The classic trap for any revolutionary is always, “What’s your alternative?” But even if you could provide the inter­rogator with a blueprint, this does not mean he would use it: in most cases he is not sincere in wanting to know. In fact this is a common offensive, a technique to deflect rev­olutionary anger and […]

The increasing erosion of the functions of the family by modern technology should, by now, have caused some signs of its weakening. However, this is not absolutely the case. Though the institution is archaic, artificial cul­tural reinforcements have been imported to bolster it: Sentimental sermons, manuals of guidance, daily columns in newspapers and magazines, special […]

These broad imperatives must form the basis of any more specific radical feminist program. But our revolution­ary demands are likely to meet anything from mild balking (“utopian. . . unrealistic. . . farfetched. . . too far in the future. . . impossible. . . well, it may stink, but you haven’t got anything better. […]

I STRUCTURAL IMPERATIVES Before we talk about revolutionary alternatives, let’s sum­marize—to determine the specifics that must be carefully excluded from any new structures. Then we can go on to “utopian speculation” directed by at least negative guide­lines. We have seen how women, biologically distinguished from men, are culturally distinguished from “human.” Nature produced the fundamental […]

Empirical science left repercussions in its wake: the sudden advancement of technology upset the natural order. But the recent interest in ecology, the study, of man’s relationship to his environment, may, by 1970, have come too late. Certainly it is too late for conservationism, the attempt to redress natural balances. What is called for is […]

I have tried to show how the history of culture mirrors the sex dichotomy in its very organization and develop­ment. Culture develops not only out of the underlying economic dialectic, but also out of the deeper sex dia­lectic. Thus, there is not only a horizontal dynamic, but a vertical one as well: each of these […]

Now, in 1970, we are experiencing a major scientific breakthrough. The new physics, relativity, and the astro — physical theories of contemporary science had already been realized by the first part of this century. Now, in the latter part, we are arriving, with the help of the elec­tron microscope and other new tools, at similar […]

So far we have treated “culture” as synonymous witb “arts and letters” or at its broadest, “humanities.” This is a common enough confusion. But it is startling in this context For we discover that, while only indirectly related to art, women have been entirely excluded from an equal’ ly important half of culture: science. If […]

Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with absolute truth, Simone de Beauvoir The relation of women to culture has been indirect. We have discussed how the present psychical organization of the two sexes dictates that most […]

So far we have not distinguished “romance” from love. For there are no two kinds of love, one healthy (dull) and one not (painful) (“My dear, what you need is a mature love relationship. Get over this romantic non­sense.”), but only less-than-love or daily agony. When love takes place in a power context, everyone’s “love […]