because I took an online course specifically about this text from the amazing Sophie Lewis. I've had a copy on my shelf forever; I thought it was my copy, and was not sure whether or not I had ever read it. It turned out to be inscribed to my first (male) partner from one of his (female) lovers, so the physical book has its own historicity.
This is a strange, dated, complex, difficult manifesto. Firestone was the canonical angry young woman, with a lot to be angry about. She argues for setting gender differences at the heart of all inequalities and oppressions (hence the title), and that leads her into some very quirky pathways. The chapter on race is almost unreadable in 2021, as she is hell-bent on making racial inequity somehow a subset of gender inequity. She is also homophobic or at the very least unshakably heterocentric, and somewhat of a gender essentialist, even though she is arguing for the abolition of gender. She鈥檚 also smart, thoughtful, incisive, caring, and sometimes funny. The most famous line in the book, far more transgressive in the 1970s than now, is that giving birth is 鈥渓ike shitting a pumpkin.鈥� She was a very early advocate for removing pregnancies from women鈥檚 bodies into mechanical environments
One of the more interesting analyses we read in Lewis's class talked about not reading a book like this for what is right and wrong in it, but a more nuanced reading of what it says about its time, its author, and its milieu, which I found very valuable. Firestone never wrote another political book; she struggled with mental illness all of her life. Her only other book is Airless Spaces, which is apparently a memoir/record of times in mental hospitals. She died alone in 2012.
I probably would never have picked this up without the course to encourage me, and I鈥檓 really glad that I read it the way that I did鈥攊n company, in context, and with good guidance.
This is a strange, dated, complex, difficult manifesto. Firestone was the canonical angry young woman, with a lot to be angry about. She argues for setting gender differences at the heart of all inequalities and oppressions (hence the title), and that leads her into some very quirky pathways. The chapter on race is almost unreadable in 2021, as she is hell-bent on making racial inequity somehow a subset of gender inequity. She is also homophobic or at the very least unshakably heterocentric, and somewhat of a gender essentialist, even though she is arguing for the abolition of gender. She鈥檚 also smart, thoughtful, incisive, caring, and sometimes funny. The most famous line in the book, far more transgressive in the 1970s than now, is that giving birth is 鈥渓ike shitting a pumpkin.鈥� She was a very early advocate for removing pregnancies from women鈥檚 bodies into mechanical environments
One of the more interesting analyses we read in Lewis's class talked about not reading a book like this for what is right and wrong in it, but a more nuanced reading of what it says about its time, its author, and its milieu, which I found very valuable. Firestone never wrote another political book; she struggled with mental illness all of her life. Her only other book is Airless Spaces, which is apparently a memoir/record of times in mental hospitals. She died alone in 2012.
I probably would never have picked this up without the course to encourage me, and I鈥檓 really glad that I read it the way that I did鈥攊n company, in context, and with good guidance.
July 28, 2024
3.5 if we鈥檙e being honest.
i was hooked from the start when she proposed for women to seize the means of reproduction like shulamith you鈥檙e very funny. sth id tweet for sure. i generally think that some of what she has come up with is in a positive sense some of the most revolutionary and necessary contributions to the feminist thought and conceptualisation of a revolution, in particular xenofeminism, abolishing the applied/empirical science and arts/humanities divide and integrating of marxism, freudianism into a radical feminist framework of a societal revolution. it鈥檚 incredible that she wrote this at 25
however, i have two enormous qualms:
1. chapter 5: shulamith firestone please never write about race again
2. children: i think she has a fundamental misunderstanding of child psychology. her points about liberating children, while interesting at first, are taken to such a radical extreme as to imply that age should be culturally disregarded within a sexual/relationship context which is a dangerous, uninformed, and an inane conclusion for a feminist to make. it would only enable pedophilic, abusive relationships between parties that are just neurologically superior one to the other, whether shulamith likes it or not. dismissing child and developmental psychology as a product of the reality it is describing can only go so far and implying that children have the capacity to function as adults fully integrated in every way in human society contradicts aby care for the wellbeing of children and is utopian at best, extremely ridiculous and dangerous at worst (at present)
both of the issues have the ability to question the credibility of anything she posits in the rest of her book, however i find incredible merit in some of her other analysis as well as a good literary talent. i just think some of her inferences are self-serving and biased, without taking into consideration their uninformed nature and logical fallacies
i was hooked from the start when she proposed for women to seize the means of reproduction like shulamith you鈥檙e very funny. sth id tweet for sure. i generally think that some of what she has come up with is in a positive sense some of the most revolutionary and necessary contributions to the feminist thought and conceptualisation of a revolution, in particular xenofeminism, abolishing the applied/empirical science and arts/humanities divide and integrating of marxism, freudianism into a radical feminist framework of a societal revolution. it鈥檚 incredible that she wrote this at 25
however, i have two enormous qualms:
1. chapter 5: shulamith firestone please never write about race again
2. children: i think she has a fundamental misunderstanding of child psychology. her points about liberating children, while interesting at first, are taken to such a radical extreme as to imply that age should be culturally disregarded within a sexual/relationship context which is a dangerous, uninformed, and an inane conclusion for a feminist to make. it would only enable pedophilic, abusive relationships between parties that are just neurologically superior one to the other, whether shulamith likes it or not. dismissing child and developmental psychology as a product of the reality it is describing can only go so far and implying that children have the capacity to function as adults fully integrated in every way in human society contradicts aby care for the wellbeing of children and is utopian at best, extremely ridiculous and dangerous at worst (at present)
both of the issues have the ability to question the credibility of anything she posits in the rest of her book, however i find incredible merit in some of her other analysis as well as a good literary talent. i just think some of her inferences are self-serving and biased, without taking into consideration their uninformed nature and logical fallacies
November 23, 2024
my bible. it is hard to describe how much i love this book. a must read for those getting more seriously into feminism. i cant wait to reread this book once more with even more attention because i feel i didnt give some parts enough justice
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