[Read the first chapter of Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex here.]
When I hauled out my Dialectic of Sex for the first time in years, I encountered this on the first page:
The first women are fleeing the massacre, and, shaking and tottering, are beginning to find each other. Their first move is a careful joint observation, to resensitize a fractured consciousness. This is painful: no matter how many levels of consciousness one reaches, the problem always goes deeper. It is everywhere.
And I gazed upon the blame button and said, “Hey, that sounds familiar.” Although the fleeing women Firestone describes are the women of the Second Wave, they are also, 37 years later, us: the feminist blogosphere. I’m biased, of course, but I think she’s nailed with particular precision the patriarchy blamers. If we aren’t shaking and tottering, I don’t know who is.
Anyway. What Firestone proposes in The Dialectic of Sex is to shove Marx, Engels, and Freud together into the Meatgrinder of Feminist Theory. After cranking the handle for 200 pages, out comes rather a piquant revolutionary sausage.
Firestone’s argument is that the aforementioned dead white dudes were more or less onto something, but that their own assimilation by the patriarchal Borg prevented them from grasping the essential flaw in their analyses of class and sex. The flaw that would doom them to ultimate failure was their inability to theorize beyond what was seen, then as now, as the natural and immutable condition of human beings divided into two ur-classes based on sex. Firestone postulates that Marxist and Freudian equations would actually work if you plugged in the idea that women are human. In other words, all history really is the history of class struggle; Engels just started with the wrong classes.
Well, what about it?
One of the more piquant bits TDoS:tCfFR that struck me was (page 11 of my copy):
‘…the end goal of feminist revolution must be…not just the elimination of male privilege but the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally. (A reversion to an unobstructed pansexuality–Freud’s “polymorphous perversity”–would probably superseded hetero/homo/bi-sexuality’ (emphasis hers)
I was struck by the memory of a snippet of dialog from Bob Heinlein’s (yeah, that old reactionary) Time Enough for Love:
Two medical technicians are in an ultraclean environment in garb so obscuring that one cannot tell the other’s gender. One hits on the other; the hittee hesitates and asks, “Technician–what sex are you?”
The hitter responds, “Does it matter?”
“No, not really.”
So far, “piquant” is a mild description of my reaction to TDoS:tCfFR. It’s easy to persuade me to a point of view if you use rational arguments that hang together well. I’m funny that way.
I must add: Twisty, you’ve opened a huge can of personal worms in my world. Well done; it’s the first time it’s happened to me in years.
I’m still reading it– and like half a dozen other books for classes– and I can’t help but think she dismisses anthropological research too easily and ineffectively for her own ideas. I think she’s out-and-out wrong, so far, in her poorly elaborated notion of the “biological family.” Mind you, I don’t know what she was reading at the time– she doesn’t have a bibliography, and cites texts haphazardly. She sounds like she’s running on the even then outdated “man the hunter” model for her ideas of how small-scale societies functioned. By this, I mean she’s assuming a very conservative model of social structure where women are anchored at the home-base while the men go out and do all the food-geting (hunting).
This really makes no sense, and has been critiqued and I would think proven wrong (a phrase she uses so often, though with less qualifications than leave you comfortable) over the last 40-50 years. Fact is, women have been show to contribute as much if not much more calories to the diet of the groups in which they exist. Just as people didn’t drive stone-cars with their feet, before the development of complex, sedentary, agricultural civilization there is no evidence of a stark economic dependence of any category of person on another. Strangely enough, this is a keen observation of Engels. Mind you, the idea of means of reproduction is an interesting use of Marx’s terms, she’s made a poor case for how women were dependent upon men (anyone upon anyone) for food or protection prior to the settling of humans in civilizations.
A second issue would be the admittedly very biologically-centered nature of her argument, which also assumes without qualifcation that biology (blood-relationship) is the fundamentally central structuring agent of all human adult-child relations. David Scheider wrote a very controversial critique of this tendency to inject Euro-American beliefs about biological relation into the phenomena of kinship found elsewhere in the world. It’s a hard case to make that universally people give a damn about blood relations (as a category, not their specific blood relations), or even that blood relations (again, as category not individual) weight in significantly in the development of children into adults.
All of that said though, I think the premise of the book is spot on, more over with the added issue of addressing women as equal players in history.
I have been abused by the patriarchy since I was a small child. I have suffered from depression since I was twelve. I thought if I escaped my family I would be free, until I entered the tech world and my dreams were destroyed. Major depression, motherhood followed since I could be good at something.
The turn-around started for me the day I found this web site. I am not too sensitive. I am actually dulled to most of the pain and taking the rest out on myself. Depression is anger turned inward. I am off meds and happy for the first time in years.
Beginning to find each other and validate each other’s existence. The perspective here is not filtered through a patriarchal view. I don’t usually contribute because I am not strong enough to be a blamer yet.
Ms. Firestone says that we shouldn’t join men’s groups and hope to get the crumbs. Referencing your post over the week-end, aren’t democrats and liberals the men’s group? They can’t count on my vote. How do we change the structure of our supoort?
I like J’s analysis, although I haven’t read much of the book, of the use of anthropology. It rings true for me with other feminsit lit I’ve read these past few years.
I think Firestone’s definitely onto something, using the dialetic model of historical analysis for sex class. And of course, as the many communist states have shown us, patriarchy does not come out of economic class struggles and capitalism, because patriarchy continues even when capitalism is defeated; rather, I think, patriarchy has made economic class strata and capitalism possible. It should be well-noted that Engels and Marx were not right about their idea that economic class equality would be the ultimate answer; so many communist states have failed and democratic capitalist states rise up from the ruins.
I’m concerned, because I think I can see where she’s going, down the road of “sex/gender is more deeply entrenched/fundamental than race, thus sex/gender oppression is more basic than racism/racism arises out of sexism/sexism is worse than racism.” I reject the notion that we can divide up our identities into little categories, like “this much of who I am is Gender, and this much of me is Race, and this much of my identity is Sexuality,” etc. This is a very white-centric perspective, and not ultimately helpful because it marginalizes WOC.
But yeah, I think you’re right on about the feminist blogosphere, Twisty. this online community has really helped me develop my feminism. and you’ve been a part of that, so thanks!
First I want to thank you, Twisty, for this enjoyable (in a horrible kind of way) book. It reminded me a lot of how I would argue the radical feminist case if I were in any way eloquent. Well, I am 25, too. As for her method and her citations, they are, as J mentioned, unscientific. In light of her critique of science in chapter 9, I think she won’t mind. The book does give voice a whole bunch of interesting thoughts.
