The Dialectic Of Sex: The Case For Feminist Revolution

By: Shulamith Firestone

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Synopsis: A best-seller upon its original publication in 1970--when Shulamith Firestone was just twenty-five years old--The Dialectic of Sex was the first book of the women's liberation movement to put forth a feminist theory of politics. Beginning with a look at the radical grassroots history of the first wave of feminism and its foundation in the abolition movement, Firestone documents its major victory, the granting of the vote to women in 1920, and the fifty-year backlash that followed. Deftly synthesizing the work of Freud, Marx, de Beauvoir, and Engels, Firestone creates a powerful argument for feminist revolution in which she asserts that women must seize the means of reproduction. For as long as women (and only women) are required to bear and rear children, they will lack the biological and attendant economic independence required to be completely liberated. Ultimately, she presents feminism as the key radical ideology, the missing link between Marx and Freud, uniting their visions of the political and the personal. As revelatory and urgent as it was upon its first publication, The Dialectic of Sex is a testament to Shulamith Firestone's startlingly prescient vision. It remains required reading for anyone concerned about the history of feminism as well as the ongoing hurdles faced by women to this day in regard to motherhood, child care, and career.