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The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution QUOTES

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution QUOTES

1 " ...the end goal of feminist revolution must be...not just the elimination of male privilage but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally. "

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

2 " In the radical feminist view, the new feminism is not just the revival of a serious political movement for social equality. It is the second wave of the most important revolution in history. Its aim: the overthrow of the oldest, most rigid class/caste system in existence, the class system based on sex - a system consolidated over thousands of years, lending the archetypal male and female roles and undeserved legitimacy and seeming permanence. "

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

3 " All men are selfish, brutal and inconsiderate--and I wish I could find one. "

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

4 " It would take a denial of all cultural tradition for women to produce even a true 'female' art. For a woman who participates in (male) culture must achieve and be rated by standards of a tradition she had no part in making - and certainly there is no room in that tradition for a female view, even if she could discover what it was. "

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

5 " But what about women who have contributed directly to culture? There aren't many. And in those cases where individual women have participated in male culture, they have had to do so on male terms. And it shows. Because they have had to compete as men, in a male game - while still be pressured to prove themselves in the old female roles, a role at odds with their self-appointed ambitions - it is not surprising that they are seldom as skilled as men at the game of culture.

Women have no means of coming to an understanding of what their experience is, or even that it is different from male experience. The tool for representing, for objectifying one's experience in order to deal with it, culture, is so saturated with male bias that women almost never have a chance to see themselves culturally through their own eyes. So that finally, signals from their direct experience that conflict with the prevailing (male) culture are denied and repressed. "

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

6 " ...love is essentially a much simpler phenomenon--it becomes complicated, corrupted or obstructed by an unequal balance of power. "

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

7 " If women are differentiated only by superficial physical attributes, men appear more individual and irreplaceable than they really are. "

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

8 " (Male) culture was (and is) parasitical, feeding on the emotional strength of women without reciprocity. "

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

9 " He has let her in not because he genuinely loved her, but only because she played so well into his preconceived fantasies. "

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

10 " a revolutionary in every bedroom cannot fail to shake up the status quo. And if it is your wife that is revolting, you can't just split to the suburbs. Feminism, when it truly achieves it's goals, will crack through the most basic structures of our society. "

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

11 " A fair and generous woman is (at best) respected, but seldom loved. "

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

12 " To be worshiped is not freedom. "

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

13 " Thus her whole identity hangs in the balance of her love life. She is allowed to love herself only if a man finds her worthy of love. "

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

14 " ...he will go to his grave feeling cheated, never realizing that there isn't much difference between one woman and the other, that it is the loving that creates the difference. "

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

15 " It is only after we have integrated the dark side of the moon into our world view that we can begin to talk seriously of universal culture. "

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

16 " Emancipated' women found out that the honesty, generosity, and camaraderie of men was a lie. "

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

17 " Women and love are underpinnings. Examine them and you threaten the very structure of culture. "

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

18 " Love has never been understood, though it may have been fully experienced, and that experience communicated. "

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

19 " But in psychoanalysis there are no unimportant thoughts; there are only thoughts that pretend to be unimportant in order to not be told. "

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

20 " ...childbirth is at best necessary and tolerable. It is not fun.
(Like shitting a pumpkin, a friend of mine told me when I inquired about the Great-Experience-You-Are-Missing.) "

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