Historic Feminist Quotes

When you fear nothing, you have nothing to fear

it is not women's inferiority that has determined their historical insignificance: it is their historical insignificance that has doomed them to inferiority

Not only had his wife Anna made Dostoyevsky’s creations possible, but, in a way, Anna was the [female] ideal behind his creations.

It surprises me, though it shouldn't, how short the memories of these politicians are. They forget the brutal lengths women have gone to in order to terminate pregnancies when abortion was illegal or when abortion is unaffordable. Women have thrown themselves down stairs and otherwise tried to physically harm themselves to force a miscarriage. Dr. Waldo Fielding noted in the New York Times, "Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion—darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off." Women have tried to use soap and bleach, catheters, natural remedies. Women have historically resorted to any means necessary. Women will do this again if we are backed into that terrible corner. This is the responsibility our society has forced on women for hundreds of years.

[O]nce we give up on the idea that only heterosexuality is normal and that all human bodies are clearly either male or female, more and more kinds of bodies and desires will come into view. Perhaps also, one body may, in one lifetime, move through many identities and desires. The use of,queer’ then, is a deliberate political move, which underscores the fluidity (potential and actual) of sexual identity and sexual desire. The term suggests that all kinds of sexual desire and identifications are possible, and all these have socio-cultural and historical co-ordinates.

Whenever governments wanted to achieve some end, often involving population growth, they restricted access to birth control and/or criminalized birth control unless, of course, the population growth concerned the poor, in which case, contraception was enthusiastically promoted. Historically, society has only wanted the "right kind of people" to have a right to life. We shouldn't forget that fact.

According to the Corpus of Historical American English, which contains a massive four hundred million words from the 1810s to the 2000s, most people didn’t start using the word gender to describe human beings until the 1980s.

His wife Anna’s presence can be felt everywhere in these final years of Dostoyevsky’s life: in his writings, his speeches, in the very fact of his physical survival.

Remember this, Anya,” Dostoyevsky told his wife on his deathbed, “I always loved you passionately and was never unfaithful to you even in my thoughts.

What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money? What if their attitude was not “the boy has to pay,” but rather, “whoever has more should pay.” Of course, because of their historical advantage, it is mostly men who will have more today. But if we start raising children differently, then in fifty years, in a hundred years, boys will no longer have the pressure of proving their masculinity by material means. But

When we dare to speak in a liberatory voice, we threaten even those who may initially claim to want our words. In the act of overcoming our fear of speech, of being seen as threatening, in the process of learning to speak as subjects, we participate in the global struggle to end domination. When we end our silence, when we speak in a liberated voice, our words connect us with anyone, anywhere who lives in silence. Feminist focus on women finding a voice, on the silence of black women, of women of color, has led to increased interest in our words. This is an important historical moment. We are both speaking of our own volition, out of our commitment to justice, to revolutionary struggle to end domination, and simultaneously called to speak, "invited" to share our words. It is important that we speak. What we speak about is more important. It is our responsibility collectively and individually to distinguish between mere speaking that is about self-aggrandizement, exploitation of the exotic "other," and that coming to voice which is a gesture of resistance, an affirmation of struggle.

Sleeping Beauty is the worst fairy tale, pretty much any way you slice it. It’s aimless and amoral and chauvinist as shit. It’s the fairy tale that feminist scholars cite when they want to talk about women’s passivity in historical narratives. (“She literally sleeps through her own climax,” as my favorite gender studies professor used to say. “Double entendre fully intended.”)... ..Even among the other nerds who majored in folklore, Sleeping Beauty is nobody’s favorite. The romantic girls like Beauty and the Beast; basic girls like Cinderella; goth girls like Snow White. Only the dying girls like Sleeping Beauty.

An enormous amount of modern feminist energy has been wasted on trying to prove that these Amazons did once exist, with all the seductive possibilities of a historical society that really was ruled by and for women. Dream on. The hard truth is that the Amazons were a Greek male myth. The basic message was that the only good Amazon was a dead one, or – to go back to awful Terry – one that had been mastered, in the bedroom. The underlying point was that it was the duty of men to save civilisation from the rule of women.

When people wield accusations of privilege, more often than not, they want to be heard and seen. Their need is acute, if not desperate, and that need rises out of the many historical and ongoing attempts to silence and render invisible marginalized groups. Must we satisfy our need to be heard and seen by preventing anyone else from being heard and seen? Does privilege automatically negate any merits of what a privilege holder has to say? Do we ignore everything, for example, that white men have to say?

A Jewish woman in exile in the 1930s is an antihero.

It's time we woke up, women are pretty much people, seems to me. I know they dress like fools- but who´s to blame for that? We invent all those idiotic hats of theirs, and design their crazy fashions, and, what's more, if a woman is courageous enough to wear common-sense clothes -and shoes- which of us wants to dance with her? Yes, we blame them for gratifying us, but are we willing to let our wives work? We are not. It hurts our pride, that's all. We are always criticizing them for doing mercenary marriages, but what do we call a girl who marries a chump with no money? Just a poor fool, that's all. And they know it. As for Mother Eve- I wasn't there and I can't deny the story, but I will say this. If she brought evil into the world, we men have had the loin's share of keeping it going ever since- how about that?

White feminists have to do what they expect of men: to separate the act from the person and look at racism as they look at sexism, as a structural problem that can only begin to be solved when they stop putting their hurt feelings ahead of our material harm. It is not enough for white women to have their hearts in the right place or to claim they don’t see color and treat everyone equally. Feminism must commit to an explicitly anti-racist platform. And that means severing themselves from their historical and emotional attachment to inherent innocence and goodness.

Historically, women have either been excluded from the process of creating the definitions of what is considered art or allowed to participate only if we accept and work within existing mainstream designations. If women have no real role as women in the process of defining art, then we are essentially prevented from helping to shape cultural symbols.

For many of these women," Nella whispered, "this may be the only place their names are recorded. The only place they will be remembered. It is a promise I made to my mother, to preserve the existence of these women whose names would otherwise be erased from history. The world is not kind to us...There are few places for a woman to leave an indelible mark." I finished tracing an entry, moving on to the next one. "But this register preserves them -- their names, their memories, their worth.

Feminists frequently debate which elements of systemic and internalized sexism most need to change in order for more women to run for political office or rise to the top of their companies or colonize professions from which they’ve been historically excluded. Undoubtedly, there are many. But maybe not expecting and encouraging women to worry about every fucking thing that happens in their household might be a solid place to start.

Anna Dostoyevskaya found a purpose to guide her life: to honor her own experiences and potential while celebrating the work of Dostoyevsky, the artist, the man, she loved.

His widow Anna dedicated most of her energy in her later years to shaping Dostoyevsky’s legacy and presenting it to the world.

Beyond participating in Dostoevsky’s creative work as his stenographer, first reader, and editor, his wife Anna also controlled all other aspects of their publishing enterprise.

In looking at our our individual classroom pedagogies and our isolated artistic endeavors, we must broaden the frame of analysis to consider historical, contextual and institutional assumptions. This means a constant awareness of how the micro-practices of interpersonal dialogue and embodied ways of knowing each other can provide an impetus fro structural change.

Why postulate a fundamental Hegelian concept of Otherness as the final explanation— and then carefully document the biological and historical circumstances that have pushed the class “women” into such a category— when one has never seriously considered the much simpler and more likely possibility that this fundamental dualism sprang from the sexual division itself?

Dostoyevsky’s widow insisted that her husband was to literature what the physicist-founder of the X-ray was to the human body: the inventor of a wholly new means of peering inside the human soul.