My personal favorites are: 1) Just ’cause it’s natural doesn’t mean it is good that women are oppressed by their biological role. 2) Even a society that worships women still oppresses them, because the worship takes place in somebody else’s head. 3)I also recognised myself in her comments on how people want (to own) children, because they are in most cases segregated away from “normal” people. Really, I don’t want to give birth, I just want to be around children to learn from them and to teach them. 4) Her description of love also struck a chord, but I shied away from that pretty soon. 4) I was really impressed how she wove together Freud and Marx. When I first read the works of the latter, I also recognised that he was a little bit off, but I couldn’t tell how. Now I know.
Her critique of culture (science and arts) I did not find very convincing, especially since both are very strongly represented in me.
Anyway, great book, a bit too emotional and a good basis for a radical feminist discussion.
Jokerine.
I am just finishing it up (actually probably gonna leave the last twenty pages for my long bus ride home, since I forgot my mp3 player today). Like the poster above, when I read Marx I recognized something was a bit off, but I couldn’t vocalize what, exactly. Now it’s so obvious. I believe I fell into the trap of thinking that women were already liberated, which as I grow older, I realize is completely false.
The part about the oppression of children was really interesting, as it was stuff I had never really thought of before, except in my own terms of not wanting children because I would want them to be something I could mould, when they are their own people, and I felt bad about that. I had never expanded that thought to the way society itself treats children. I had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to her talking about incest not being an issue in the post-feminist utopia, mostly because I couldn’t get over “incest” meaning “man rapes his daughter” or something similar. I still have a lot of that “women need to be protected from men!” mentality that should be chanelled more into “men need to be held responsible”. I always find myself thinking in more rigid gender roles than I would like. It’s hard envisioning a world where gender doesn’t matter, and even harder envisioning a way to get there. But that’s what I want, and why I read blogs like this!
I definitely agree with thinking girl on this: Patriarchy has made economic class strata and capitalism possible.
Twisty, this author clearly makes a case for the existence of the patriarchy, but you’ve already made this case (more eloquently, I might add).
Isn’t the problem the definition of the man/husband as the “owner?” Feminism should eliminates this entitlement. I agree that the solution must be a political one, and the struggle will be bloody. Then again, all revolutions are bloody.
Jokerine wrote: “also recognised myself in her comments on how people want (to own) children, because they are in most cases segregated away from ‘normal’ people. Really, I don’t want to give birth, I just want to be around children to learn from them and to teach them.”
I’m really not sure what you mean here. It’s not clear to whom you are referring with “they” and “‘normal’ people.”
I hope that you’re not condemning those of us who are mothers. It’s bad enough that the patriarchy belittles women, whichever reproductive choices we make. It’s worse when women reinforce the patriarchal rule.
Maybe you could clarify?
J: though I join with you in regretting Firestone’s lack of footnotes or biblio, I’m not sure she’s quite so much of a biological reductionist as you make out. Read on. Anyway, like you, though I’ve found a few of her ideas somewhat dated intellectually, I find the general premise most affecting.
On the historical dialectic, Firestone articulates exactly the reservations I have about Marx and Engels: a different form of patriarchy does not equal liberation. I’ve been trying, without success, to dig up a Marx quote that embodies this: it’s something along the lines of “you can tell the level of development a society has reached by the condition of its women”. One step forward for Comrade Karl in realising that the status of women is integral to social development; one big step back for using the possessive, Other-enforcing “its women”. If he did. Really should find the quote.
Firestone’s exhortation to women to “rise up and seize control of the means of reproduction” is surely one of the most delightful moments in the whole book. I nearly stood up and cheered in the library, except I’m not a nutter. Suddenly, everything makes sense. When Firestone was writing, the effects of the pill on society were just beginning to become apparent. Worldwide and classwide, it’s obvious that reliable contraception has gone hand in hand for women with greatly improved job opportunities, fewer children, and a later marriage age. In other words, increased self determination. Proving Firestone right in a small way, though it’s not a revolution to the extent she’s advocating.
thinking girl: agree with many of your points. But, re communist states, I feel obliged to point out that there haven’t been any true communist states, and that the story of capitalist triumph is both grossly exaggerated and premature. That the idea that democratic capitalism rises trimphant from the ashes of communism is not well supported: most ex-communist states have, like Russia and much of Eastern Europe, become corrupt oligarchies.
I would also argue that there’s no way a communist revolution could ever succeed without a parallel Firestonian sexual revolution. I’m not sure whether that’s true in reverse yet. Any thoughts?
Mainly, of course, I just wanted to repeat the words “piquant revolutionary sausage”. Piquant revolutionary sausage. Ha! Wonderful.
Thinking Girl–
Be very careful when denying the quality of the analysis that Marx and Engels left to the world when pointing at the fall of communism throughout Europe.
What Lenin and his crew did was use Marxism to excuse nothing more than taking over. It is very much like what Middle Eastern terrorists are currently trying to do when they invoke Islam: trying to hide power grabs by invoking a higher principle. Like so much of the Patriarchy, piety or political theory is used as an excuse to take the reins of power from others.
Soviet government had little or nothing to do with what Das Kapital argued; Marxism was merely the sheepskin covering the wolf beneath.
Sure! I mean that the children (they) are segregated away from the rest of the world. Normal people are adults, in patriarchy terms. Did you ever notice how during elections Party advertisement (at least here in Germany) says things like “we also do stuff for children and old people.”, as if children aren’t persons too.
I also believe that children are more capable of understanding than we think they are. I don’t want to treat children as different from me, because they aren’t and I have had many insightful conversations with children, which many adults don’t think is possible.
I have nothing against mothers, just the mould of mother patriarchy wants to press me into. I know nothing about the way you treat your children or children in general and I don’t mean to attack anyone. I am very afraid that having children will make me posessive of them and will make me feel they are responsible for all I had to give up to be with them. Which they aren’t. If I wouldn’t have to give up who and what I am I would also be a mother. Maybe you didn’t have to, or maybe you thought it worthy enough. I don’t know. I am glad you put children into the world.
See, I’m no good with words and a little impulsive. Sorry!
I think it’s more that, no matter how awful racial oppression is relative to sex-based oppression, even if it is truly more brutal and cruel (which is not what I’m arguing for or against), the racial oppression is built upon the sexual. Even if we concede, hypothetically and for example, that every single black man on the planet has it worse than every single white woman on the planet, it is still the case that people discriminate against non-whiteness by associating it with the female. I think the argument is that without this handy comparison, justification for all manner of injustice dissolves. That isn’t to say which of many aggrieved (several times over for some) parties should be happiest with their serving of crumbs, but that’s hardly the point anyway, I suppose.
