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" This natural division of labor was continued only at great cultural sacrifice: men and women developed only half of themselves, at the expense of the other half. The division of the psyche into male and female to better reinforce the reproductive division was tragic: the hypertrophy in men of rationalism, aggressive drive, the atrophy of their emotional sensitivity was a physical (war) as well as a cultural disaster. The emotionalism and passivity of women increased their suffering (we cannot speak of them in a symmetrical way, since they were victimized as a class by the division.) Sexually men and women were channeled into a highly ordered — time, place, procedure even dialogue — heterosexuality restricted to the genitals, rather than diffused over the entire physical being. "

Shulamith Firestone , The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution


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Shulamith Firestone quote : This natural division of labor was continued only at great cultural sacrifice: men and women developed only half of themselves, at the expense of the other half. The division of the psyche into male and female to better reinforce the reproductive division was tragic: the hypertrophy in men of rationalism, aggressive drive, the atrophy of their emotional sensitivity was a physical (war) as well as a cultural disaster. The emotionalism and passivity of women increased their suffering (we cannot speak of them in a symmetrical way, since they were victimized as a class by the division.) Sexually men and women were channeled into a highly ordered — time, place, procedure even dialogue — heterosexuality restricted to the genitals, rather than diffused over the entire physical being.