Across ideological differences, the femjnists have realized that a hierarchical ranking of human faculties and the identification of women with a degraded conception of corporeal reality has been instrumental, historically, to the consolidation of patriarchal power and the male exploration of female labor. Thus, analyses of sexuality, procreation, and mothering have been at the center of feminist theory and women's history. In particular, feminists have uncovered and denounced the strategies and the violence by means of which male-centered systems of exploitation have attempted to discipline and appropriate the female body, demonstrating that women's bodies have been the main targets, the privileged sites, for the deployment of power techniques and power relations. and power-relations

People also often face prejudice as a result of other characteristics, such as age, class and religious belief. The principle of intersectionality is actually pretty simple: if all these different kinds of prejudice stem from the same root, then it is arbitrary and ineffective to attempt to eradicate one of them without acknowledging its intersection with others and trying to work together to tackle all forms of inequality. Or, from a feminist perspective, if we are to tackle the fact that women have been historically oppressed because of characteristics that are seen to be ‘different’ from the male norm, how can we protest such treatment while simultaneously excluding from our own movement the needs and agendas of those with other stigmatized characteristics? (This is particularly true in the case of our trans sisters, who some feminists believe should be excluded from some areas of the movement by virtue of not fulfilling required ‘characteristics’ of womanhood – a deep irony for a group fighting for equality regardless of sex.) And on

Thus began Anna Dostoyevskaya’s career as Russia’s first sole woman publisher, a career that would in time wrest Dostoyevsky out of debt and continue to provide for their family for almost the next four decades.

White women—feminists included—have revealed a historical reluctance to acknowledge the struggles of household workers. They have rarely been involved in the Sisyphean task of ameliorating the conditions of domestic service. The convenient omission of household workers’ problems from the programs of “middle-class” feminists past and present has often turned out to be a veiled justification—at least on the part of the affluent women—of their own exploitative treatment of their maids. In 1902 the author of an article entitled “A Nine-Hour Day for Domestic Servants” described a conversation with a feminist friend who had asked her to sign a petition urging employers to furnish seats for women clerks. “The girls,” she said, “have to stand on their feet ten hours a day and it makes my heart ache to see their tired faces.” “Mrs. Jones,” said I, “how many hours a day does your maid stand upon her feet?” “Why, I don’t know,” she gasped, “five or six I suppose.” “At what time does she rise?” “At six.” “And at what hour does she finish at night?” “Oh, about eight, I think, generally.” “That makes fourteen hours …” “… (S)he can often sit down at her work.” “At what work? Washing? Ironing? Sweeping? Making beds? Cooking? Washing dishes? … Perhaps she sits for two hours at her meals and preparing vegetables, and four days in the week she has an hour in the afternoon. According to that, your maid is on her feet at least eleven hours a day with a score of stair-climbings included. It seems to me that her case is more pitiable than that of the store clerk.” My caller rose with red cheeks and flashing eyes. “My maid always has Sunday after dinner,” she said. “Yes, but the clerk has all day Sunday. Please don’t go until I have signed that petition. No one would be more thankful than I to see the clerks have a chance to sit …

July 2013, President Obama made a historic speech about race. His remarks were, by far, the most explicit remarks the president has made on the subject. In addition to sharing his own experiences with racism, he offered suggestions about how we might improve race relations in the United States—ending racial profiling, reexamining state and local laws that might contribute to tragedies like Trayvon Martin’s murder, and finding more effective ways to support black boys. These suggestions are a bit vague (and black girls seem to be forgotten, as if they too don’t need support), but at least Obama’s ideas place the responsibility for change on all of us. We are, after all, supposed to be one nation indivisible. Only if we act as such, might we begin to truly effect change.

While professional women and ‘middleclass’ women in general run the risk of becoming isolated from the needs, concerns, and consciousness of working-class and nonprofessional women, the latter run the risk of falling into an anti-intellectualism that contributes to their oppression because it stands in the way of their attaining a clear analysis of their situation. Pursuing endless theoretical refinements that are never translated into dialogue and practical action is as ineffective as engaging in endless talks about personal problems and feelings without ever looking at them as social problems. These problems are social, not only in the sense of being shared by many women, but more importantly because they are socially determined and are the product of concrete and historically specific class, legal, and political relations and forms of consciousness

Most women involved in the recent move toward a feminist revolution assume that white women have initiated all feminist resistance to male chauvinism in American society, and further assume that black women are not interested in women’s liberation. While it is true that white women have led every movement toward feminist revolution in American society, their dominance is less a sign of black female disinterest in feminist struggle than an indication that the politics of colonization and racial imperialism have made it historically impossible for black women in the United States to lead a women’s movement.

If they [the mothers] use different vocabularies, they may share a postmodern feminist "body politics" - in this instance an awareness that maternal breastfeeding carries no inherent, "natural" meaning, that it is always located where historically specific, culturally articulated interests and power relations collide with the recalcitrance of the body.

As with Inglourious Basterds using World War II, Tarantino once again managed to find a traumatic cultural experience of a marginalized people that has little to do with his own history, and used that cultural experience to exercise his hubris for making farcically violent, vaguely funny movies that set to right historical wrongs from a very limited, privileged position.

Next, she pushed aside the sheet of paper and lifted the book. She asked if I understood any of the words, and I shook my head. She then pointed at several of the shorter words -- she, cart, plum -- and explained how each letter made its own sound, and how words strung together on paper could convey an idea, a story. Like magick, I thought. It was everywhere, if only one knew to look.

More sophisticated theologians proclaim the sexlessness of God, while some feminist theologians seek to redress historic injustices by designating her female. But what, after all, is the difference between a non-existent female and a non-existent male? I suppose that, in the ditzily unreal intersection of theology and feminism, existence might indeed be a less salient attribute than gender.

Maroon communities of composition teachers, mentorless graduate students, adjunct Marxist historians, out or queer management professors, state college ethnic studies departments, closed-down film programs, visa-expired Yemeni student newspaper editors, historically black college sociologists, and feminist engineers. And what will the university say of them? It will say they are unprofessional. This is not an arbitrary charge.

It was something of a wonder to discover that the human Jesus has so many different faces and that people, even historical Jesus scholars, tend to view him through the lens of their own needs and proclivities. For some he’s a political activist. For others, a miracle worker. He’s viewed as rabbi, social prophet, religious reformer, wisdom teacher, nonviolent revolutionary, philosopher, feminist, apocalyptic preacher, and on and on.

How long will the Gilgamesh Project – the quest for immortality – take to complete? A hundred years? Five hundred years? A thousand years? When we recall how little we knew about the human body in 1900, and how much knowledge we have gained in a single century, there is cause for optimism. Genetic engineers have recently managed to double the average life expectancy of Caenorhabditis elegans worms.12 Could they do the same for Homo sapiens? Nanotechnology experts are developing a bionic immune system composed of millions of nano-robots, who would inhabit our bodies, open blocked blood vessels, fight viruses and bacteria, eliminate cancerous cells and even reverse ageing processes.13 A few serious scholars suggest that by 2050, some humans will become a-mortal (not immortal, because they could still die of some accident, but a-mortal, meaning that in the absence of fatal trauma their lives could be extended indefinitely). Whether or not Project Gilgamesh succeeds, from a historical perspective it is fascinating to see that most late-modern religions and ideologies have already taken death and the afterlife out of the equation. Until the eighteenth century, religions considered death and its aftermath central to the meaning of life. Beginning in the eighteenth century, religions and ideologies such as liberalism, socialism and feminism lost all interest in the afterlife. What, exactly, happens to a Communist after he or she dies? What happens to a capitalist? What happens to a feminist? It is pointless to look for the answer in the writings of Marx, Adam Smith or Simone de Beauvoir. The only modern ideology that still awards death a central role is nationalism. In its more poetic and desperate moments, nationalism promises that whoever dies for the nation will for ever live in its collective memory. Yet this promise is so fuzzy that even most nationalists do not really know what to make of it. The

Phrases such as ‘toxic masculinity’ entered into common use. What was the virtue of making relations between the sexes so fraught that the male half of the species could be treated as though it was cancerous? Or the development of the idea that men had no right to talk about the female sex? Why, when women had broken through more glass ceilings than at any time in history, did talk of ‘the patriarchy’ and ‘mansplaining’ seep out of the feminist fringes and into the heart of places like the Australian Senate?12 In a similar fashion the civil rights movement in America, which had started in order to right the most appalling of all historic wrongs, looked like it was moving towards some hoped-for resolution.

