I hope this is the right place for this kind of question. But I somehow think there’s a fault in her logic about the way women are dependent on men because of their biology. Women could have gotten together in tribes and care for themselves and NOT be dependent on men, don’t you think? Maybe I don’t get her logic but I really was at a loss here about what she was reasoning :-)
In her 1971 book "The Dialectic of Sex," Shulamith Firestone argued that curing aging and eliminating death by old age was necessary for feminist revolution to fully liberate women from the unequal labor burden of child-raising. There will be no need for society to produce or raise children once we no longer have an aging population:
>[Firestone's] view is that it is because women bear children that it has been possible for men to gain ascendancy over them, for the subjugation of women is rooted in the division of labor which begins with the differing roles males and females have in the reproduction of the species. This division of labor is institutionalized in the family. Therefore, to free women it is necessary to eradicate the family, at first by developing alternative lifestyles and social institutions and eventually by reproducing people artificially, eliminating the female reproductive function. Equality for women is to be accomplished through scientific discoveries that progress from the artificial reproduction of babies to the elimination of childhood, ageing, and eventually death itself. [link]
Hello all! This May, our reading group will be reading Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex, a feminist classic which offers a radical critique of the sex/gender system. Firestone reimagines everything from dialectical materialism to Freudian psychoanalysis in light of gendered oppression, asking us to reconsider some of the most (apparently) basic notions of family structure—childhood and biological parenthood.
The book will be read over the course of five weeks, with each week culminating in a verbal discussion (all organized via discord). If you're interested in reading this book in a cooperative group environment, please feel welcome to join us.
https://discord.gg/vDWZV6p
PDF provided in server
First meeting weekend of 02 May 2020.
Hi,
For "radical feminism, transition, gatekeeping, and trans people's inclusion in women's spaces," I think this is a good starting point. So over the next week, I'd like to discuss chapters 1-3.
(If this seems to come out of nowhere, I'd discussed this on GCdebatesQT before starting this sub.)
So is there anything you want to say about the opening chapters, or in response? I'll offer some of my thoughts and questions in the comments section below.
Know its not really the point of this sub, sorry.
I never heard of Shulamith Firestone until she died. I didn't / haven't read her Dialectic of Sex but did read some of the ideas that are supposed to be expressed therein and I find them somewhat intoxicating. How does revolutionary thought like hers fit into contemporary feminist theory?
Hi,
Continuing "radical feminism, transition, gatekeeping, and trans people's inclusion in women's spaces," over the next week I'd like to discuss chapter 4-7.
Any thoughts?