Oh, and hello, everyone. I don’t know that I’ve ever had anything I felt compelled to add to the conversation here before.
I agree; Firestone’s description applies just as well to the feminist blogosphere as it did to radical feminists of the 70s.
This is my take-away from chapter 1:
“Firestone Theatre” — hah! Where’s the climate control?
Thanks, Jokerine. I totally agree that the patriarchy puts children at the bottom rung–or maybe under the ladder. Twisty commented on this recently, and I look forward to more.
I appreciate your comments on children and motherhood. It’s always good to get a perspective from someone in another place.
I don’t have the whole motherhood/identity thing worked out, which is why I am sensitive about it. I wish that I did!
There have been some comments here lately that seem harsh to motherhood in general, which makes me sad. Damn the patriarchy for making motherhood dangerous and devisive!
Don’t worry about your writing. You were referring to passage in the book, and I couldn’t follow it. I’m glad that you brought up this issue.
BubbasNightmare: I’ve called thinking girl on squidging together all communism, too. But the spamulator has my comment in its hungry jaws right now. Just thought I’d mention it because otherwise it looks like I’m not paying attention - which I am, keenly.
justicewalks: please feel compelled to say things again. You are quite right to defend Firestone on this one. She doesn’t make it a question of better/worse between racism and sexism; she’s just examining the linking tendrils.
I must put my pointy pedant’s hat on and point out that Firestone wrote this in 1969, when she was at most 25 years old. The Patriarchy is heavy now, but man, it was heavier then.
She made an enormous imaginative and intellectual leap. There were brilliant, brave women here in NYC in the late 60s and early 70s. She had them to talk to; she had Friedan and de Beauvoir, but not much else. She took the tools she had and cobbled together something that impressed me.
I too love this first paragraph and shall file it in my head next to the first paragraph of the SCUM Manifesto, and also with the first paragraph of the Radicalesbians “The Woman-Identified Woman†essay, which begins “What is a lesbian? A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion.” That’s March Hoffman and Rita Mae Brown, by god, before she tired into cozy cat mysteries.
I left my notes at home! But I expect this discussion will last awhile. I have critical things to say about various parts of her text, but first I have to say I love her.
yrs, BDL
PS: Bubbas Nightmare: I think about Heinlein a lot too. It’s weird isn’t it? What is that? I suppose a sub-discussion of sci-fi is not actually thread-drift, I kept thinking about sci-fi while I was reading Firestone.
I mean that the children (they) are segregated away from the rest of the world.
How? What do you mean?
I think that it means “children are seen and not heard.”
Children are certainly not given a voice in our society.
I think you’re right, justicewalks, to mention that racial oppression is built on the sexual. One thing I took away from my African-American history classes is that much of the racism we have now started with the fear of black sexuality that white people had (have). Much of the oppression of women today has to do with our own sexual agency and use and care of the uterus. Things have definitely not changed, just been sublimated more.
B. Dagger Lee–
If you haven’t gotten to the end of the book, there’s a discussion or three about the 1984ish possibilities of the outcome of a feminist revolution. Firestone handles that well, but I was a little more reminded of Brave New World, which I think is a more likely fallout from her revolution.
Remember that s-f should stand for “speculative fiction”, and while the book is rooted firmly in fact (more about that as discussions develop), it reaches for the stars.
Kiki–
Read the book. Firestone goes into specific detail about how children are isolated from society, both physically and spiritually.
The internets ate my response to Jokerine.
I’m glad that you brought up this issue. The patriarchy puts children on the bottom rung–or perhaps under the ladder.
I haven’t figured out the whole motherhood/identity thing, which why I’m sensitive about it. No offense taken. Just wanted to clarify.
I especially appreciate your thoughts since you live somewhere besides the U.S. It makes me sad that you are struggling with the same issues that I am. I’d hoped that countries in Europe might be kinder to mothers.
Oh, I almost forgot.
Bob Heinlein wrote about line and clan families (definitely not nuclear), artificial gestation and birth, pansexuality, and gender equality (through comparison with those of 19th-century sensibilities).
I agree that SF’s “fleeing” description does seem to predict the feminist blogosphere. And also that Marx and Engels didn’t build sex class into their analysis.
Substantively, her prescription is on point in a lot of ways, and to my mind not in others (eg, children is one example, but I’ll wait until that portion of the discussion).
One question that kept coming to mind, however, is: “what’s step one?” She’s outlined what the revolution should look like. But, if we were outlining a “SF Revolution for Dummies,” what would the first step be? I didn’t see how we’d get from here to there, and as revolutions are by definition action oriented, there should be an MO that we can distill.
‘In the classless society the interests of every individual would be synonymous with those of the larger society.’
Lipstick-and Birk-Wearing Momma, I think it goes deeper than that. One of the justifications for all class divisions is that the oppressor class is “protecting” the Other. Men protect women, parents protect children, soldiers/police protect civilians until each is nicely placed into the smallest prison possible. Children and seniors are slowly being protected out of the public dialogue and placed in schools, after-school programs and senior centers for ‘their own good’. In a class-based society the marginalization of the individual is synonymous with the interests of the larger society. It is only when we stop separating people out for their own good that we begin to take the interests of the individual into consideration.
hawise, that is areally good point.
Step one would be to “smile only when woman herself is pleased, not to please.” That makes me smile, just because it is so silly.
But maybe not such a bad idea.
Hi all -
clarification: what I was referring to earlier was specifically that the problem of gender oppression hasn’t been solved by the elimination of economic class strata such as in communism, which M&E seemed to think would happen, because they thought that all oppression was basically economic class oppression. I’m in no way saying that capitalism is a better economic system than communism, by pointing out that shaky capitalism has risen from the ruins of failed communist states. And I don’t think communism itself is a bad idea, it just has been implemented badly.
sorry I wasn’t clearer about this.
yeah, I dunno about the “Racism built on the sexual” argument. I don’t think we can easily separate these things out, such that one is more fundamental than the other. They interact with and support each other, these systems of oppression, and it’s not so easy to disentangle them. I don’t think, for instance, that racism would just go away if only we could secure ourselves some gender equality. I think it’s a lot more complex than that.
(Writes lines over and over, “I will do my homework on time. I will do my homework on time.”)
Agreed, Hawise. I submit that there is no protection. The patriarchy pays lip service to protecting children and the elderly, but the legal system fails to protect them.
I don’t think legal protection is possible. A situation has to be achieved, where protection is not necessary.
L-a-B-W Momma:
Much of this is a failure to properly implement a capitalist economy in “democratic” countries; this failure is very similar to how the Soviets failed to properly implement a communist economy in “people’s” states. In a proper laissez-faire capitalist economy, there would be ample cash flow between business and charities to care for those who lack the economic power to take care of themselves.