The malicious erasure of women’s names from the historical record began two or three thousand years ago and continues into our own period. Women take as great a risk of anonymity when they merge their names with men in literary collaboration as when they merge in matrimony. The Lynds, for example, devoted equal time, thought, and effort to the writing of Middletown, but today it is Robert Lynd’s book. Dr. Mary Leakey made the important paleontological discoveries in Africa, but Dr. Louis Leakey gets all the credit. Mary Beard did a large part of the work on America in Midpassage, yet Charles Beard is the great social historian. The insidious process is now at work on Eve Curie. A recent book written for young people states that radium was discovered by Pierre Curie with the help of his assistant, Eve, who later became his wife. Aspasia wrote the famous oration to the Athenians, as Socrates knew, but in all the history books it is Pericles’ oration. Corinna taught Pindar and polished his poems for posterity; but who ever heard of Corinna? Peter Abelard got his best ideas from Heloise, his acknowledged intellectual superior, yet Abelard is the great medieval scholar and philosopher. Mary Sidney probably wrote Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia; Nausicaa wrote the Odyssey, as Samuel Butler proves in his book The Authoress of the Odyssey, at least to the satisfaction of this writer and of Robert Graves, who comment, “no other alternative makes much sense.

Many of the white women at Mills who called themselves feminists didn't understand my experiences as a black woman. In women's studies classes, for example, the individual histories and struggles of black women were often ignored...I declared myself a womanist when I realized that white women's feminism really didn't speak to my needs as the daughter of a black, single, domestic worker. I felt that, historically, white women were working hard to liberate themselves from housework and childcare, while women of color got stuck cleaning their kitchens and raising their babies. When I realized that feminism largely liberated white women at the economic and social expense of women of color, I knew I was fundamentally unable to call myself a feminist.

We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak—a hard man. Of course, because of their historical advantage, it is mostly men who will have more today. But if we start raising children differently, then in fifty years, in a hundred years, boys will no longer have the pressure of proving their masculinity by material means. But by far the worst thing we do to males—by making them feel they have to be hard—is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.

Since women have historically been expected to do the work of managing emotions, many have learned to read men, to interpret their nonverbal signals and ambiguous remarks, anticipating what men want or need and what will be unwelcome to them. Men have not been trained to interpret female signals with the same sensitivity, but rather to expect that women will reinterpret, make allowances for, translate into 'prettier' form, or simply absorb men's remarks and behaviors. This is a fundamental issue in sexual harassment. Some men deny any responsibility to read women's signals; others are honestly confused about how they can learn to tell what is acceptable and what is not. In either case, feminists insist, men must recognize that their older definitions of normal male-female interactions were based on the assumption that men bear no responsibility for fine-tuning relationships -- and that this has to change.

To learn how people describe their understanding of their lives is very illuminating, for ‘ideas are the conscious expression – real or illusory – of (our) actual relations and activities’, because ‘social existence determines consciousness’ [Marx]. Given that our existence is shaped by the capitalist mode of production, experience, to be fully understood in its broader social and political implications, has to be situated in the context of the capitalist forces and relations that produce it. Experience in itself, however, is suspect because, dialectically, it is a unity of opposites; it is unique, personal, insightful and revealing, and, at the same time, thoroughly social, partial, mystifying, itself the product of historical forces about which individuals may know little or nothing about. Given the emancipatory goals of the RGC [race-gender-class] perspective, it is through the analytical tools of Marxist theory that it can move forward, beyond the impasse revealed by the constant reiteration of variations on the ‘interlocking’ metaphor.

One of the biggest battles that second-wave feminists of the seventies had with third wave feminists of the nineties was over the place of sex and beauty in feminism. Second wavers critiqued high heels and lipstick as oppressive expectations of the patriarchy. Third-wave white girls brought heels and fly red lips back into the mix. Black feminists gave the side eye to white girls and their feminist waves, because looking fierce and fly has always been a part of the Black-girl credo. (And also because Black feminism didn’t fit neatly within the historical trajectory of waves.) Our embrace of femininity was its own armor in a world where white women said that Black women should never be called ladies. If I have to pick a side, I’d say I’m third wave enough to affirm that beauty and the desire to be wanted still matter. When you go for months or years without a dude (or any love interest) ever noticing you, you can begin to feel invisible. And feminist principles about how the patriarchy has made us beholden to beauty culture do nothing to assuage the desire we all have to be seen and affirmed.

Muslim acknowledgement of the positive aspects of female sexuality has historically coexisted with two views that challenge it in different ways. First, certain elements of the classical Muslim tradition treat female sexuality as dangerous, with potentially disruptive and chaotic effects on society. Historians have demonstrated how anxieties about temptation and female sexuality translated into insistence (never fully achieved in reality) on restricting the appearance of women in public spaces. Muslim worry over fitna – chaos and disorder – has often focused on the sexual temptation caused both by women’s unregulated desires and the troublesome desire that women provoke in men. Second, and in a paradoxical relationship to this view of women as sexually insatiable and thus prone to create social chaos, Muslim authorities have stressed the importance of the fulfillment of male sexual needs, especially in the context of marriage. Drawing particularly on several hadith delineating dire consequences for women who refuse their husbands’ sexual overtures, the insistence on men’s sexual needs and wives’ responsibility to fulfill them has competed for prominence in modern intra-Muslim discourses on sex with the recognition of female sexual needs.

I, myself, have used this approach in large “Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies” classes, suggesting to straight male students that if for no other reason, they should at least embrace feminism because doing so will result in better heterosexuality—more authentic relationships with women and better sex based on women’s enthusiastic interest, rather than women’s placating and ambivalent consent. But I don’t feel good about this approach; I want men to be feminists because they value women’s humanity, because they identify with women, and because they see that the gender binary is a historical, political-economic, and cultural invention that has caused no end of suffering for women and also for themselves. When men extend empathy and subjectivity to women out of self-interest, to grease the wheels of sexual access or to continue receiving women’s emotional labor, this makes no intervention into men’s profound sense of entitlement to women’s bodies and women’s love, nor does it pose any challenge to men’s unrelenting attachment to their own masculinity as the core of their identity, the foundation of their goodness, the basis on which they connect with other men, and the primary contribution they think they’re making to the world.

Conditions in the wider political economy simultaneously shape Black women's subordination and foster activism. On some level, people who are oppressed usually know it. For African-American women, the knowledge gained at intersecting oppressions of race, class, and gender provides the stimulus for crafting and passing on the subjugated knowledge of Black women's critical social theory. As a historically oppressed group, U.S. Black women have produced social thought designed to oppose oppression. Not only does the form assumed by this thought diverge from standard academic theory - it can take the form of poetry, music, essays, and the like - but the purpose of Black women's collective thought is distinctly different. Social theories emerging from and/or on behalf of U.S. Black women and other historically oppressed groups aim to find ways to escape from, survive in, and/or oppose prevailing social and economic injustice. In the United States, for example, African-American social and political thought analyzes institutionalized racism, not to help it work more efficiently, but to resist it. Feminism advocates women's emancipation and empowerment, Marxist social thought aims for a more equitable society, while queer theory opposes heterosexism.

