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The Anatomy of Freedom: Feminism in Four Dimensions
In this reissue of one of her most important and influential books, the editor in chief of Ms. offers a collection of essays, ranging across a variety of subjects, including sexual passion, kinship, mortality, marriage, and even theoretical physics, that seeks to comprehend feminism in its full, holographic nature.
- GenresFeminismNonfiction
390 pages, Paperback
First published July 17, 1982
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About the author
Robin Morgan
153 books110 followersAn award-winning poet, novelist, political theorist, feminist activist, journalist, editor, and best-selling author, Robin Morgan has published 20 books, including the now-classic anthologies
Sisterhood Is Powerful
(Random House, 1970) and
Sisterhood Is Global
(Doubleday, l984; updated edition, The Feminist Press, 1996); with the recent
Sisterhood Is Forever
(Washington Square Press, 2003). A leader in contemporary US feminism, she has also played an influential role internationally in the women’s movement for more than 25 years.
An invited speaker at every major university in North America, Morgan has traveled — as organizer, lecturer, journalist — across Europe, to Australia, Brazil, the Caribbean, Central America, China, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Pacific Island nations, the Philippines, and South Africa; she has twice (1986 and 1989) spent months in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, West Bank, and Gaza, reporting on the conditions of women.
Her books include the novels Dry Your Smile (Doubleday, l987) and The Mer-Child A Legend for Children and Other Adults (Feminist Press, 1991); nonfiction Going Too Far (Random House, 1977), The Word of a Woman (Norton, 1992, 2nd ed. 1994), and The Anatomy of Freedom (Norton, 1994). Her work has been translated into 13 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Sanskrit. Recent books include the poetry anthologies Upstairs in the Garden (1994) and A Hot January (both Norton), as well as the memoir Saturday's Child (Norton, 2000), and her best-selling nonfiction piece The Demon Lover - The Roots of Terrorism (Norton, 1989—2nd ed. with a new introduction and afterword (Washington Square Press, 2001). Her novel on the Inquisition — The Burning Time — was published in 2006 (Melville House), and Fighting Words A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right in 2006 (Nation Books).
As founder and president of The Sisterhood Is Global Institute and co-founder and board member of The Women’s Media Center, she has co-founded and serves on the boards of many women’s organizations in the US and abroad. In 1990, as editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, she relaunched the magazine as an international, award-winning, ad-free bimonthly, resigning in late 1993 to become consulting global editor. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Prize for poetry, and numerous other honors, she lives in New York City.
An invited speaker at every major university in North America, Morgan has traveled — as organizer, lecturer, journalist — across Europe, to Australia, Brazil, the Caribbean, Central America, China, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Pacific Island nations, the Philippines, and South Africa; she has twice (1986 and 1989) spent months in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, West Bank, and Gaza, reporting on the conditions of women.
Her books include the novels Dry Your Smile (Doubleday, l987) and The Mer-Child A Legend for Children and Other Adults (Feminist Press, 1991); nonfiction Going Too Far (Random House, 1977), The Word of a Woman (Norton, 1992, 2nd ed. 1994), and The Anatomy of Freedom (Norton, 1994). Her work has been translated into 13 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Sanskrit. Recent books include the poetry anthologies Upstairs in the Garden (1994) and A Hot January (both Norton), as well as the memoir Saturday's Child (Norton, 2000), and her best-selling nonfiction piece The Demon Lover - The Roots of Terrorism (Norton, 1989—2nd ed. with a new introduction and afterword (Washington Square Press, 2001). Her novel on the Inquisition — The Burning Time — was published in 2006 (Melville House), and Fighting Words A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right in 2006 (Nation Books).
As founder and president of The Sisterhood Is Global Institute and co-founder and board member of The Women’s Media Center, she has co-founded and serves on the boards of many women’s organizations in the US and abroad. In 1990, as editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, she relaunched the magazine as an international, award-winning, ad-free bimonthly, resigning in late 1993 to become consulting global editor. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Prize for poetry, and numerous other honors, she lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 3, 2025
A ‘DIFFERENT’ WAY OF LOOKING AT THE ‘FEMININST VISION’
Robin Morgan is an activist, poet, and author, who was editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine from 1989-1994, and a co-founder of The Women’s Media Center.
She wrote in the Introduction to this 1982 book, “This book attempts an anatomy of freedom… a meditative analysis of an idea not yet born. Freedom has been discussed, syllogized, defined, fought and died for over millennia, yet it still hasn’t been coaxed into existence… Feminism has been perceived, even by most feminists, as a political philosophy and movement relating specifically to the rights and the just powers of women…. [But] feminism is something far more---a vision as important and transformative to men as to women, and ... crucial to the continuation of sentient life on this planet. It is THAT feminist vision, and its intimate and inextricable relationship with freedom, which I am exploring in this book.”