Hmmm. As Firestone says later in her book:
“The evils of this orphanage system, the barracks-like existence, the impersonality, the anonymity, arise because these institutions are dumping grounds for the rejected in an exclusive family system.” (emphasis hers)
While I didn’t buy all of the conclusions she reached, her premises are for the most part rock solid. [Octagalore: That’s where the revolution starts: you teach those you love the truth, and urge them to pass it on.]
Gosh, this is the most fun I’ve had in a blog comment thread in a long time.
Thanks for putting the first chapter online Twisty. Strangely, I have been unable to find a large-print copy of Dialectic of Sex. :/
I submit that I said that the justification is protection. As with any protection racket, the reality is disenfranchisement of the individual and separation from alternative interactions. A woman ‘protected’ to the point that she disappears from society is unable to make use of any other network.
As when Shulamith brings everything down to this quote from Engels-
It is the consciousness of the actions that defines the organizations adhered to by the society.
BubbasNightmare’s getting down. Is that the frug, the twist or the mashed potato? Whatever dance, tell it like it is!
Pony, I’m in the same position and my husband works at a college library ;(
Me too. It’s refreshing to take a break from the Dudes and the Coulters and the rapists and the anti-abortionists and just shoot the theoretical shit for half a minute.
When I read The Dialectic this time around, I was struck by the whole oppressed kid thing, which had flown right over my head the first time I read it, back in the Pleistocene, before I was an aunt.
In my 20s I viewed children as loud and neurotic and belligerent, and I was glad to have them kept as far away from me as possible. Of course, a lot of kids are loud and neurotic and belligerent, but my current hypothesis is — and Germaine Greer writes about this, too, in either The Whole Woman or The Female Eunuch, I forget which — that their obnoxiousness, tantrum-throwing, and unhappiness is a function of (a) the nuclear family (the argument being that the modern family unit fosters kinder-neurosis by dint of its isolationist proclivities, and is the incubator for future patriarchalists) and (b) the incessant ridicule, dependence, and higher authority to which they are subject.
And when I say “my current hypothesis” I mean “the idea I stole entirely from this book.”
But that’s the next chapter.
The only thing that worries me about Firestone’s lack of scientific truthiness is that it might be used as an excuse to pooh-pooh her entire line of thought. Which, of course, it is.
Off topic-ish, and hopefully not derailing, the wee mention of science fiction caught my attention for feminist primers: Have you ever read the Gate to Women’s Country by Sherri Tepper?
I think we can dispense with the syllabus, vera. The chapters subsequent to the first are enlargements on the initial thesis, and it will be impossible, I suspect, to keep the discussion from oozing hither and yon. So as of now, the whole book is fair game.
By the way, I hope nobody was expecting me to lead this discussion. I fully intend to lean back in my desk chair and absorb all yall’s socially scientific and philosophical genius.
TinaH, feel free to either relate the Sherri Tepper to the Shulamith or to put a sock in it, girlfriend.
I am working now, but couldn’t wait to see what people have written on this. I’ll comment later, as I read the posted first chapter last night. It was quick reading, but you know, a quick read can be deceiving. I guess I’ll also have to look up Heinlein and also call on my anthro mother (I do get a lifeline call to a relative don’t I?) for her to educate me some, especially considering J’s interesting comments.
Twisty - thanks a million for this whole idea. I got a huge amount from this book.
In particular, the chapter on the oppression of children has changed both the way I parent and the way I view parenting. I now have a much clearer idea of what my objectives are as a parent, and celebrate the fact that we are an atypical - and man-free - family. (My toddler calls us her “hamily” and I like that name much more than Firestone’s rather utlitarian suggestion of “household”.)
There was some stuff I basically didn’t understand at all, and stuff that seemed dated or just plain wrong, but I prefer right now to take what is good rather than pick at what I didn’t get. When I’ve written a couple of feminist manifestae myself, then I’ll get picky.
(By the way, on the subject of “what I didn’t get” - the chapter on race went right over my head. If anyone feels like pontificating on how they understood that chapter, it would not fall on bored ears.)
I mean, “utilitarian”.
I didn’t understand her chapter on sexual orientation. But I’m a bit confused on sex, gender, sexuality and their relations anyway. For now I’ll posit that its a language problem.
Maia, I liked he idea of a household very much. But I didn’t like her suggestion of a contract to bind people to it. I think the household has to be free to disassemble at any moment, otherwise you start having power discrepancies, which lead to oppression.
No. Tepper could never hold my interest, but then that’s true of 98% of s-f written nowadays. But then, I grew up reading the genre-defining era of modern science fiction–Asimov, Heinlein, Bester, Sturgeon (alas, poor Ted!)–where plot was king. Heinlein was a great enough writer to entertainingly inject social commentary into what was essentially space opera.
B.Dagger Lee: Thank you! I’ve always preferred the Twist myself. You can follow Dave Berry’s law of dancing easily when you twist the night away.
What excited me most about chapter 1 was the teaser about Freud toward the end of the chapter. As will be seen when we get there, one shouldn’t judge his entire corpus of work–so much of it profound and deep–based on his one spectacular failure–psychoanalysis.
I, too, am squeamish about the contractual element of the household arrangements. I was thinking there would need to be some mechanism in place to prevent situations where a lone woman is left holding the bag with all the kids, but in Firestone’s superenlightened technosociety, diapers are self-cleaning and vintage champagne is delivered to your doorstep by the community winebots for free, so single motherhood (as we know it) could never happen.
Jokerine:
At the severe risk of pushing the thread away from its moorings, try Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. There are some great discussions about the superior (and wildly various!) styles of family in Luna. The protagonist Manuel O’Kelly lives in a line family that “marries” new adults into a polyamourous social group consisting of “parents”, “children”, and “hired hands”. Manuel comments that, during family reunions, he meets “children” old enough to be his grandparents.
Speaking of sf, let us not forget Ursula LeGuin. In her book the Disposessed she describes one way a world envisioned by Shulie could look like. I don’t actually know which published first, or wether they knew about eachother.
Jokerine - It’s worth noting that the contract idea was only for people that had agreed to come together as a “household” - or, as I prefer, “hamily” (grin) - to bring up children. For people living together without taking responsibility for looking after small children, there would be no contracts.
I think an important point is that very young people do benefit from a stable home where they can build relationships without fear, and where they can feel safe and secure as they learn about the world. If you want to spend time as one of a child’s main carers, you do have to commit to a relationship with that child which is not going to disassemble at any moment. Having said that, even then the contracts were only supposed to last for a limited period. I seem to recall Firestone felt that 7 to 10 years was sufficient. After that, the young person is free to make her own decisions. It all seemed like a fair compromise to me, between the young child’s need for commitment and every person’s need for freedom and independence.