One early terracotta statuette from Catal Huyuk in Anatolia depicts an enthroned female in the act of giving birth, supported by two cat-like animals that form her seat (Plate 1). This figure has been identified as a 'birth goddess' and it is this type of early image that has led a number of feminist scholars to posit a 'reign of the goddess' in ancient Near Eastern prehistory. Maria Gimbutas, for whom such images are proof of a perfect matriarchal society in 'Old Europe' , presents an ideal vision in which a socially egalitarian matriarchal culture was overthrown by a destructive patriarchy (Gimbutas 1991). Gerda Lerner has argued for a similar situation in the ancient Near East; however, she does not discuss nude figurines at any length (Lerner 1986a: 147). More recently, critiques of the matriarchal model of prehistory have pointed out the flaws in this methodology (e.g. Conkey and Tringham 1995; Meskell 1995; Goodison and Morris 1998). In all these critiques the identification of such figures as goddesses is rejected as a modern myth. There is no archaeological evidence that these ancient communities were in fact matriarchal, nor is there any evidence that female deities were worshipped exclusively. Male gods may have worshipped simultaneously with the 'mother goddesses' if such images are indeed representations of deities. Nor do such female figures glorify or show admiration for the female body; rather they essentialise it, reducing it to nothing more nor less than a reproductive vessel. The reduction of the head and the diminution of the extremities seem to stress the female form as potentially reproductive, but to what extent this condition was seen as sexual, erotic or matriarchal is unclear. ....Despite the correct rejection of the 'Mother Goddess' and utopian matriarchy myths by recent scholarship, we should not loose track of the overwhelming evidence that the image of female nudity was indeed one of power in ancient Mesopotamia. The goddess Ishtar/Inanna was but one of several goddesses whose erotic allure was represented as a powerful attribute in the literature of the ancient Near East. In contact to the naked male body which was the focus of a variety of meanings in the visual arts, female nudity was always associated with sexuality, and in particular with powerful sexual attraction, Akkadian *kuzbu*. This sexuality was not limited to Ishtar and her cult. As a literary topos, sensuousness is a defining quality for both mortal women and goddesses. In representational art, the nude woman is portrayed in a provocative pose, as the essence of the feminine. For femininity, sexual allure, *kuzbu*, the ideal of the feminine, was thus expressed as nudity in both visual and verbal imagery. While several iconographic types of unclothed females appear in Mesopotamian representations of the historical period - nursing mothers, women in acts of sexual intercourse, entertainers such as dancers and musicians, and isolated frontally represented nudes with or without other attributes - and while these nude female images may have different iconographic functions, the ideal of femininity and female sexuality portrayed in them is similar. -Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia

Between 1970 and 1971, the feminist movement made significant strides. In 1970, the Equal Rights Amendment was forced out of the House Judiciary Committee, where it had been stuck since 1948; the following year, it passed in the House of Representatives. In response to a sit-in led by Susan Brownmiller, Ladies' Home Journal published a feminist supplement on issues of concern to women. Time featured Sexual Politics author Kate Millett on its cover, and Ms., a feminist monthly, debuted as an insert in New York magazine. Even twelve members of a group with which Barbie had much in common—Transworld Airlines stewardesses—rose up, filing a multimillion-dollar sex discrimination suit against the airline. Surprisingly, Barbie didn't ignore these events as she had the Vietnam War; she responded. Her 1970 "Living" incarnation had jointed ankles, permitting her feet to flatten out. If one views the doll as a stylized fertility icon, Barbie's arched feet are a source of strength; but if one views her as a literal representation of a modern woman—an equally valid interpretation— her arched feet are a hindrance. Historically, men have hobbled women to prevent them from running away. Women of Old China had their feet bound in childhood; Arab women wore sandals on stilts; Palestinian women were secured at the ankles with chains to which bells were attached; Japanese women were wound up in heavy kimonos; and Western women were hampered by long, restrictive skirts and precarious heels. Given this precedent, Barbie's flattened feet were revolutionary. Mattel did not, however, promote them that way. Her feet were just one more "poseable" element of her "poseable" body. It was almost poignant. Barbie was at last able to march with her sisters; but her sisters misunderstood her and pushed her away.

The God of Exodus and the prophets is a warrior God. My rejection of this God as a liberating image for feminist theology is based on my understanding of the symbolic function of a warrior God in cultures where warfare is glorified as a symbol of manhood and power. My primary concern here is with the function of symbolism, not with the historical truth of the Exodus stories, with questions of how many slaves may or may not have been freed, nor by what means, nor with questions of the different traditions that may have been woven together to shape the biblical stories. Since liberation theology is fundamentally concerned with the use of biblical symbolism in shaping contemporary reality and the understanding of the divine ground, this method is appropriate here. In a world threatened by total nuclear annihilation, we cannot afford a warlike image of God. The image of Yahweh as liberator of the oppressed in the exodus and as concerned for social justice in the prophets cannot be extricated from the image of Yahweh as warrior. In Exodus Yahweh is imaged as concerned for the oppressed Israelites. Exodus 3:7-8 is a good example. ‘Then Yahweh said, ‘I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters: I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.’ People in oppressed circumstances and liberation theologians find passages like this inspiring. I too have been profoundly moved by the image of a God who takes compassion on suffering, but this passage has a conclusion I cannot accept. The passage continues ‘and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.’ Here Yahweh promises ‘his people’ a land that is inhabited by other peoples. In order to justify this action by Yahweh, the inhabitants of the land are portrayed in other parts of the Bible as evil or idolators (a term that itself bears further examination). More recently liberation theologians have portrayed these other peoples as ruling-class opponents of the poor peasant and working-class Hebrews. However that may be, the clear implication of the passage is that Yahweh intends to dispose the peoples from the lands they inhabit.

Needless to say, what whites now think and say about race has undergone a revolution. In fact, it would be hard to find other opinions broadly held by Americans that have changed so radically. What whites are now expected to think about race can be summarized as follows: Race is an insignificant matter and not a valid criterion for any purpose—except perhaps for redressing wrongs done to non-whites. The races are equal in every respect and are therefore interchangeable. It thus makes no difference if a neighborhood or nation becomes non-white or if white children marry outside their race. Whites have no valid group interests, so it is illegitimate for them to attempt to organize as whites. Given the past crimes of whites, any expression of racial pride is wrong. The displacement of whites by non-whites through immigration will strengthen the United States. These are matters on which there is little ground for disagreement; anyone who holds differing views is not merely mistaken but morally suspect. By these standards, of course, most of the great men of America’s past are morally suspect, and many Americans are embarrassed to discover what our traditional heroes actually said. Some people deliberately conceal this part of our history. For example, the Jefferson Memorial has the following quotation from the third president inscribed on the marble interior: “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people [the Negroes] shall be free.” Jefferson did not end those words with a period, but with a semicolon, after which he wrote: “nor is it less certain that the two races equally free, cannot live under the same government.” The Jefferson Memorial was completed in 1942. A more contemporary approach to the past is to bring out all the facts and then repudiate historical figures. This is what author Conor Cruise O’Brien did in a 1996 cover story for The Atlantic Monthly. After detailing Jefferson’s views, he concluded: “It follows that there can be no room for a cult of Thomas Jefferson in the civil religion of an effectively multiracial America . . . . Once the facts are known, Jefferson is of necessity abhorrent to people who would not be in America at all if he could have had his way.” Columnist Richard Grenier likened Jefferson to Nazi SS and Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler, and called for the demolition of the Jefferson Memorial “stone by stone.” It is all very well to wax indignant over Jefferson’s views 170 years after his death, but if we expel Jefferson from the pantheon where do we stop? Clearly Lincoln must go, so his memorial must come down too. Washington owned slaves, so his monument is next. If we repudiate Jefferson, we do not just change the skyline of the nation’s capital, we repudiate practically our entire history. This, in effect, is what some people wish to do. American colonists and Victorian Englishmen saw the expansion of their race as an inspiring triumph. Now it is cause for shame. “The white race is the cancer of human history,” wrote Susan Sontag. The wealth of America used to be attributed to courage, hard work, and even divine providence. Now, it is common to describe it as stolen property. Robin Morgan, a former child actor and feminist, has written, “My white skin disgusts me. My passport disgusts me. They are the marks of an insufferable privilege bought at the price of others’ agony.

Women have historically resorted to any means necessary. Women will do this again if we are backed into that terrible corner. This is the responsibility our society has forced on women for hundreds of years.

Hillary Clinton’s loss was than Black women. What might feel like a singular and stunning defeat for her is one that Black women learn to live with every day—the sense that you are a woman before your time, that your brilliance and talents are limited by the historical moment and the retrograde politics within that moment in which you find yourself living. Black women, from slavery to freedom, know that struggle so much more than any white person ever will.

