I read The Dialectic of Sex in high school. I liked it, and then reread it a few years later and thought it was kind of silly – especially the chart at the end where she prophecied the end of oppression would lead to the end of death. But it was formative for me and well-written – I think the first feminist book I read.
I don’t know what happened to my copy actually. I may have to buy it again and give it a third read.
Here is a nice obituary which also describes a very tragic ending. It’s where I got the photo.
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August 31, 2012 at 11:47 am
Anonymous
Feminism is dead Eric. Outside of the city you come from we know that there are differences between men and women. Viva la difference!
August 31, 2012 at 12:28 pm
tra
Your straw argument is dead. Of course it was never alive.
August 31, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Eric Kirk
I remember a slogan from the 80s – “Dadaism is dead. And because it died, it’s alive.”
I don’t know why the comment sparked that memory.
I also don’t know why someone thinks that feminism stands for the proposition that there are no differences between men and women. It doesn’t even necessarily stand for the proposition that the law should always treat them identically. Equally, but not identically.
Ironically, if I thought anonymous read books at all, I would think that he might have read Firestone’s book. She argued that the technology should be developed so that fetuses could be grown outside of the womb to free women from the burden of pregnancy and therefor not be distinguished in any practical way from men (or at least in one fewer ways).
This underscores a key difference between second and third wave feminism. But since I can’t get pregnant, it’s not really an argument I’ve ever felt comfortable becoming involved in.
August 31, 2012 at 3:28 pm
moviedad
“Essentialism” is certainly alive and well in the “New American Century.”