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The dialectic of sex: The case for feminist revolution

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Shulamith Firestone's now classic work was an important influence on, and manifestation of, the 1970's women's movement. Firestone, an active participant in the Chicago and New York radical feminist scenes, captures the spirit of the movement, and the historical moement, in this work. Combining a material and feminist analysis of women's status in Western society, Firestone makes a case for revolution that may seem extreme to today's reader. However, this text is essential for understanding 1970's radical feminism and it is wonderful to have it back in print.

Shulamith Firestone's 1970 text calling for a radical re-thinking of the basis of modern social structures remains a powerful analysis of the state of patriarchy and the feminist movements of the Twentieth Centry. Firestone's central claim is that only in abolishing the sexual differences rooted in biology and reproduction can women, and by extension all humans, free themselves of the sex caste system which privileges men over women and children. In her book, she takes on important thinkers such as Freud and Marx, exposing their oversights and/or oppositions to a true revolution of sex. She ultimately looks to technology (cybernation) as the means by which humans can finally take control of reproductive necessity and correct the accident of Nature that insists on sexual difference and differential power dynamics.

i wish they would re release this book. its by far my favorite feminist book. unfortionatly you either have to search really hard (i found mine in a bargain lot in an auction) or pay out the ear for it. It is to me the most important book in womens studies i have found. that and the feminine mystique. its also never been released on kindle (hint hint amazon, id so love to have it on there because my copy is probably as old as the movement it was written on jk).

people go to feminism for a multitude of reasons and in doing so seek knowledge of its origins. to me the dialectic of sex is one of the most empowering books ive ever read. shulamith firestone is so raw and bold in this rock in books of feminist studies. so much more than i could imagine for that time period. if you are new to feminism or are an old hand at it i would especially recommend looking for a copy of the dialectic of sex because this book is life changing. i wouldnt part with mine for anything.

Shulamith Firestone (born 1945) is a Jewish, Canadian-born feminist, who was a founding member of the New York Radical Women, Redstockings, and New York Radical Feminists.

Here are some quotations from this 1970 book:

"Freudianism subsumed the place of feminism as the lesser of two evils." (Pg. 69)

"Women and children are always mentioned in the same breath... The special tie women have with children is recognized by everyone. I submit, however, that the nature of this bond is no more than shared oppression." (Pg. 81)

"Racism is a sexual phenomenon... racism is sexism extended." (Pg. 122)

"I draw three conclusions based on these differences: 1) That men can't love... 2) That women's 'clinging' behavior is necessitated by their objective social situation. 3) That this situation has not changed significantly from what it ever was." (Pg. 152)

"I submit, then, that the first demand for any alternative system must be: 1) The freeing of women from the tyranny of their reproductive biology by every means available, and the diffusion of the childbearing and childrearing role to the society as a whole, men as well as women... 2) The full self-determination, including economic dependence, of both women and children... 3) The total integration of women and children into all aspects of the larger society... 4) The freedom of all women and children to do whatever they wish to do sexually." (Pg. 236)

I really should've read this book again so I could write a compotent review but I'd rather read a new book instead. Anyway, you should buy this book if you grew up in the 1990's and think that nothing can shock you and that you've been there, done that, heard everything, etc. I listen to Notorious B.I.G. and Eminem and I can honestly say Firestone is the "illest". Bizarre from D12 jokes about stuff that Firestone takes seriously. This is not in any way a liberal book. Firestone wants to free children, translation: make them grow up faster then they already are. Firestone is not a democrat, not with a big "d" or a little "d". She advocates a Dictatorship of the Proletariat as a transtitional phase to Communistic Anarchy. Not only did she not get put in jail, her book is in my college library. The lady just doesn't give a f... I'd love to hear what a Republican would have to say about this if he or she could even believe what they were reading. Seriously folks, as an experiment, go to a Southern Baptist church where the preacher screams about the devil all the time. I betcha my paycheck that the "devil" and Firestone have a whole ishload in common. I digress. "Down with childhood." Classic.