Modern Western culture has tended to dwell too much on the character of her “anger.” For example, a misogynist trend in psychoanalysis focuses upon her paralyzing qualities, viewing her as a deflator of masculine strength, while curiously, at other times, seeing her snaky persona as phallic. Radical feminists also often dwell upon her anger, identifying it with a fiercely liberating women’s rage. That surely helps many women, but it doesn't effectively disrupt the misogyny involved in labeling a female figure as “monstrous.” Thus, a historical and cross-cultural exploration of Medusa can contribute to a feminist effort to honor and articulate the complexity of the divine female.

Personal finance is about 20 percent personal choice and 80 percent circumstantial. Yet historically, money experts’ advice has suggested that if you’re broke, in debt, or financially struggling, it’s entirely your fault.

Judged historically, the free market is the most successful economic arrangement. Permitting people to trade and associate freely for productive purposes has created unparalleled prosperity, along with support for the democratic institutions on which other forms of individual liberty have been found to depend. It is inevitable that feminists reject the free market, however, because they must interpret the expressions of sex differences facili­tated by the freedom of the market as products of adverse socialization and discrimination.

Putting aside the florid accusations of rape and torture, the argument of Merchant and Harding boils down to the assertion that the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century displaced a female-centered (spiritual, hermetic, organic, geocentric) universe in favor of a male-centered (rationalist, scientific, mechanical, heliocentric) one. 21 How should we evaluate this argument? To begin with, one might wonder whether the gender associations claimed for these two cosmologies are really as univocal as the feminist critics claim. 22 (After all, the main defender of the geocentric worldview — the Catholic Church — was not exactly a female-centered enterprise, its adoration of the Virgin Mary notwithstanding.) But let us put aside this objection and grant these gender associations for the sake of argument; for the principal flaw in the Merchant–Harding thesis is, once again, not historical but logical. Margarita Levin puts it bluntly: Do Merchant and Harding really “think we have a choice about which theory is correct? Masculine or feminine, the solar system is the way it is.”23 The same point applies not only to astronomy but to scientific theories quite generally; and the bottom line is that there is ample evidence, independent of any allegedly sexist imagery, for the epistemic value of modern science. Therefore, as Koertge remarks, “if it really could be shown that patriarchal thinking not only played a crucial role in the Scientific Revolution but is also necessary for carrying out scientific inquiry as we know it, that would constitute the strongest argument for patriarchy that I can think of!

To begin with, one might wonder whether the gender associations claimed for these two cosmologies are really as univocal as the feminist critics claim. 22 (After all, the main defender of the geocentric worldview — the Catholic Church — was not exactly a female-centered enterprise, its adoration of the Virgin Mary notwithstanding.) But let us put aside this objection and grant these gender associations for the sake of argument; for the principal flaw in the Merchant–Harding thesis is, once again, not historical but logical. Margarita Levin puts it bluntly: Do Merchant and Harding really “think we have a choice about which theory is correct? Masculine or feminine, the solar system is the way it is.”23 The same point applies not only to astronomy but to scientific theories quite generally; and the bottom line is that there is ample evidence, independent of any allegedly sexist imagery, for the epistemic value of modern science. Therefore, as Koertge remarks, “if it really could be shown that patriarchal thinking not only played a crucial role in the Scientific Revolution but is also necessary for carrying out scientific inquiry as we know it, that would constitute the strongest argument for patriarchy that I can think of!

Given her level of power and influence, it is not a wonder that she is seen as a powerful historical feminist.

For those who lack the classical education of New York’s early butchers and bakers, Xanthippe was Socrates’ wife, and has gone down in history as an atrocious nag. Socrates’ equanimity in enduring (ignoring) her is regularly held out as a proof of his nobility of character. Graves begins by pointing out: why is it that for two thousand years, no one seems to have asked what it might have actually been like to be married to Socrates? Imagine you were saddled with a husband who did next to nothing to support a family, spent all his time trying to prove everyone he met was wrong about everything, and felt true love was only possible between men and underage boys? You wouldn’t express some opinions about this? Socrates has been held out ever since as the paragon of a certain unrelenting notions of pure consistency, an unflinching determination to follow arguments to their logical conclusions, which is surely useful in its way--but he was not a very reasonable person, and those who celebrate him have ended up producing a "mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality" that has done the world enormous harm. Graves writes that as a poet, he feels no choice but to identify himself more with those frozen out of the "rational" space of Greek city, starting with women like Xanthippe, for whom reasonableness doesn’t exclude logic (no one is actually *against* logic) but combines it with a sense of humor, practicality, and simple human decency. With that in mind, it only makes sense that so much of the initiative for creating new forms of democratic process--like consensus--has emerged from the tradition of feminism, which means (among other things) the intellectual tradition of those who have, historically, tended not to be vested with the power of command. Consensus is an attempt to create a politics founded on the principle of reasonableness--one that, as feminist philosopher Deborah Heikes has pointed out, requires not only logical consistency, but "a measure of good judgment, self-criticism, a capacity for social interaction, and a willingness to give and consider reasons." Genuine deliberation, in short. As a facilitation trainer would likely put it, it requires the ability to listen well enough to understand perspectives that are fundamentally different from one’s own, and then try to find pragmatic common ground without attempting to convert one’s interlocutors completely to one’s won perspective. It means viewing democracy as common problem solving among those who respect the fact they will always have, like all humans, somewhat incommensurable points of view. (p. 201-203)

SLEEPING BEAUTY IS pretty much the worst fairy tale, any way you slice it. It’s aimless and amoral and chauvinist as shit. It’s the fairy tale that feminist scholars cite when they want to talk about women’s passivity in historical narratives.

[W]hat is historically new is the alliance with the cultural left. Back in the 1960s, many economically minded New Deal liberals and even socialists wanted nothing to do with the cultural warriors of the New Left, thinking them shallow and feckless. No more. There is today not much distance between the postmodern cultural leftists and the democratic socialists like [Bernie] Sanders who want to focus mainly on economics. The two sides can run afoul of each other, as Sanders did at a Netroots Nation conference in July 2015 when black activists shouted him off the stage. But these disputes have more to do with different priorities than with ideological divisions. Philosophically there is not much daylight between Sanders and the hard-core cultural warriors of the post-modern left. The same is true for Hillary Clinton. She, in fact, tries to appeal to both sides at the same time. She sells herself not only as a postmodernist feminist candidate who will be the first female president of the United States, but as a classic fighter for the economically downtrodden. The fusion has been the strength of her candidacy, because is represents the broadest appeal to all the constituents of the Democratic Party.

To win acknowledgment that women own the property in their persons thus seems to strike a decisive blow against patriarchy, but historically, while the feminist movement campaigned around issues that could easily be formulated in the language of ownership of the person, the predominant feminist argument was that women required civil freedom as women, not as pale reflections of men. The argument thus rested on an implicit rejection of the patriarchal construction of the individual as a masculine owner.

We must continue to match the creation of space for those who have been historically marginalized with purposeful restraint by others.

When people wield accusations of privilege, more often than not, they want to be heard and seen. Their need is acute, if not desperate, and that need rises out of the many historical and ongoing attempts to silence and render invisible marginalized groups.

Wages Against Housework,” a pamphlet central to a feminist campaign in the 1970s condemning the unpaid labor of housework and caregiving. The theoretical import of the 1970s campaign was huge at its time – “Wages Against Housework” challenged certain historical materialisms that relegated power and social reproduction to a superstructural level altogether separate from the material base of production. Extending the “social factory” approach to value production, this materialist feminism demonstrated why the cultural, corporeal, and subjective dimensions of social reproduction are just as fundamental to the material structure of capitalism as economics.

