Shulamith Firestone

Lore & Background

Shulamith Firestone co-founded New York Radical Women, Redstockings, and New York Radical Feminists. In *The Dialectic of Sex* (1970), she wrote: "[T]he end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally." Firestone's work emerged within second-wave feminism in the 1960s. Radical feminists like Firestone viewed patriarchy as a "transhistorical phenomenon" prior to or deeper than other sources of oppression, "not only the oldest and most universal form of domination but the primary form" and the model for all others.

Reader's Guide

Firestone's *The Dialectic of Sex* is a foundational radical feminist text. Radical feminists locate the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal feminism) or class conflict (as in Marxist feminism). Firestone's work argued that genital differences should not matter culturally or politically, while maintaining that women's special role in reproduction should be recognized and accommodated without penalty in the workplace. The influence of radical-feminist politics on the women's liberation movement was considerable. Redstockings co-founder Ellen Willis wrote in 1984 that radical feminists "got sexual politics recognized as a public issue," created second-wave feminism's vocabulary, helped to legalize abortion in the US, "were the first to demand total equality in the so-called private sphere" ("housework and child care ... emotional and sexual needs"), and "created the atmosphere of urgency" that almost led to the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Did You Know?

• Firestone wrote in *The Dialectic of Sex* that the end goal of feminist revolution should be eliminating the sex distinction itself, not just male privilege.
• Radical feminists like Firestone viewed patriarchy as the oldest and most universal form of domination, serving as the model for all other forms of oppression.
• Ellen Willis credited radical feminists with creating second-wave feminism's vocabulary and helping to legalize abortion in the US.
• Radical feminists were the first to demand total equality in the so-called private sphere, including housework, child care, and emotional and sexual needs.