During the entire time, I was reading the book, I was waiting for Shulie to shy away from the full consequences of her theory (yeah, I’m mean that way) that was the point. What difference, I ask, is there between a marriage contract and a hamily contract? Seven years are still seven years. Anyway would you abandon a person you had a strong emotional relationship with unless it is really necessary? I think common empathy with other humans would prevent it. And that her world would be filled with it I have no doubt.
What a fascinating read. I totally agree with Firestone that there has been a class struggle between men and women since the dawn of sexual reproduction but that acknowledging a biological imbalance does not lose the case for equality.
I must confess I am a little wary of the use of Freud in any analysis of sexuality. As I have heard said in academic circles: “Sigmund Freud, empirical void”. The vast majority of his theories are completely unprovable, rather like religion.
I am far more interested in more modern social psychological research which I think is very salient to any debate of group conflict. To build on the racism-sexism issue mentioned by other commenters, I think they key fact binding all prejudice together is that the human brain seems set up to cleave to what is similar and to reject as a threat that which is different. I could quote a number of studies to illustrate this but will pick one, in which a group of people were shown a piece of paper and asked to guess the number of dots on it. Afterwards, they were told they were either a dot-overestimator or a dot-underestimator. In fact, researchers just labelled them randomly. They then told everybody to head off and do some stuff together. With no other prompts, people gravitated towards those who said they were similar dot estimators. And so started the depressing kind of in-group support and out-group denigration that every study of this kind reveals. If we can discriminate based on dot perception, no wonder we’re fantastic at it on something like sex or race.
As Jokerine points out, there needs to be a situation where protection from each other’s prejudices is not necessary. To me, laying bare this kind of innate human tendency to classify is an essential element.
I still don’t know what to make of Firestone’s theories on children as a yet more oppressed group. I certainly think they are more vulnerable and vulnerability is clearly a mainstay of oppression. But I am trying to square my ‘oppression’ of my children with the fact that without my restrictions on their activity, my pre-schoolers really could kill or maim themselves on any given day. Yet I know if I claim their autonomy has biological limitations at their age, I open myself up the criticims that that’s what men have said about women and other oppressed groups. Certainly though, I am open to discussion of social set-ups in which autonomy is fostered by access to a wider range of social contact. The isolated nature of many social set-ups such as the nuclear family allows violations like domestic abuse and child abuse to occur in secrecy, which perhaps relates to what Hawise says about ‘protection’ and access to other social networks. But I cannot comment on whether other living arrangements do any better as I know little of anthropology.
Sorry if this comment is too long and space-hogging.
Jokerine - thanks. I get you now.
Stop it! Stop talking about sci-fi books! I’ve started a whole new thread for you dorks. Now, don’t make me come over there.
“If we can discriminate based on dot perception, no wonder we’re fantastic at it on something like sex or race.”
What if seeing the Other is not something that we have a priori, but something we learn growing up? If everything is always classified, will we not learn to classify new situations too?
Have studies been done on infants that are not indoctrinated, yet? Like, are they able to sort colors as similar? Or, shapes?
One can not study the system from within the system.
I’ve stopped already!
Oh no! The syllabus was the only thing saving me from the fact that I’m only 2/3’s of my way through the book!
Trespasser said: I think they key fact binding all prejudice together is that the human brain seems set up to cleave to what is similar and to reject as a threat that which is different.
I think that the point she is making is that reducing the family to the degree we have has reduced the range of differences we accept. As well as reducing childrens sources of information, the isolated family reduces their opportunity to perceive similarities in a broad range of people.
please feel compelled to say things again.
Thanks, Catherine Martell. Don’t mind if I do.
I hate to drift the thread with all of this because it’s not specifically related to Firestone, but I just wanted to touch on this comment. Saying that racism is built upon sexism in no way means that abolishing sexism eradicates racism. What it means, more accurately, I hope, than I was able to express in the last post, is that racism - as we know it - is built upon sexism. I posit that if systematic sexism were gotten rid of, all of the excuses used heretofore to justify racism would also be obsolete. How can you degrade people by treating them like women* if you actually see women as people and treat them accordingly? Racism, and all its attendant horrors, only went down so smoothly - for everyone involved, oppressor and downtrodden alike - because it was already considered so natural, unquestionable really, for there to be certain adult people who were nevertheless in need of a little more guidance than others, who needed sometimes to be saved from themselves. So yeah, if sexism were ended, racism might still occur, but the bigots would have to get to it from an entirely different perspective than the one they’ve used so far.
* Let me add here that I have bountiful anecdotal evidence that, for black men at least, it is the “emasculating†nature of slavery that was its worst slight, thus the bitter rejection of the castrating “strong†black woman. There is also the constant presence in the MSM of the indolent single black mother free of male headship, given her prominent place in the 6 o’ clock news in order to remind people, in part, I suppose, that black men have yet to yoke their women tightly enough, the pansies.
“I don’t think legal protection is possible. A situation has to be achieved, where protection is not necessary.”
I would agree that 100% protection is not possible.
But, I would also say that it’s not possible to create a situation where protection is not necessary. Except, of course, in the case of the removal of all people from the planet. That might do it.
I keep coming back around to some thermodynamics-related stuff (which I admit having a tendency to do to the point of distraction).
In a universe with limited resources, won’t we always be in competition with each other for resources?
Let’s say, for sake of discussion, that medical science finally cooks up a simple, easy way for women to reproduce by themselves and male humans are eradicated from the planet’s population. Since the planet is inherently limited in the resources it can provide, wouldn’t this new SuperWoman race still be likely to divide itself up along some lines or other to determine who gets more or less access to resources?
-finn
that their obnoxiousness, tantrum-throwing, and unhappiness is a function of …
I tend to think it is mostly a function of being invisible.
I always hated as a child (and up through teenagehood) that my thoughts and arguments were not taken seriously. I was not regarded as someone worth talking to. Any reasoning I gave for my decisions in life were dismissed, as the adults were more experienced and thus knew everything and knew every which way in which I was doomed for failure.
Children are seen as, essentially, stupid. It is possible to carry on a conversation with a child that can teach you — a full grown adult — a thing or two. They may not have as much worldly experience as you to build their consciousness upon, and they may not have a developed enough vocabulary to communicate their ideas as effectively as someone who has been on this earth not just years, but decades — but regardless, they have minds, intelligent minds just swimming with thousands of thoughts, ideas, questions and musings, an unimaginable amount of curiosity, and the temerity to make their voice heard in pursuit of all that desired knowledge.