She continues, “This book attempts… to view feminism in its three- and even four-dimensional character, as the holograph I believe it is. That has required that the form of writing itself attempt to project, reflect, and express the content---to move… toward a contrapuntal style which risks blending a personal voice with analytical and philosophical ones, interweaving parables, dramatic format, and meditative structure with journalistic reportage and theoretical hypotheses…daring to raise more and unprecedented questions rather than proclaim answers, and comprehending that all answers soon or later become new questions. If this feels unsettling to some readers, I can only plead that the effect is intentional. One cannot understand a holograph by settling down to view it….” (Pg. xiv)
She states, “Perhaps feminist consciousness at its plainest consists of millions of women, down through the centuries, saying in one voice: ‘Look, I am trying to show you my face before I am born.’” (Pg. 42)
She states, “If the sanctity of men has resided mostly in getting out of this body, then the sanctity of women might reside in our getting into it, understanding it, affirming it in the first place. For myself, I am never a more devout atheist than when I am realizing that there is a divinity that shapes, not our ends, but our beginnings.” (Pg.. 76-77)
In a ‘dialogue’ between her ‘Dream Self’ and her ‘Waking Self,’ the Waking Self says to the Dream Self, “[My new book is called] ‘The Anatomy of Freedom.’ Though I really can’t say why… Because I know nothing ABOUT freedom, when you come right down to it! Because I’m learning as I go alone. I’m still piecing it together.” (Pg. 96)
She asserts, “Sexual fundamentalism is born of the same thinking, and is, in fact, present wherever religious fundamentalism breathes its foul winds on our sense of possibility. It is religious fundamentalism and sexual fundamentalism that tell us, through the mouth of Marabel Morgan (author of ‘The Total Woman’), that women must become whatever sexual (or nonsexual) creatures their husbands [want] them to be because to do otherwise is to offend Christ.” (Pg. 105)
She says, “Woman….. at Man’s bidding, has denied to women the same passion and intelligence, forcing us to suffer instead a comparable stake in the heart of our sexuality. It is even easier to drive a stake into the heart of a wraith whose mirror gives back to reflection. The stake in the heart of women is romance.” (Pg. 122)
She says of a woman who had an affair, “She would never be the same woman. I am NOT saying that an affair is a palliative for anything, nor recommending so-called open marriage, nor trying … to float a new correct line on feminist instant sexual freedom. On the contrary. I am speaking for no one but myself, in the hope that not so much the experience but what I learned from it will be of use to other women---and to men, for that matter.” (Pg. 131)
She proclaims, “Oh my America, there IS blood on your hands---and you don’t even recognize it as your own. You do not exist, white America. The agony you have created for others is REAL---but always been to convince yourself as well as those in agony that the illusion of your existence was AS real… You are a figment of your own brain which has settled for a pretty uncreative imagining. You are a figment of the brains and souls and bodies you have lynched and tortured, raped and sold and murdered and denied, starved and whipped---who for sanity’s sake had to believe that their torturer was as real as their pain. The blood on your hands, white America, is your own.” (Pg. 202)
She observes, “It’s revealing that the issue of sex with children is almost non-existent among women---of whatever sexual preference. I believe that this probably is due to the fact that women take care of children more than men do. Women are brought up to relate to a child’s body in nurturing ways… which can resonate with great sensuality, but a sensuality qualitatively different from the eroticism in volved in ‘boy love’ or nympholepsy. It’s likely that, as more men become involved in both the drudgery and the joy of childcare, there will be a reduction in the male sexual mystique about children.” (Pg. 222-223)
She notes, “what Man calls ‘World Problems’ are primarily women’s problems: *The hunger problem… *The illiteracy problem… *The health problem… *The refugee problem… *The
child-abuse problem…*The old-age problem … *Poverty.” (Pg. 266-267)
She explains, “I like Kierkegaard. I find him a lovely, funny, moving, wise writer; even his flaws are interesting. I don’t think I would have enjoyed knowing him much… he seems not to have been all that jolly a person in.. real life… Still, his philosophical work stands for me at a central point… not only because of its own brilliant content… but also because at the central point of Kierkegaard’s work stands… a woman.” (Pg. 312)
More than 40 years after it was written, the ‘holograph’ writing style of this book seems, well, rather puzzling and obtuse. Nevertheless, Morgan make some pertinent observations, that make the book valuable.
Robin Morgan is an activist, poet, and author, who was editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine from 1989-1994, and a co-founder of The Women’s Media Center.
She wrote in the Introduction to this 1982 book, “This book attempts an anatomy of freedom… a meditative analysis of an idea not yet born. Freedom has been discussed, syllogized, defined, fought and died for over millennia, yet it still hasn’t been coaxed into existence… Feminism has been perceived, even by most feminists, as a political philosophy and movement relating specifically to the rights and the just powers of women…. [But] feminism is something far more---a vision as important and transformative to men as to women, and ... crucial to the continuation of sentient life on this planet. It is THAT feminist vision, and its intimate and inextricable relationship with freedom, which I am exploring in this book.”
