Patriarchal Attitudes: Women in Society

by Eva Figes

Book by Figes, Eva

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Feminist Theory

191 pages, Paperback

First published May 18, 1978

About the author

Eva Figes (born Eva Unger) is a German-born English author.

Figes has written novels, literary criticism, studies of feminism, and vivid memoirs relating to her Berlin childhood and later experiences as a Jewish refugee from Hitler's Germany. She arrived in Britain in 1939 with her parents and a younger brother. Figes is now a resident of north London and the mother of the academic Orlando Figes and writer Kate Figes.

In the 1960s she was associated with an informal group of experimental British writers influenced by Rayner Heppenstall, which included Stefan Themerson, Ann Quin and its informal leader, B. S. Johnson.

Figes's fiction has certain similarities with the writings of Virginia Woolf. The 1983 novel, Light, is an impressionistic portrait of a single day in the life of Claude Monet from sunrise to sunset.

Reviews

[Jaclynn (JackieReadsAlot) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though dated, it's an excellent second wave feminist text. Very well researched and presented.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although majorly outdated in her solutions, language, lack of intersectionality and lack of LGBT critique, this is an interesting book. Whilst the last chapter can be disregarded due to her solutions being outdated, the strength of the book lies with her outstanding critique of western philosophers. She deconstructs thinkers like Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Freud and portrays them to be like the misogynistic pigs that they seemed to be. This literary criticism of showing how misogynist the western Canon of literature and philosophy really is is by far the strength and often the focus of the book.

Most modern readers will find the rest of the book though problematic at times and outdated, however it still offers a feminist analysis beyond what much of modern society recognises yet.

[Kbchatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me very angry. Explains exactly what is going on currently in the United States.

[Estrella · Rating 4 out of 5]

He descubierto muchas cosas qué desconocía, no conocía apenas de Freud y ahora mismo le tengo bastante tirría, es descorazonador saber cómo de arraigado esta el patriarcado en nuestra sociedad, religión, valores morales, literatura... Cómo los cambios sociales en favor de los derechos de la mujer no son suficientes sino se da también un cambio de pensamiento, de actitudes, la inportancia del sistema educativo y la familia qué son los qué nos moldean. Lo qué la sociedad pide de nosotras.. In libro muy recomendable, algunas partes son más tediosas qué otras pero creo qué es necesario leerlo para entender muchas cosas.