Thomas Piketty, the economist of the moment, writes that after he obtained an economics doctorate, and spent several years teaching at M.I.T., “I was only too aware of the fact that I knew nothing about the world’s economic problems.” Piketty goes on, “To put it bluntly, the discipline of economics has to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences.” The student group agrees with Piketty. In the open letter, the students argue that an economics degree “should include interdisciplinary approaches and allow students to engage with other social sciences and the humanities.” But the students’ main beef is that, even within the subject of economics, the standard curriculum is overly restrictive, and excludes much that is valuable. The letter calls for students to be exposed to “a variety of theoretical perspectives, from the commonly taught neoclassically-based approaches to the largely excluded classical, post-Keynesian, institutional, ecological, feminist, Marxist and Austrian traditions—among others. Most economics students graduate without ever encountering

This history shows that progressive gay and lesbian politics negotiated its white origins—at first primarily masculinist, but ultimately in a more feminist form—by attempting to be inclusive of gender and race differences in a historically white political model and space. NGLTF

This diary will tell the real life story of my great-grandmother Yasutani Jiko. She was a nun and a novelist and New Woman7 of the Taisho era.8 She was also an anarchist and a feminist who had plenty of lovers, both males and females, but she was never kinky or nasty. And even though I may end up mentioning some of her love affairs, everything I write will be historically true and empowering to women, and not a lot of foolish geisha crap. So if kinky nasty things are your pleasure, please close this book and give it to your wife or co-worker and save yourself a lot of time and trouble. 4.

Human males, too, form alliances for gaining resources such as large game, political power within the group, ways to defend against the aggression of other coalitions of men, and sexual access to women.7 The survival and reproductive benefits derived from these coalitional activities constituted tremendous selection pressure over human evolutionary history for men to form alliances with other men. Since ancestral women did not hunt large game, declare war on other tribes, or attempt to forcibly capture men from neighboring bands, they did not experience equivalent selection pressure to form coalitions. Although women do form coalitions with other women for the care of the young and for protection from sexually aggressive men, these are weakened whenever a woman leaves her kin group to live with her husband and his clan. The combination of strong coalitions among men and somewhat weaker coalitions among women, according to Barbara Smuts, may have contributed historically to men’s dominance over women.9 My view is that women’s preferences for a successful, ambitious, and resource-capable mate coevolved with men’s competitive mating strategies, which include risk taking, status striving, derogation of competitors, coalition formation, and an array of individual efforts aimed at surpassing other men on the dimensions that women desire. The intertwining of these coevolved mechanisms in men and women created the conditions for men to dominate in the domain of resources. The origins of men’s control over resources is not simply an incidental historical footnote of passing curiosity. Rather, it has a profound bearing on the present, because it reveals some of the primary causes of men’s continuing control of resources. Women today continue to want men who have resources, and they continue to reject men who lack resources. These preferences are expressed repeatedly in dozens of studies conducted on tens of thousands of individuals in scores of countries worldwide. They are expressed countless times in everyday life. In any given year, the men whom women marry earn more than men of the same age whom women do not marry. Even professionally successful women who do not really need resources from a man are reluctant to settle for a mate who is less successful than they are. Women who earn more than their husbands seek divorce more often, although this trend appears to be changing, at least within America. Men continue to compete with other men to acquire the status and resources that make them desirable to women. The forces that originally caused the resource inequality between the genders—women’s mate preferences and men’s competitive strategies—are the same forces that contribute to maintaining resource inequality today. Feminists’ and evolutionists’ conclusions converge in their implication that men’s efforts to control female sexuality lie at the core of their efforts to control women. Our evolved sexual strategies account for why this occurs, and why control of women’s sexuality is a central preoccupation of men. Over the course of human evolutionary history, men who failed to control women’s sexuality—for example, by failing to attract a mate, failing to prevent cuckoldry, or failing to retain a mate—experienced lower reproductive success than men who succeeded in controlling women’s sexuality. We come from a long and unbroken line of ancestral fathers who succeeded in obtaining mates, preventing their infidelity, and providing enough benefits to keep them from leaving. We also come from a long line of ancestral mothers who granted sexual access to men who provided beneficial resources.

But just as the material necessity to produce the means of production and subsistence does not determine the historically specific social relations in which they are produced, the biology of procreation does not determine the mode of reproduction, i.e. social relations in which children are born and raised, although it imposes limits on their variations. (,,,) this family form [nuclear family unit of parents and children] is prevalent in capitalist societies; it is not, however, universal because those functions can be fulfilled within a variety of social arrangements

.. while there is some truth to the claims (..) that the prison plays an important function in containing the contradictions that have emerged in the contemporary phase of capitalist development, this should not be viewed simply as a response to growing social cleavages. Rather, as part of the gendered social ontology of capitalism, the law is itself constitutive of historically specific relations of production and social reproduction. Thus, the restructuring of the neoliberal state in ways that limit its ability to regulate the movement of capital across borders, on-going forms of primitive accumulation that enclose and police formerly public spaces and the criminalization and incarceration of particular sectors of the poor and working-class population are all manifestations of the neoliberal project

Using a feminist historical materialist perspective that views production as being inherently interconnected with social reproduction allows us to see that the move toward increasingly harsh legal and policing practices under neoliberalism is a function of shifting relations of power, production and social reproduction. In foregrounding gender relations, this perspective further provides the tools needed to identify and analyze the gendered nature of precariousness and the feminization of criminality under neoliberalism. Rather than simply managing those classed, racialized and gendered individuals that have been rendered insecure by neoliberalism, as it has throughout the history of capitalism, the law works together with welfare to create these differences and divisions.

While there has indeed been an increase in coercive state practices over the past several decades relative to much of the twentieth century, when viewed as part of the long history of capitalism, the carceral excesses of neoliberalism have much in common with the dispossession of the peasantry from the land in England and, globally, the ‘Bloody legislation’ used to terrorize those who violated newly established norms of private property, the criminalization of women who contravened historically specific norms of chastity and femininity, and the violent disciplining of different segments of the population deemed insufficiently ‘rational’ to respond to the market-based incentives that are so often assumed to be the key disciplinary mechanisms underpinning capitalist society

Imperialism and not patriarchy is the core foundation of modern militarism (even though it serves the interest of imperialism to link notions of masculinity with the struggle to conquer nations and peoples). Many societies in the world that are ruled by males are not imperialistic; many women in the United States have made political decisions to support imperialism and militarism. Historically, white women in the United States, working for women's rights, have felt no contradiction between this effort and their support of the Western imperialist attempt to conquer the planet. Often they argued that equal rights would better enable white women to help in the building of this "great nation," i.e. in the cause of imperialism. Many white women in the early part of the twentieth century, who were strong advocates of women's liberation, were pro-imperialist. Books like Helen Montgomery's Western Women in Eastern Lands, published in 1910, outlining fifty years of white women's work in foreign missions, document the link between the struggle for the emancipation of white women in the United States and the imperialist, hegemonic spread of Western values and Western domination of the globe. As missionaries, white women traveled to Eastern lands armed with psychological weapons that undermined the belief systems of Eastern women and replaced them with Western values. In the closing statement of her work, Helen Montgomery writes: "So many voices are calling us, so many goods demand our allegiance, that we are in danger of forgetting the best. To seek first to bring Christ's kingdom on the earth, to respond to the need that is sorest, to go out into the desert for that loved and bewildered sheep that the shepherd has missed from the fold, to share all of the privilege with the unprivileged and happiness with the unhappy, to see the possibility of one redeemed earth, undivided, unvexed, unperplexed resting in the light of the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, this is the mission of the women's missionary movement.