She continues, “This book attempts… to view feminism in its three- and even four-dimensional character, as the holograph I believe it is. That has required that the form of writing itself attempt to project, reflect, and express the content---to move… toward a contrapuntal style which risks blending a personal voice with analytical and philosophical ones, interweaving parables, dramatic format, and meditative structure with journalistic reportage and theoretical hypotheses…daring to raise more and unprecedented questions rather than proclaim answers, and comprehending that all answers soon or later become new questions. If this feels unsettling to some readers, I can only plead that the effect is intentional. One cannot understand a holograph by settling down to view it….” (Pg. xiv)
She states, “Perhaps feminist consciousness at its plainest consists of millions of women, down through the centuries, saying in one voice: ‘Look, I am trying to show you my face before I am born.’” (Pg. 42)
She states, “If the sanctity of men has resided mostly in getting out of this body, then the sanctity of women might reside in our getting into it, understanding it, affirming it in the first place. For myself, I am never a more devout atheist than when I am realizing that there is a divinity that shapes, not our ends, but our beginnings.” (Pg.. 76-77)
In a ‘dialogue’ between her ‘Dream Self’ and her ‘Waking Self,’ the Waking Self says to the Dream Self, “[My new book is called] ‘The Anatomy of Freedom.’ Though I really can’t say why… Because I know nothing ABOUT freedom, when you come right down to it! Because I’m learning as I go alone. I’m still piecing it together.” (Pg. 96)
She asserts, “Sexual fundamentalism is born of the same thinking, and is, in fact, present wherever religious fundamentalism breathes its foul winds on our sense of possibility. It is religious fundamentalism and sexual fundamentalism that tell us, through the mouth of Marabel Morgan (author of ‘The Total Woman’), that women must become whatever sexual (or nonsexual) creatures their husbands [want] them to be because to do otherwise is to offend Christ.” (Pg. 105)
She says, “Woman….. at Man’s bidding, has denied to women the same passion and intelligence, forcing us to suffer instead a comparable stake in the heart of our sexuality. It is even easier to drive a stake into the heart of a wraith whose mirror gives back to reflection. The stake in the heart of women is romance.” (Pg. 122)
She says of a woman who had an affair, “She would never be the same woman. I am NOT saying that an affair is a palliative for anything, nor recommending so-called open marriage, nor trying … to float a new correct line on feminist instant sexual freedom. On the contrary. I am speaking for no one but myself, in the hope that not so much the experience but what I learned from it will be of use to other women---and to men, for that matter.” (Pg. 131)
She proclaims, “Oh my America, there IS blood on your hands---and you don’t even recognize it as your own. You do not exist, white America. The agony you have created for others is REAL---but always been to convince yourself as well as those in agony that the illusion of your existence was AS real… You are a figment of your own brain which has settled for a pretty uncreative imagining. You are a figment of the brains and souls and bodies you have lynched and tortured, raped and sold and murdered and denied, starved and whipped---who for sanity’s sake had to believe that their torturer was as real as their pain. The blood on your hands, white America, is your own.” (Pg. 202)
She observes, “It’s revealing that the issue of sex with children is almost non-existent among women---of whatever sexual preference. I believe that this probably is due to the fact that women take care of children more than men do. Women are brought up to relate to a child’s body in nurturing ways… which can resonate with great sensuality, but a sensuality qualitatively different from the eroticism in volved in ‘boy love’ or nympholepsy. It’s likely that, as more men become involved in both the drudgery and the joy of childcare, there will be a reduction in the male sexual mystique about children.” (Pg. 222-223)
She notes, “what Man calls ‘World Problems’ are primarily women’s problems: *The hunger problem… *The illiteracy problem… *The health problem… *The refugee problem… *The
child-abuse problem…*The old-age problem … *Poverty.” (Pg. 266-267)
She explains, “I like Kierkegaard. I find him a lovely, funny, moving, wise writer; even his flaws are interesting. I don’t think I would have enjoyed knowing him much… he seems not to have been all that jolly a person in.. real life… Still, his philosophical work stands for me at a central point… not only because of its own brilliant content… but also because at the central point of Kierkegaard’s work stands… a woman.” (Pg. 312)
More than 40 years after it was written, the ‘holograph’ writing style of this book seems, well, rather puzzling and obtuse. Nevertheless, Morgan make some pertinent observations, that make the book valuable.
July 23, 2019
A little dated because it is an old book. But also kind of depressing because so much of it is still true. I can't believe we are still arguing for the ERA. What the hell!
She is a great writer and explains things very well and her feminist theory is well founded. I loved her view of the future and how many of the things she talked about came to pass (or didn't).
She is a great writer and explains things very well and her feminist theory is well founded. I loved her view of the future and how many of the things she talked about came to pass (or didn't).
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews