Shulamith Firestone

Shulamith Firestone was a Canadian-born American radical feminist and a founder of the groups New York Radical Women, Redstockings and New York Radical Feminists. At twenty-five she published The Dialectic of Sex (1970), which reworked Marx and Freud to argue that the deepest root of women's oppression lies in biological reproduction. She called for women to take control of reproduction, including through new technologies, and for an end to the nuclear family. The book became a classic of radical feminism and is still cited in debates on reproductive technology.

Key ideas

• Sex class, rooted in women's role in reproduction, is the oldest and deepest form of class division.
• Feminist revolution must go beyond equality to end the sex distinction itself as a cultural fact.
• Technologies such as artificial reproduction could free women from the burden of pregnancy and childbirth.
• The nuclear family and the ideology of romantic love sustain women's dependence and should be replaced.

Major works

• The Dialectic of Sex (1970)
• Notes from the First Year (1968, editor)
• Notes from the Second Year (1970, editor)
• Airless Spaces (1998)

In the Book corner

• The Dialectic of Sex 1970 · Intermediate
  A manifesto of radical feminism, subtitled The Case for Feminist Revolution and dedicated to Simone de Beauvoir. It sets out to do…

In the conversation

No topics yet. Start one about this thinker.