The animal world provides many examples of female dominance as well as male. As far as I can tell, the human past contains some arguable examples of female social dominance or intergender equality and cooperation, but it has been marked for the last few thousand years by patriarchal social structure. Theories differ on this but one has it that dimorphism is central. Sexual dimorphism refers to inequality in physical size, and human males are on average bigger and stronger than females. In challenging adaptive environments with small populations, females would have to devote more time to breastfeeding, childrearing, protection of the young, and domestic tasks, while males hunted and performed other physical tasks. With the advent of agriculture and the invention of the plough, muscle power was crucial. Given our frequently violent past, males would probably have engaged more often in physical conflict and warfare. It has also been suggested that females would probably have selected stronger males for protection. All of this is contentious enough, but modern feminists argue that primitive circumstances no longer pertain and that most tasks can now be performed by either gender, thus rendering dimorphically contingent historical and prehistorical differences defunct. However, dimorphism persists and underpins violence. Men commit the vast majority of violent crimes. Perhaps out of sheer self-interest, tradition and habit, males also retain most social power. Male attitudes may be challenged, but, allowing that we may generalize, men remain relatively less emotionally invested, less communicative, and more competitive than women.

Today, intersectionality as a theory and movement risks being co-opted and degraded into a buzzword. But in their rendering, intersectionality becomes merely an account of the multiplicity of identity—the acknowledgment that we all have a race, gender, class, and sexuality. This account does do some important work: it demolishes the mythical singular category of moral, virtuous, Women that white feminism historically enshrined, insisting instead that multiple dimensions of power shape our life chances. But, at the same time, this appropriated version of intersectionality reproduces white feminist politics into the future. In this “inclusive’ version of white feminism, white women may no longer be the harbingers of morality—it throws that burden onto women of color. Those women and nonbinary people with the most marginalized identities become white feminism’s most valuable assets. Intersectionality, especially as promoted within institutions like corporations and universities, attempts to capture the magic of marginalized “intersectional” people and harness them to their cause.

Empirical science left repercussions in its wake: the sudden advancement of technology upset the natural order. But the recent interest in ecology, the study of man's relationship to his environment, by 1970, have come too late. Certainly it is too late for conservationism, the attempt to redress natural balances. What is called for is a revolutionary ecological program that would attempt to establish a humane artificial (man-made) balance in place of the natural one, thus also realizing the original goal of empirical science: human mastery of matter. The best new currents in ecology and social planning agree with feminist aims. The way that these two social phenomena, feminism and revolutionary ecology, have emerged with such seeming coincidence illustrates a historical truth: new theories and new movements do not develop in a vacuum, they arise to spearhead the necessary social solutions to new problems resulting from contradictions in the environment. In this case, both movements have arisen in response to the same contradiction: animal life within a technology. In the case of feminism the problem is a moral one: the biological family unit has always oppressed women and children, but now, for the first time in history, technology has created real preconditions for overthrowing these oppressive “natural” conditions, along with their cultural reinforcements. In the case of the new ecology, we find that independent of any moral stance, for pragmatic — survival — reasons alone, it has become necessary to free humanity from the tyranny of its biology. Humanity can no longer afford to remain in the transitional stage between simple animal existence and full control of nature. And we are much closer to a major evolutionary jump, indeed, to direction of our own evolution, than we are to a return to the animal kingdom from which we came.

We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak, a hard man. In secondary school, a boy and a girl go out, both of them teenagers with meagre pocket money. Yet the boy is expected to pay the bills, always, to prove his masculinity. (And we wonder why boys are more likely to steal money from their parents.) What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money? What if their attitude was not ‘the boy has to pay’, but rather, ‘whoever has more should pay’? Of course, because of their historical advantage, it is mostly men who will have more today. But if we start raising children differently, then in fifty years, in a hundred years, boys will no longer have the pressure of proving their masculinity by material means. But by far the worst thing we do to males – by making them feel they have to be hard – is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is. And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend that you are not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him.

Rather, my point is that the cultural, social, linguistic, literary, and historical analyses that now dominate the scene of feminist theory typically seek to seal themselves off from-or constitute themselves against-the domain of the biological. Curiously enough, feminist theories of the body are often exemplary in this regard. Despite the intensive scrutiny of the body in feminist theory and in the humanities in general over the past two decades, certain fundamental aspects of the body, biology, and materiality have been foreclosed.

The Wikipedic superficiality and political frivolity with which these grand historical and psychological themes are applied to the gory drama are matched by the appropriation of a few jingling baubles of feminist dialogue meant to get viewers hungry for “substance” to salivate. They’re the product and the fruit of lazy filmmaking. The movie has nothing to say about women’s history, feminist politics, civil violence, the Holocaust, the Cold War, or German culture. Instead, Guadagnino thrusts some thusly labelled trinkets at viewers and suggests that they try to assemble them. The result is sordid, flimsy Holocaust kitsch, fanatical chic, with all the actual political substance of a designer Che T-shirt. When a few riffs of dialogue, midway through the film, speak of a character’s fate in Theresienstadt, one wants to tell the script to get that word out of its mouth.

In the 1980s, however, Ginsburg’s vision of gender equality came under bitter attack by a new generation of feminist legal scholars who argued that the law should emphasize women’s differences from men, rather than their similarities. The new feminists called Ginsburg “phallocentric” and “assimilationist” for challenging classifications that burdened men as well as women and for mostly representing male plaintiffs. “As applied, the sameness standard has mostly gotten men the benefit of those few things women have historically had—for all the good they did us,”4 wrote the legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon in 1984.

History from Below’ directed attention to the important roles the masses had played politically, in bringing about major revolutions. It argued that history was not an affair of the upper classes only, using the French Revolution as an example of how even its ‘bourgeois’ phase was driven by the actions of peasants and artisans, and how the proletariat was destined to be the main agent of history in ushering Communism.[9] This approach, advanced by Marxist historians, would be extended by feminists and cultural Marxists generally into a call for a new history that would include the ‘indispensable’ roles and achievements of a whole host of ‘minorities’ neglected by traditional academics (i.e. gays, transsexuals, lesbians, blacks etc.), all of which contained a corresponding assault, and inevitable devaluation of the one agent that stood out as unoppressed, as ultimate oppressor: white hetero males, the very beings responsible for almost all the greatest works in Art and Science. The argument by World Systems Theory is that the ‘core’ countries of the West had achieved their status as advanced cultures by exploitation and holding down the ‘periphery’ and that a true historical narrative entailed an appreciation of the morally superior ways of Third World peoples struggling to liberate themselves from a world system controlled by white owned multinationals. This too has had an immensely negative impact on students, leading them to believe that the West only managed to modernise by extracting resources from the Third World and enslaving Africans and Natives.[10] This highly influential school has missed the far more important role of modern science and liberal institutions in the industrialisation of Western European nations.

Must we relearn everything you were ever taught about biology and history? Clownfish are the answer. Intersex people are cited to prove that you can change sex. But you know that your child isn’t a clownfish and is not intersex. You learn that your child was “assigned” a sex at birth. The nurses and doctors just decided for reasons unknown and possibly nefarious, what gender your child was. The DNA tests and ultrasounds are wrong as well, as science no longer exists. You learn there are forty-seven genders and that genders can change all the time. Sex is dead. It has no meaning and is just used as an excuse to discriminate against trans people and all the other-gendered people. You soon discover that yes, even the Holocaust was the source of suffering for no, not the Jewish people, but primarily transgender people. And of course, you are probably a Nazi yourself if you think differently. Historical figures, mostly women, it seems, are also now being reclaimed with their rightful trans identity. Joan of Arc and Louisa May Alcott were not feminist heroes but trans men. Trans women are literally women, you learn. That’s it. A fact. Women now have penises. Women are now committing rape and murder at higher rates than ever recorded throughout history. Trans women are also miraculously better at sports than natal women for reasons no one can discern. When competing against women, now known as uterus havers, trans women win all the competitions and titles. Any “cis” women objecting to this are just sore losers. “Cis” is the new label you must go by if you don’t despise the body you were born with and want to alter it. You are told this is a great privilege to be “cis” and that trans women suffer much more than any cis woman ever could or ever will, no matter what has happened to you as a “cis” woman. You go underground. You join groups that vet members. Here you can speak freely because all members know what you are going through and share your horror of the gender party.