This book is a must read for anyone daring enough to check their social programing at the door and think for themselves! Firestone pins her readers eyes open and makes them take a hard and scrutinizing look at the nuclear family structure. Her book is more daring now than ever as we enter an age in which the "post-nuclear" family emerges and technological advances such as "in vitro fertilisation" become a common reality rather than the stuff of science fiction. Even though this book was written in the 1970's it was far ahead of its time because of the insights and solutions it offered into the abolishment of a patriarchal caste system which still exists today. Her ideas on childhood as a social construct will have you shaken up! Down with childhood indeed, Shulamith Firestone's book will definitely get the wheels turning up there!!!

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 it with slow, creeping death. It also creates stability. Something that Ms. Firestone's proposed solutions do not offer. Children need stable environments to reach their potential. How a commune would provide this, I don't know.

I agree with Ms. Firestone that childhood should be abolished. Mostly because I do not see how children benefit from our paternizing treatment of them. Children ought to be treated as adults and given the same rights. However, I do not agree that they should experience "as much genital sex (with adults) as they are capable of", as Ms. Firestone suggests near the end of her book. What would stop adults from taking advantage of the child's smaller physicality in these instances? What kind of paradise allows the wholesale sexual abuse of its children? Or, perhaps, sexual perversion (along with art, music, poetry and religion) would also be eradicated?

I recognize that I will never be pregnant. I know it hurts worse than anything I could ever imagine. But, it isn't barbaric. It makes sense that Ms. Firestone was 25 when this came out. Most women I have known around that age were decisively against ever having a baby. Somehow, though, 5 years on, they found themselves wanting a baby. Conditioning? Undue pressures from family members and the media? Or is it simply that women are biologically constructed to desire the experience of childbirth. Maybe that's Firestone's whole point. We need to figure out a way to rewire women so they don't ever reach the point where babies make them swoon. Sure.

I would like to get a glimpse at what a futuristic polymorphous world would look like, I would like to imagine a world without sexual repression or war. But I recognize the instincts that create them. Because I also know that they are the same instincts that create great tragic art. For all its evils, Western civilization has allowed us to explore our inevitable mortal death. Firestone's contention that there will be no death is preposterous. Without the threat of death, life is not worth living. The struggle against death has created us. It has created all that we are.

This is an interesting attempt to apply Marxist concepts to feminism. It is as valid, or invalid, as the underlying Marxist ideas.

Anyone reading this book needs to be aware that a pivotal piece of evidence that Firestone quotes has been disproved. Firestone quotes the case of "Brenda" Reimer, who as born as a boy but who was reassigned as a girl following a botched circumcision as a result of which his penis was totally destroyed.

According to studies published by psychologist John Money "Brenda" was a successful, normal girl. Firestone uses this study as proof that sexual identity is arbitrary and is just a matter of how you are brought up. There is thus no inherent male or female identity. For this reasons, feminists prefer to use the term "gender" which signifies an arbitrariness about sexual identity rather than any notion that it is biologically determined.

Eventually the truth came out. You can read about this tragic case in "As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl" by Milton Diamond or on Wikipedia. In summary - "Brenda" was never happy as a girl, was seen as "weird" by both boys and girls she knew, and eventually switched back to a male identity and married. It turns out that psychologist John Money had issues of his own (not rare in psychologists), having been raised in New Zealand by a mother and other female relatives who were consumed with bitter hatred towards any male person. Money's attempts to validate the destruction of Reimer's male sexual identity can best be understood in that light.

Traumatized by his past, by financial problems, and an eventual failed marriage, the now renamed David Reimer eventually committed suicide. Such is the price of failed ideologies.

This is the sort of raving that gives men like Rush Limbaugh ammunition in their rhetorical war of feminism. In this book, Shulamith Firestone argues that women are doomed to oppression by men as a result of female biology and that only the cybernetic mutilation of the human race can free them from the tyranny imposed on them by Nature, and more specifically their own nature. That this is nihilism should be self-evident to any thinking woman or man. How, exaclty, are women going to free themselves if they use technology to obliterate the very charcateristics that make them women? What "self" will be left in Firestone's dystopia when the cybernetic-sexual revolution has taken place? The only possible answer would have to be based on the kind of discredited Cartesian mind-body dualism that so much better feminist thought has assailed. The kind of self-hatred that this book embodies is staggering. It might make an interesting psychopathological study, but it is not a program for sane political action. Hopefully one day a brand of feminism will arise that is dedicated to helping women be *women* without fear of external domination. Perhaps then this kind of insanity will be laughed at; for now, it seems more worthy of fear.