And how is their voice met?
“Be quiet, honey, I’m concentrating.”
“Uh huh. That’s nice.”
“Go ask your [mother/father/any random nearby adult to unload this ‘burden’ onto]”
“You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Through all this, the child learns that their voice is unimportant and probably even outright unheard. They are invisible, insignificant. Their mind doesn’t matter.
Perhaps children speak in unsophisticated ways, but I really wish sometimes that adults would treat them with a little fucking respect. It was all I wanted as a child.
Where did those damn capital letters come from?
It has always struck me how easy it is to find evidence for how shabbily children are treated in our culture. We pass laws that airplane passengers must be belted into their seats for safety’s sake, and exempt children; we legislate workplace safety and send children to schools that have crumbling asbetos ceilings; we test drugs on adults and then authorize them for use by children. All the while nattering on and on about how concerned we are for “our” children.
Ah, but if there’s a “safety first” law that restricts children’s freedom without inconveniencing adults, such as a minimum age requirement for driving a car, we’ve got it covered.
(I’m not arguing that four-year-olds should drive cars; just pointing out an inconsistency.)
Also, I really need to note here that I have not read the book. I am expanding on Twisty’s comment.
I do plan to check it out when I gain access to a library, but being disabled, and the only car in the household most often being used by the other half of the household (who works full-time), I’m in a bit of a bind there.
I fully expect a smackdown if what I bring up has been addressed in the book. I’ll gladly just sit back and enjoy the discussion if so. Prob’ly should have done that in the first place, but we’ve all had our moments.
Arguements about anthropoligical truth and the validity of Marxist analysis aside (only aside for the moment, as they are important), I just wanted to add that as a young pup and still somewhat fresh to feminist theory, that it is really amazing* to read a radical text like this, especially in contrast to the overly happy, everything-I-do-is-empowering “Third Wave” stuff that currently floods the market. I mean, a book that immediately identifies patriarchy as the problem and revolution as the solution - what a novel idea!
* By “amazing” I also mean “depressing,” because on the one hand it is incredible to find so salient a social critique so early on, yet sad to find how relatively few people took its radicalism to heart.
Finn, go read Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Re children– I am skeptical about arguments such as “their obnoxiousness, tantrum-throwing, and unhappiness is a function of (a) the nuclear family (the argument being that the modern family unit fosters kinder-neurosis by dint of its isolationist proclivities, and is the incubator for future patriarchalists) and (b) the incessant ridicule, dependence, and higher authority to which they are subject.”
Not all nuclear families are created equal in terms of isolationism, patriarchy incubation, or subjecting children to ridicule. As to dependence, I believe children ARE dependent. In what way shouldn’t they be? If I didn’t supervise my daughter’s activities, she’d poison herself or cut off the cat’s ears, and that was only yesterday.
This analysis seems premised on an inevitability of a severe power differential in the nuclear family. It seems to me that unless that’s dealt with, we’re unlikely to take a quantum leap beyond the nuclear family. And if it can be dealt with, then why get rid of the nuclear family, or its variations, like single-parent families or same-gender-parent families?
Finally, I remember (barely) being 25, and my ideas about parenting and family were largely theoretical. Firestone wasn’t a parent at 25 when she wrote the book, and while it’s certainly possible to speak intelligently about things one hasn’t experienced, I think parenting falls into a category in which it’s important to have been there before declaiming.
The idea of somehow getting a critical mass of folks to walk away from pregnancy as being the predominant way of creating a family seems quite unlikely. And incubating a baby for nine months or waiting the two years to adopt, both of which my parents did and the former of which I did, both seem very difficult things to do and then relinquish the child to a more fluid “household.” Especially when one is of the view that “bringing up” does not have to equal “owning.” Where both parents work, the child is frequently more part of a larger community of many influences, anyway. I am curious about whether other parents feel that children benefit from the continuity of a primary caretaker or caretakers. I think this is absolutely the case.
The idea of the unequal power balance seems to be the lowest hanging fruit and “step one” in addressing issues of sex class. With respect to BubbasNightmare, I think “That’s where the revolution starts: you teach those you love the truth, and urge them to pass it on” is great and necessary, but not nearly enough.
While it’s interesting to envision what the revolution could look like, I’m not sure deliberating about the science-fiction-y advanced steps makes much sense until we tackle the initial one(s) and see what things are looking like after that.
The isolated nuclear family, along with the alienating situations of work, described my Marc as “alienation from the products of one’s labour” produces a rampant narcissism expressed as an individual’s emotional inability to connect — also a concrete lack of genuineness to connect to.
Sorry. “Marx” not Marc. (It’s early here.)
“Finn, go read Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.”
Why?
Maybe it’s my own insecurity, but, when someone suggests I “go read” something it implies, to me, that I shouldn’t be participating in the discussion until I catch up to the rest of the class.
Firestone didn’t want to abolish a primary caretaker. She wanted the position to be free from the genes. Also she suggests, not having to incubate a baby for nine months. Do you really think women would prefer all the “horrors” of pregnancy to artificial wombs?
PS. Does anyone want some virtual ice cream?
Children require assistance, because they lack the knowledge and experience necessary to acquire the resources for survival. And, once they have that knowledge and experience, they are, generally, too physically weak to battle full-sized people for those resources.
Unless they eat out of the dumpster at 7-11. Even then, they’d be battling junkies for twinkie squishings.
amandaw, please send email with address to ibtpgroup@gmail.com, and we will send you a book. We have sent out only nine so far, and have some inventory left. We should be able to get it to you by Thursday, Friday at latest.
Sorry Finn! Thats not what I meant. Its late here an I’m lazy. What I meant is: For one scenario on a manless society, please read Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Maybe you will find it insightful. As punishment for being lazy I have now had to type two comments.
Jokerine - the horrors are mixed with blessings, though. Personally, right here, right now - I’d take the horrors every time. But then in a Firestonian utopia, I guess things might look different?
Finn - I don’t think anyone claims that children need no assistance. The question is more about how much they need, how much that need is created by a culture of (for want of a better expression) prolonged infantilisation, and how that need is best met.
My copy has the following disclaimer: “The author would like to note that this book remains unabridged and unrevised since its original publication in 1970.†Airless Spaces, her book of short stories, insistently, repetitively details the experience of the mental ward. It seems clear she was unwilling, unable or incapable of revising the 2003 edition I have, but thought it should be revised—otherwise why the disclaimer? If I had enough time, I’d write my comments as a preface, and also figure out how I would edit her book, for edit it I would. So I guess I made notes towards a preface and preliminary notes towards an edited, revised edition.