To this end, Argentinian feminist anthropologist Rita Segato (2015) introduces a distinction between the “world-village” (mundo-aldea) of communal worlds, with their dual-gender ontology (based on complementary dualities, organized on the basis of relations of reciprocity, and not on a binary between intrinsically independent pairs), and the “world-state,” with its dualist ontologies, which progressively occupies communal worlds through the constitution of a public sphere dominated by men and an increasingly subordinated feminine private sphere. It was thus that the low-intensity patriarchies of communal worlds gave way to what Segato calls the high-intensity patriarchy of capitalist modernity. From this perspective, patriarchy is at the root of all forms of subordination, including racial, colonial, and imperial domination, along with the resulting pedagogy of cruelty, as Segato names it, imposed on all societies. There is agreement among the growing cadre of Latin American autonomous, decolonial, and communitarian feminists, as Aymara intellectual-activist Julieta Paredes (2012) puts it, that it was on the bodies of women that humanity learned how to dominate. The corollary is to always analyze historically the entanglement of diverse forms of patriarchy, from the autochthonous and indigenous to the modern.

Women in historical fiction are often criticized for being girls of today dropped into historical set pieces, inaccurate to their time because of their feminist ideas and independent natures. It’s a criticism that has always frustrated me, for it proposes the idea that women throughout time would not see, speak out, or take action against the inequality and injustices they faced simply because they’d never known anything else.

### Discover the Best Kannada Kadambari Books Kannada literature boasts a rich tapestry of stories, emotions, and philosophies that resonate deeply with readers. Kadambari holds a special place among the various forms of literary expression due to its narrative style and in-depth characters. Whether you are a seasoned reader of Kannada literature or a newcomer eager to dive into its depths, exploring the best Kadambari books can illuminate your understanding of this vibrant culture. **What is Kadambari? ** Kadambari refers to a type of novel in Kannada literature that combines classical elements with modern storytelling. It weaves together intricate plots, vivid character arcs, and often employs a lyrical style, making it both captivating and thought-provoking. The evolution of Kadambari has been remarkable, with works that explore universal themes of love, loss, identity, and resilience while also reflecting the sociopolitical landscapes of their time. **Classic Kadambari Recommendations** 1. **"Malathi Madhava" by R. Narasimhachar**: This groundbreaking novel is often cited as one of the earliest examples of Kannada Kadambari books literature. It tells the story of love and cosmic connections, set against a backdrop of philosophical musings. 2. **"Chennabasavanna" by K. Shivaram Karanth**: This novel depicts the protagonist's struggles against societal norms and blends fiction and history. Karanth’s masterful storytelling captures the essence of the human spirit, making it a must-read. 3. **G.'s "Karnataka Janagalu" S. Shivarudrappa**: This collection of narratives paints a vivid picture of the life experiences of varied characters in Karnataka. It highlights the cultural diversity and rich heritage of the region, inviting readers to reflect on their own identities. **Modern Kadambari Picks** 1. **"Hamsa Geethe" by Vaidehi**: A contemporary gem, this novel explores the intricate dynamics of relationships through the lens of feminist consciousness. Because of its moving prose, Vaidehi's work is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Kannada literature. 2. **"Yugadi" by S. L. Bhyrappa**: Known for his gripping narratives, Bhyrappa’s "Yugadi" offers a thought-provoking exploration of tradition versus modernity, touching on themes that remain relevant in today’s society. 3. **"Punarjanma" by K. N. S. S. Patil**: This captivating tale reconstructs life’s cyclical nature through the eyes of its characters, combining mythological elements with contemporary issues. Patil’s storytelling invites introspection and deeper understanding. **Why Explore Kannada Kadambari? ** Kannada Kadambari Books provides a rich literary experience that exemplifies literary imagination and historical context. This genre allows readers to engage with the complexities of human emotions, social constructs, and existential queries that transcend time. Whether you are reading to appreciate the beauty of the language, the depth of the characters, or the exploration of universal issues, Kadambari offers a treasure trove of wisdom. **Where to Find These Books? ** If you are eager to explore these literary wonders, look no further! Platforms like Veeraloka Books curate an impressive collection of both classic and modern Kadambari novels in Kannada literature. You can easily find books that appeal to your interests with the help of personalized recommendations. In conclusion, the world of Kannada Kadambari literature awaits you with its myriad narratives and profound insights. Embrace this opportunity to immerse yourself in the soul of Karnataka’s literary heritage!

We have, according to many commentators, a “mating crisis,” a “dating crisis,” a “marriage crisis,” or a “male loneliness crisis.” These are dimensions of the same core problem, however: Straight men are having an equality crisis. Too many refuse to contemplate the degree to which “normal” heterosexual relationships, both within and outside marriage, historically assumed men’s dominance and women’s subservience, men’s agency and control and women’s lack of agency and deference.

We have, according to many commentators, a “mating crisis,” a “dating crisis,” a “marriage crisis,” or a “male loneliness crisis.” These are dimensions of the same core problem, however: Straight men are having an equality crisis. Too many refuse to contemplate the degree to which “normal” heterosexual relationships, both within and outside marriage, historically assumed men’s dominance and women’s subservience, men’s agency and control and women’s lack of agency and deference.

All you have to do is leave them alone. . . Nothing else. Let them live their own lives and make their own choices. Just walk away, man

Many popular eighteenth-century iced cream flavors are familiar to modern palates--- pistachio, chocolate, strawberry, etc. Yet Georgian confectioners were great innovators and experimented with iced creams flavored with everything from Parmesan to artichoke, molding their confections into the shape of candles, lobsters, pineapples, and all manner of other conceits. Often iced creams were eaten in carriages drawn up outside of confectionery shops, enabling men and women to mingle freely in public, in a way that was otherwise prohibited. Ice cream, it seems, was a feminist enterprise! Books that give a good overview of Georgian ice cream and confectionary include Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making by Jeri Quinzio (University of California Press, 2009); Sugar-plums and Sherbet: The Prehistory of Sweets by Laura Mason (Prospect Books, 1998); and Sweets: A History of Temptation by Tim Richardson (Bantam Books, 2002).

But, we are told repeatedly, it should all be about merit. Bullshit. It's so easy for lazy people to believe that those privileged most by gender, race, sexuality, and class are somehow judged separately from the benefits these attributes bring. Our culture doesn't view women (or people of colour, or disabled people, or gender diverse people, or anyone who isn't a white man, basically) as being inherently meritorious. Imagine--just imagine--what the public's reaction would be if the majority of politicians elected to government were women. If the majority of newspaper columnists, TV commentators, and CEOs were chicks. Think of the outcry if our talkback radio stations (which are currently wall-to-wall white men, because 'no one wants to listen to women' on the wireless) were suddenly overrun by bloody sheilas. Merit? No, that wouldn't be merit. That would be 'cultural Marxism'. That would herald the start of matriarchy and the end of the world. It would be a witch-led conspiracy. Women? Running things? UNFAIR. In fact, the 'merit' argument is little more than a convenient retort to anyone who tries to point out the workings of the deeply flawed systems we live in. It's telling that those who defend the merit system often present themselves (as Trump has done most egregiously) as supporters of women's rights. If you believe that women are as capable of performing in positions of responsibility as men, it logically follows that we shouldn't see these structures of power being dominated by men. On the other hand, if you defend the current and historical imbalance of power as being due to nothing more than the application of 'merit', it doesn't matter how loudly you profess your feminist credentials -- what you quite obviously believe is that white, middle-class, heterosexual men who have always held all the power are the only ones capable of doing so. It means you inherently think these people are better than everyone else. You can't have it both ways.

In quantum physics, particles change when they’re observed. But this isn’t quantum: my book doesn’t alter by being seen or unseen. It is exceptional whether it reaches 100 readers or 100 million.

Like cinema, the city of Zobeide is an imaginary signifier, a practice of language, a continuous movement of representations built from a dream of woman, built to keep woman captive. In the discursive space of the city, as in the constructs of cinematic discourse, woman is both absent and captive: absent as theoretical subject, captive as historical subject. The story of Zobeide therefore is a pretext to dramatize and to perform on my part the contradiction of feminist discourse itself: what does it mean to speak, to write, to make films as a woman?