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The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution
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"No one can understand how feminism has evolved without reading this radical, inflammatory second-wave landmark.” Naomi Wolf
Originally published in 1970, when Shulamith Firestone was just twenty-five years old, and going on to become a bestseller, The Dialectic of Sex was the first book of the women's liberation movement to put forth a feminist theory of politi ...more
Originally published in 1970, when Shulamith Firestone was just twenty-five years old, and going on to become a bestseller, The Dialectic of Sex was the first book of the women's liberation movement to put forth a feminist theory of politi ...more
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Paperback, 240 pages
Published
March 5th 2003
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
(first published 1970)
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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
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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 dehumani ...more
Plus, I really liked how she characterized childbirth and pregnancy as a completely dehumani ...more
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 regula ...more
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 regula ...more
Best read in the sociology of gender that radicalized notions of what feminism could and should be for me.
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 ...more
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 ...more
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 comp
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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.
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
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"(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 ...more
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 ...more
Sep 23, 2013
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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 childh
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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’t call it ‘radical’. What exactly is radical about it? Firestone is writing facts about this society – men and women are not equal because of the fact that only women can give birth. Isn’t that a fact? Society just never adopted in a righteous way to it. When two people have the same job position, and
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I never want to see the term "racial Oedipal complex" ever
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 t ...more
It is t ...more
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 fa
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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.
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.
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", sh ...more
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", sh ...more
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 Freudia
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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.
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.
I suppose a work like this is valuable mostly for its reinterpretation of standard strains of Western (masculine) thought. Ms. Firestone makes astute observations that illustrate the failures of Marxism and the Psychoanalytical movement at understanding what women want. Men will never get it and any system devised by men will never get it. Quite honestly, most men don't want to get it. The mystery is the thrill. This is why marriage is such a drag. It takes away the thrill of it all and replaces
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A well-written argument for the existence of class distinctions based on sex (the title and the initial argument is drawn from Marx and Engels' work on economic class), and a clear case for thoroughgoing systemic change. I'm unsure as to how many of its recommendations have been taken up in the 45 years (!) since it was written, and certainly some of the rhetoric seems of its era (I have no particular knowledge of psychoanalysis but the Freudian stuff seems dated). However, Firestone's challenge
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Start date forgotten — finished 12. July. This is a creative and vigorous book, full of energy and revolutionary vision, preemptive and prophetic ideas. Shuley felt one step ahead of me most of the time, as if I were simply catching up to her — she was only 25 when she wrote this work, 4 years older than I am, and she's kind of become someone whom I admire. Some of her ideas — particularly her quite free interpretation of Freud as well as her views on the education of children — felt like they n
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Shulie does what Freud, Marx, and Engels combined fell short in doing. She synthesizes a class analysis that incorporates the politics of sex. Firestone's Dialectic should be taught alongside primary philosophical texts, not buried in the reading lists of only women's studies. Her text is radical, socialist, feminist. Firestone breaks ground in a way that her male counterparts did not. She critically examines the past, present, and future of power dynamics and gender as a structure of inequality
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Firestone argues that the fundamental dialectic of life is not economics, but sex. She makes a pretty compelling case.
Like most early feminist writing, it's depressing to contemplate, but also kind of exhilarating -- imagine all these women, slowly beginning to make connections internally, then with each other, to say "wait a minute, something's not right here."
Like most early feminist writing, it's depressing to contemplate, but also kind of exhilarating -- imagine all these women, slowly beginning to make connections internally, then with each other, to say "wait a minute, something's not right here."
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.
There's some cool and interesting stuff in here...there's also Freudian/kinda racist bullshit in here.
Also: phrases like "racial Oedipal complex" and "(regarding: "ghetto communities") "child sexuality: it's a groovy thing, the kids love it" are unspeakably uncomfortable.
Also: phrases like "racial Oedipal complex" and "(regarding: "ghetto communities") "child sexuality: it's a groovy thing, the kids love it" are unspeakably uncomfortable.
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.
I shelve this book with Herland, not because they are similar (they are not) but because they are both historically significant to feminism yet indefensible on their own merits.
Fascinatingly radical proposals but horrible, unverifiable Freudian arguments
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Shulamith 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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“...love is essentially a much simpler phenomenon--it becomes complicated, corrupted or obstructed by an unequal balance of power.”
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“If women are differentiated only by superficial physical attributes, men appear more individual and irreplaceable than they really are.”
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