Customer Reviews

Sexual Politics

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It would be difficult to overstate the historical importance of Kate Millett's book today. In 1970, her pioneering analysis of mysogyny in American literature was a radical break from tradition and a risky move for a young scholar. In addition to helping to inaugurate a new school of literary criticism, feminist analysis, this book was highly influential among a certain segment of the women's movement of the 1970's. It is a must read for anyone seeking to understand that movement or the origins of feminist literary criticism.

This is a classic feminist text, and I'm glad it's finally back it print. Although written twenty years ago, it is still incredibly relevant today. Some of the statistics she sites may be different now, but, alas, little else is. This book examines the societal values, constructs, and philospohies that oppress women, and how these values are both reflected in and reinforced by works of literature. It was her doctoral dissertation, so it is scholarly and academic, but it is still a fascinating book. This could be considered the book that started the second wave of feminism, and it is still just as important for today's feminists as it was then.

This book is written in a very interesting way. Millet basically critiques different pieces of literature for their subliminal (and sometimes overt) sexist comments and connotations. The passages she writes about are very graphic and interesting; however, it is her analysis that is truly fascinating. It's a great read for feminists and non-feminists alike. The book is incredibly interesting and captivating according to everyone that I know has read it.

This was a really good book though a lot of intellectual analysis. I have many books I have to read now because of it though and I think that's a good thing. I especially liked her chapter on the first phase of the sexual revolution and her literary analysis of Genet and Miller, who I MUST read soon.

A must read for anyone interested in 20th century history, especially feminist herstory. Millett's brilliantly analytical mind deftly summarizes sexist milestones in literature all too often glossed over by the critics. Millett's successive prefaces from one decade to the next to introduce each new edition - are especially illuminating.

Though peppered with occasionally interesting obversations and statistics (even if those statistics don't always, to me, suggest what they seem to suggest to Kate), Millett's "analysis" -- particularly of literary figures -- is unjust, misguided, and amateurish. She quotes passages ENTIRELY out of context to suit her agenda, and is painfully lacking in sympathy for men who were struggling with the meaning of sexual identity with a profundity and sophistication that she herself sorely lacks. I am not thrilled with the male-dominated history of the West, but I feel Millett projects too much of her own anger onto those most undeserving, and her ideas are frequently stifled by her sheer lack of personality. As a woman I would like to view feminism in as positive a light as possible, but women like Millett, with often contradictory ideas, a clear bias against any accomplishment which has been achieved by men, strike me as what they most abhor being thought of as: bitter weaklings! Bitter weaklings with too little appreciation for nuance, wit, and actual human compassion. For someone so staunchly ready to believe that differences between men and women are anatomical only, she certainly evokes an atmosphere of "otherness" when it comes to those men her claim would necessarily render her -- and all women -- spiritually similar to. If men and women are just "human beings" with different plumbing, how to account for what Millett sees as the terrible oppression of women *by* men? Stupid. Men and women are not the same, nor *should* they be, and the desperation of so many feminists to try to prove otherwise (by clinging to cold, unimaginative scientific investigations) is borderline pathetic to me, as is their inability and unwillingness to address why cultural androgeny is some kind of unquestionable good.

I believe in some of the fundamental tenets of feminism and women's liberation, but too many feminists, like Millett, are such hack-n-slash, a priori researchists, with so little personality or charm, that they just leave me shaking my head. Statistics can be staggering -- particularly when selected and polished just so -- as can a good cynical slice-up of a particularly course paragraph from a Henry Miller novel, for example. But underneath Millett's wry, cold, shallow wit, her ideas suffer from profound simplicity and a sometimes blind devotion to science and technology. And I find it difficult to believe that feminists like Millett are looking for a common ground, or equality between the genders. I find myself buying into the notion -- hold your breath, fellow sisters! -- that feminists such as Millett are just angry about their own inadequacies of spirit, imagination, not to mention their lack of cultural power (or what they perceive as their lack of cultural power at any rate.)

There is much study to be done yet as regards gender psychology, and I often reach for a book like Millett's with hope; but too often but it back down simply disgusted.