Status Updates From The Dialectic of Sex: The C...

The critical examination on love continues, with the ire now aimed at 'romanticism'. Firestone casts the cultural institution as one directly developed to pacify women who would otherwise rebel against their predicaments. Notions of eroticism and beauty are thrust onto the sexes to everybody's detriment.

As an aside, this is probably the funniest chapter yet because of Firestone's unmasked disgust towards Americans.

Freudianism and Feminism! I’m not read enough on psychoanalysis to say how accurate her depiction is. I think Firestone is touching on similar ground that Dworkin does by talking about the separation of sex from emotion - though Dworkin talks more about how Force used by Male Supremacist Society removes the ability for intercourse to be conducted without women being urged to perform.

An interesting history of American feminism (with little in the way of citations) and some of Firestone’s own political analysis on the fledgling variants of feminism in her time. Any time she mentions the work done by the Black Panthers, though, I get nervous because Firestone has a tendency to get racist.

"Women and love are underpinnings. Examine them and you threaten the very structure of culture." is just one of the many explosive statements littered throughout this chapter. The phenomenon is cast as benign (if selfish) in isolation, but distorted by the sex class system to be the engine of culture, where men feed off of it without reciprocity. Much emphasis is placed on 'traditional differences' between the sexes.

Firestone does more to explain sex-class as a working term over Dworkin. What is interesting is Firestone’s embrace of artificial birth, insemination, etc., and general (as it seems so far) trust in technology’s ability to aid in the development of a more egalitarian society with dissolved sex distinctions, while Dworkin is considerably frightened by this idea - a fear that takes up a chapter in Right-Wing Women.

Well. Here we are. The introduction briefly slips into the usual RadFem happenstance of racism before moving on to discuss a fairly interesting, though possibly unconvincing, modification to historical materialism with Freudian psych and sex-class analysis.

Here, I have to drop the attempt to recount the contents of the chapter in an 'objective' manner to complain. Firestone's hyperfixation on Freudianism is made especially apparent, as she attempts to shoehorn various Freudian/Freudian-adjacent concepts (Oedipal/Electral complexes, nuclear family structures) into contemporary race relations. Even if some intriguing points are made here and there, the bulk is hogwash.

Building upon earlier remarks, the nuclear family as a tool of oppression is placed in its historical context. 'Childhood' is described as a modern myth, one used to reify class divisions. The institutions built around this myth (education, 'child psychology', the various 'children' consumer industries) are singled out for their enabling of this reification. Their dependence on and repression by adults is analyzed.

Freudianism and its relation to feminism is finally explored. Firestone first identifies their common roots, before diving into the similarities between the two movements. More specifically, she reframes the former within the context of patriarchal power afforded by the nuclear family structure. The chapter ends with an extensive critique of how the behavioural sciences serve as another anesthetic for the latter.

Firestone laments the subsequent 'fifty year ridicule' that befell the grander movement following the achievement of women's suffrage. Cultural concepts such as style, patriotism, and teenagedom are singled out as anesthetics. A breakdown of the major camps in the contemporary movement is provided, with particularly harsh critiques levied at the left-aligned camp, before extolling the superiority of radical feminism.

Getting a head-start on this now, since I am slated to lead another book club discussion in late January.

In the opening chapter, sharing the same name as the book, Firestone lays out her perspective on historical materialism as well as critiques of both sex class as an institution and Engels/Marx's myopic economism. However, her synthesis of radical feminism, socialism, and Freudianism remains to be seen in action.