I would begin by throwing the Eldridge Freud sausage/chapter out (Chapter 5, “Racism: The Sexism of the Family of Manâ€). Shoving black folk (seemingly known primarily or only from Cleaver’s Soul on Ice) into her Freudian machine produced a grotesque, ham-fisted analysis shot through with the putrification of racism. What’s missing from her Freud machine—a recognition and analysis of fantasy is what makes her race chapter so problematic. The chapter itself is white fantasy about black folks. It’s youthfully callow and ignorant, at best. Ugh, hate that chapter.
*writesdown* Culture of prolonged infantilisation
I’m falling asleep now. I will check back in the morning.
Good night, Jokerine.
She took two very powerful methods of analysis—Marx and Freud—and mashed them together into a hybrid machine. The machine works best in the parts when and where she keeps front and center her main revolutionary ideas:
1. That the Freudian apparatus of analysis is most useful when applied in a metaphorical fashion, or in shorthand, penis equals power. Who needs Lacan! We have our own somewhat contemporaneous, home-grown female genius elaborating some of the same ideas. I mourn that she wasn’t able to continue. I read that she was working on a book on advertising—which is to move into a culture’s fantasy.
2. That prior to economic class oppression was sex class oppression. Bigger, badder, longer, uncut.
3. That the biology of reproduction put women at an enormous disadvantage, a disadvantage that was being addressed by technology.
I mourn that she wasn’t able to go on to write more elegantly about these powerful truths.
Without opining on whether anyone *should* read “Herland” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, allow me to point out that anyone *can* read it here:
http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/GilHerl.html
or here
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=34701&pageno=6
NB: Because it was published in 1915, it is (unless I’m missing something or have the publication date wrong) in the public domain, which makes the University of Virginia’s copyright claim here rather, um, amusing:
http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=GilHerl.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=teiHeader
Jokerine said “She wanted the position to be free from the genes. Also she suggests, not having to incubate a baby for nine months. Do you really think women would prefer all the “horrors†of pregnancy to artificial wombs?”
As Maia said, I’d take the horrors too. I couldn’t imagine myself pregnant in my 20s. And I’m someone who thought and still thinks friends beaming and pontificating about the unique wonderfulness of pregnancy and attachment parenting are over the top. I’m also very anal about weight and fitness and control and all that stuff, and the idea of gaining 30lb wasn’t a big incentive. While I breast-fed briefly, I lasted about two months and also went back to work at about that time. And finally, my sisters are adopted, and it’s something I always thought I would do, and may still do. But feeling my daughter move inside me and delivering her were pretty wonderful.
So yes, I have to believe that if someone like me got so much out of pregnancy and childbirth, it’s not going by the wayside very quickly.
I think in Firestone’s time and also now, the childbearing responsibility is accompanied by obstacles that help put in place the power differential. But I think it makes more sense to work on the obstacles rather than remove the pregnancy from the womb. The latter is infeasible in all kinds of ways. Automatic job reinstatement, longer paid leave, better incentives for dads to take leaves, better accomodations for breastfeeding, and less pressure on women who decide not to… again, lower hanging, and more realistic, fruit.
Regarding technology and science, she has a very American, very idealistic view of science. I have this same foolish optimism entwined in my DNA, along with the words to every song by the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, and every episode of the Brady Bunch and Star Trek (the original series). My heart believes one thing, my lying eyes and brain and experience say another.
The uterus is the end result of 4000 million years of random recombination, random mutation, and reproduction, i.e. evolution. I don’t see it being replaced by a technological mechanism, although increasingly, wealthy couples are using surrogate uteruses, so the rich sex class uses the poor sex class for reproduction. I suspect pigs may be used soon for more than heart valves. I prognosticate that the uterus of a pig in a coma will see heavy usage before the artificial uterus.
Science seeks to replicate the scope of the infinite life experiments of evolution, but it doesn’t have the time, it doesn’t have the tools or the experimental population. It seeks to make up for this by imitation and control and the directedness of its enquiry. But I think it’s going to take a long time yet.
What were the mortality rates for women in childbirth prior to the 20th century? Technologies such as antibiotics, forceps, and surgical advances (c-sections) lowered maternal and infant mortality. Birth control and abortion made it possible to control reproduction. But I think the 1969 Shulie wouldn’t believe that in 2007 these technologies would be available to only for a tiny percent of the female population of the world. Because the 1980 B. Dagger wouldn’t have believed it.
I think it’s a curious blind spot in Firestone’s analysis, that massive maternal mortality pre-1900 (I pulled that date out of my ass) is nowhere mentioned in a book that attributes women’s subjugation to reproduction. In fact, I think it’s a curious blind spot all over in analyses of the origins of the patriarchy.
Hello, all!
Lifetime blamer, longtime lurker, first time poster, writing to say that I’m loving this discussion and grateful for it. And I also want to add that Engels did address patriarchy. I’m not saying this as some dude-defender, but rather, to point out that a critique of patriarchy has been central to the Marxian tradition. In “The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State” (1884), Engels explains that long long long long long loooooong ago, the invention of private property–fruit of slave labor, natch–justified the hostile but at the same time stealthy transition from matriarchal social structure to a patriarchal one. Allow me a brief quote: “The overthrow of mother right [that is, the overthrow of the law of inheritance through the mother] was the world historical defeat of the female sex. The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude; she became the slave of his lust and mere instrument for the production of children.” (The copy I have is excerpted in a feminist theory anthology so I don’t have the full text to cite.)
To debate which oppression is primary–economic? patriarchal?–is to miss the crucial point that patriarchy is always economic–that is, it’s an ideology of ownership. Sex, as the means of (re)production, was and is capital.
OK, I just started reading the Book Club selection (yes, I’m a slacker) and wow. It is so… readable. I majored in political science way back when but stayed away from super-complicated theories because I hated wading through all the muddle. Would any of you experienced blamers care to recommend more reading that, like Firestone, doesn’t require me to have a pencil and highlighter in hand while reading?
BDL — yes, there are alot of issues involving why the oppressiveness of women’s biology is heavily class-based, that aren’t mentioned. Breast-feeding, for example. The whole “breast is best” thing ignores the fact that breast-feeding is skewing towards the upper classes, and formula the opposite. And many poorer families water down the formula to make it last longer, or buy the powder kind which is tough to mix right. It’s been demonstrated that studies which incorporate this show that breast milk and formula are about equal.
This seems like it’s getting way off topic, but the gist is that poor women’s workplaces are not as breast-feeding-friendly, and already-mixed formula overpriced, therefore they suffer more feeding and illness issues on the part of their children, and therefore yet another obstacle.
