Feminism

Long Tail Eight 2013: #3

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Long Tail Eight copy

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution

Media type: Book (non-fiction)

Author: Shulamith Firestone

Year: 1970

Viewed nearly half a century after its publication, Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex – a classic of second-wave feminism – seems oddly anachronistic, in two distinct ways. For one, a number of its premises are rooted in ideologies whose influences appear to have peaked: classical Marxism, for example, or Freudian psychology. Firestone takes a largely unsympathetic view of gay and lesbian rights, and does get bogged down in gender essentialism a lot of the time (I don’t remember her discussing trans issues in the book. Probably just as well; I get the feeling her perspective there wouldn’t have been very enlightened). And yet her vision of the future, a future free of the power imbalances that come with traditional gender roles, seems just as far away now as it did in the 1970s.

What, then, is the value of The Dialectic of Sex? For one thing, it’s the urgency of Firestone’s prose. Reading the book is a powerful and effective reminder that, despite all the advances made across the last few decades, there are still systemic inequalities permeating our society, and they can be killers. On the status of women, for example, Firestone is uncompromising, and rightly so. After she points out so many of the ways in which women tend to be treated as lesser people (subjection to insistent ideals of beauty, less agency in romantic and sexual relationships, artistic contributions often ignored, disproportionate child-rearing duties…), it’s hard for the reader to conclude anything except that patriarchy is a problem in grave need of a solution.

Firestone’s idea of the future, too, is a fascinating one. Leaping outwards from her thesis that oppression of women is based in the (current) biological necessity of pregnancy, she posits a world where technological advances allow perfectly equal distribution of labour (including child-rearing). The resulting proposal is simultaneously fascinating (large ‘family’ groups formed by voluntary association, full rights for children) and confusing (“… the irrelevancy of the school system practically guarantees its breakdown in the near future” – this written in 1970). Some might deride this vision as science fiction, but that’s precisely why Firestone’s ideas interest me: like much of the best science fiction (or, indeed, any other kind of literature), it shows how humans might be able to live, and live more happily, if freed from some of our pettier constraints.

I have just one real criticism of the book: Firestone is prone to making points on the basis of dubious evidence. This is not by any means a flaw unique to Firestone as a writer, but it is a flaw. In one paragraph, for example, Firestone makes the claim that “there is no room for feelings in the scientist’s work”, and then (as far as I can tell) goes on to psychoanalyse all scientists – “out of touch with his [sic] direct emotions”,  “surprisingly conventional”, “emotionally divided” – on the basis of this assertion. This makes for some uncomfortable reading, especially since Firestone was writing around the time of Feynman. Another troublesome conclusion is the blanket statement that “men can’t love” (Firestone’s italics), based largely on a quote from Simone de Beauvoir, the psychoanalytical sessions of Theodor Reik (admittedly containing unpleasantly sexist quotes from some male patients) and Firestone’s personal observations.

By contrast, I found some of the more dated elements of The Dialectic of Sex to be simply old-fashioned rather than obsolete. Firestone’s predictions of the near future (from a 70s perspective) are broadly correct: rapidly increasing importance of automation and computing, greater control over reproduction leading to changing sex roles. That she does not foresee the impact of IVF, say, or the Internet, is certainly not a failure on her part.

In short, The Dialectic of Sex is a book that needs to be appreciated in context: in the context of Firestone’s life and experiences, the feminism of her time, and the feminism of the present day. But read with these things in mind, Firestone’s conclusions are at once imaginative and engrossing, radical and enticing. A thought-provoking text for all the right reasons.

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