The Straight Mind Quotes

“A text by a minority writer is effective only if it succeeds in making the minority point of view universal. ('The Universal and the Particular')" ... In claiming the lesbian point of view as universal, she overturns the concepts to which we are accustomed. For up to this point, minority writers had to add "the universal" to their points of view if they wished to attain the unquestioned universality of the dominant class. Gay men, for example, have always defined themselves as a minority and never questioned, despite their transgression, the dominant choice. This is why gay culture has always had a fairly wide audience.
[From the Foreword "Changing the Point of View" by Louise Turcotte]”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“For there is no sex. There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses. It is oppression that creates sex and not the contrary.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“One only has to read interviews with outstanding women to hear them apologizing”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“What does "feminist" mean? Feminist is formed with the word "femme," "woman," and means: someone who fights for women. For many of us it means someone who fights for women as a class and for the disappearance of this class. For many others it means someone who fight for woman and her defense – for the myth, then, and its reenforcement.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“C'est l'oppression qui crée le sexe et non l'inverse.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“The refusal to become (or to remain) heterosexual always meant to refuse to become a man or a woman, consciously or not.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“There is no possible fight for someone deprived of an identity, no internal motivation for fighting, since, although I can fight only with others, first I fight for myself.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“Dans la mesure où la femme devient réalité pour un individu uniquement en relation avec un individu de la classe opposée - les hommes - et en particulier dans le mariage, les lesbiennes, parce qu'elles n'entrent pas dans cette catégorie, ne sont pas des "femmes".”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“La conscience de l'oppression n'est pas seulement une réaction (une lutte) contre l'oppression. C'est une totale réévaluation conceptuelle du monde social.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“L'hétérosexualité allait tellement de soi qu'elle n'avait pas de nom [par le passé]. C'est la norme sociale. C'est le contrat social. C'est un régime politique.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“The perenniality of the sexes and the perenniality of slaves and masters proceed from the same belief, and, as there are no slaves without masters, there are no women without men. The ideology of sexual difference functions as censorship in our culture by masking, on the ground of nature, the social opposition between men and women. Masculine/feminine, male/female are the categories which serve to conceal the fact that social differences always belong to an economic, political, ideological order. Every system of domination establishes divisions at the material and economic level. Furthermore, the divisions are abstracted and turned into concepts by the masters, and later on by the slaves when they rebel and start to struggle. The masters explain and justify the established divisions as a result of natural differences. The slaves, when they rebel and start to struggle, read social oppositions into the so-called natural differences.
For there is no sex. There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses. It is oppression that creates sex and not the contrary.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“A luta de classes é precisamente aquilo que resolve as contradições entre duas classes opostas, ao aboli-las ao mesmo tempo que as constitui e as revela enquanto classes. A luta de classes entre homens e mulheres, que deveria ser empreendida por todas as mulheres, é aquela que resolve as contradições entre os sexos, abolindo-as e, ao mesmo tempo, fazendo com que sejam compreendidas.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“Apreender a diferença em termos dialéticos é tornar aparentes os termos contraditórios a serem resolvidos. Entender a realidade social em termos do materialismo dialético é apreender as oposições entre classes, termo a termo, e fazer com que se encontrem na mesma cópula (um conflito na ordem social), o que também configura uma resolução (uma abolição na ordem social) das contradições aparentes.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“L'hétérosexualité n'est pas "naturelle", pas plus qu'elle n'est la seule sexualité, la sexualité universelle.”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“Car la catégorie de sexe est le produit de la société hétérosexuelle qui impose aux femmes l'obligation absolue de la reproduction de "l'espèce", c'est-à-dire, de la reproduction de la société hétérosexuelle”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays

“Ni la Pensée de l’Autre, ni la Pensée de la Différence ne devraient être possibles pour nous, parce que "rien de ce qui est humain ne m’est étranger".”
― Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind: And Other Essays