Day care is another issue. Because wealthy and moderately wealthy women can afford day assistance, the career setbacks aren’t as inevitable for them. The difficulties for lower income women to make enough to justify paying a caretaker or daycare program create huge obstacles to upward or even lateral mobility.
The communes SF describes address this to some extent, but are only feasible in a post-capitalistic era, and that’s another step 1000 issue. These are things we need nuts-and-bolts, what-do-we-do-NOW strategies to address.
Twisty et al. Thanks for a great discussion and thanks for the opportunity to revisit these ideas. I’ve only read the first chapter, but I ordered the book over the weekend. Hope it comes in time for further discussion. These are my reactions so far:
SF “feminists have to question, not just all of Western culture, but the organisation of culture itself, and further, even the very organisation of nature.â€
SF “For we are dealing with a larger problem, with an oppression that goes back beyond recorded history to the animal kingdom itself.â€
I have no argument with the idea that the patriarchal reality I live in is all pervasive, but I can’t accept the idea that patriarchy is all. The only hope I have for improving the status of women is based on the belief that patriarchy is not all, that it is a constructed reality – and therefore change is possible. I’m afraid if I thought patriarchy was as all-encompassing as SF does, I would despair.
Moreover, since the latest estimates for how long the human species (as we know it) has been around is somewhere around 160,000 years, and written history only goes back around 3-4,000 yrs, and archaeology has its limitations, it always bothers me when anyone claims to know how things have always been. I mean, we are looking at around 150,000 years which are still pretty mysterious. I am optimistic enough to believe that in all that space and time there might have been a society which was not misogynistic. I say optimistic because, if it happened once, it can happen again.
As to the patriarchal organization of nature, I’m afraid I don’t know what she is talking about. Back when SF wrote this book, there were a bunch of books written by men who tried to make the case that nature was patriarchal, but I never bought it. Male biologists, after all, came up with such language as “animal kingdom.†Conscious female biologists who are not constantly looking for evidence within nature to support the patriarchal paradigm — and using patriarchal language to describe nature — often offer a fresh, feminist perspective.
If by the patriarchal organization of nature SF means the “inequality” of reproductive tasks nature assigns to males and females, I also disagree. Nature assigns the tasks, patriarchy assigns the value. Women’s reproductive activities are not essentially less valuable than male activities (reproductive or otherwise). Neither are they essentially more onerous. I actually enjoyed motherhood, in spite of the fact that we live in a society which seems designed to make motherhood as difficult as possible.
As to the biological family –
For me, the biological family is made up of mother and children. Husbands are fast becoming a luxury women cannot afford. A moment’s sexual enjoyment does not a father make. The father/child relationship is a social construct. And it seems to be self-destructing as we speak. I, myself, found single motherhood a little challenging, but deeply satisfying. I’m all for women taking charge of the means of reproduction.
As to the immutable fact of women’s dependence on men –
Obviously, the heavy reproductive burden that woman carries diminishes her chances for survival if she has to go it alone – especially in our world. But who, male or female, goes it totally alone throughout life? But somehow, only women are denounced as dependent. Why should economic dependence outweigh all other dependencies? I have a huge problem with patriarchal society’s collective denial of the fact that humanity is completely dependent on women for the continuation of the species — as well as a variety of other wonderful things women do to make life more enjoyable for everyone.
Shulamith quotes De Beauvoir and builds upon her ideas and now I’m thinking, damn it! I had always meant to read The Second Sex but I never did. Guess I’d better git on it.
I would be curious to know what Firestone thinks of the internets, although she may not think of them at all. As a technology, it will enable like-minded people to form communities for both polyamorous adventures (as it’s often used) and for the raising of children. Lesbian and gay men increasingly use it to form an extended family for the raising of children—some children have two moms and two dads–a step towards Firestone’s non-nuclear group raising of children.
Male violence is still a threat in cyberspace (I classify what happened to Amanda Marcotte as a species of male violence), but while anonymity, pseudonyms and cyberspace allow some 22-year-old boys to say the vile things in their hearts, cyberspace also allows women to comment back without, in general, fear of real physical male violence. Women can increasingly insist on a presence in discussions.
I probably should have waited until I had read all through the thread to see if this was already addressed, but it burned me too much.
Being someone who was, as a child, forced to conform, to shut up and play quietly in the corner, to not ask questions, to be ignored when I did, to have my imagination externally suppressed to the point where I can barely tap into it now, to have to wait with hand raised to see if and adult would give me permission to ask a question, to get ‘because I said so’ as a normal response to questions.
None of these things were for my protection, they were for the benefit of maintaining my sub-human status, and the unquestionable superiority of my ‘betters’.
By the time I was 15 I already knew that I must not have children, to inflict this on yet another generation.
Then I have heard, over and over, throughout my life, and now again here in this thread, that unless you yourself are a parent you just don’t understand or have no right to criticize or address the problem.
That IS the patriarchy.
It’s really touching to see the discussion here, and seeing a lot of us come to this book for the first time or reread it with our new, post-Twisty lens. I mean this as unpatronizingly as possible. I’m just like, really overcome.
Here, in a non-eloquent nutshell, my favorite parts of this book:
1) The argument for women using science to take pregnancy out of the mere “biological” or “that’s the way it is, so suck it up woman, pain and all” realm and create birth in a new test-tube reality. This reality, of course, NOT being Brave New World BUT a way for women to actually USE SCIENCE FOR OUR ADVANTAGE. I think this argument is so amazing because it flies right in the face of all this “natural childbirth” stuff that is, actually, NOT progressive. And it’s not doing so in an asshole Dr. Switchblade “come, little woman, come to me the male doctor to make you all better” but it’s saying, listen gang, why don’t we women actually TAKE SCIENCE and USE IT in a way that benefits US and NOT MEN? Consider!!
Also, as a tangent from this, the whole argument that this is “not scientifically possible” misses the whole point. Of course it’s not scientifically “possible” because, even if it were, there’s been so little research into this area (comparatively to, say, erectile dysfunction) that we wouldn’t know if it were “possible” because some Big Daddy Scientist decided it was morally/economically/whatever-ly a Big Waste Of Time. (Are electric cars possible? They are! Do you have one?)
2) LOVE IS THE PATRIARCHY ON LARGE-SCALE FORM. Don’t do it. I really want you all to read this chapter. I can’t even tell you how great it is. I can’t even sum up my feelings beyond that.
3) Engels wrote The Origin thing, yes (and someone here alluded to it) but that’s all he wrote on dismantling patriarchy because, by the way, he totally benefited from it. The reason why