Shulamith Firestone Quotes

Just as the end goal of socialist revolution was not only the elimination of the economic class privilege but of the economic class distinction itself, so the end goal of feminist revolution must be, ... not just the elimination of the male privilege, but of the sex distinction itself; genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally.

Women were the slave class that maintained the species in order to free the other half for the business of the world.

Power, however it has evolved, whatever its origins, will not be given up without a struggle.

In my own case, I had to train myself out of that phony smile, which is like a nervous tic on every teenage girl. And this meant that I smiled rarely, for in truth, when it came down to real smiling, I had less to smile about. My 'dream' action for the women's liberation movement: a smile boycott, at which declaration all women would instantly abandon their 'pleasing' smiles, henceforth smiling only when something pleased them.

Romanticism is a cultural tool of male power to keep women from knowing their conditions.

Feminism, when it truly achieves its goals, will crack through the most basic structures of our society.

Men are thinking, writing, and creating, because women were pouring their energy into those men; women are not creating culture because they are occupied with love.

Feminists have to question, not just all of Western culture, but the organization of culture itself, and further, even the very organization of nature. Many women give up in despair: if that's how deep it goes they don't want to know.

(Male) culture was (and is) parasitical, feeding on the emotional strength of women without reciprocity.

All men are selfish, brutal and inconsiderate--and I wish I could find one.

If women are differentiated only by superficial physical attributes, men appear more individual and irreplaceable than they really are.

The 'natural' is not necessarily a 'human' value. Humanity has begun to transcend nature: we can no longer justify the maintenance of a discriminatory sex class system on grounds of its origins in nature. Indeed, for pragmatic reasons alone it is beginning to look as if we must get rid of it.

To be worshiped is not freedom.

The classic trap for any revolutionary is always, “What's your alternative?” But even if you could provide the interrogator with a blueprint, this does not mean he would use it: in most cases he is not sincere in wanting to know. In fact this is a common offensive, a technique to reflect revolutionary anger and turn it against itself. Moreover, the oppressed have no job to convince all people. All they need know is that the present system is destroying them.

The personal is political.

He has let her in not because he genuinely loved her, but only because she played so well into his preconceived fantasies.

Thus her whole identity hangs in the balance of her love life. She is allowed to love herself only if a man finds her worthy of love.

The separation of sex from emotion is at the very foundations of Western culture and civilization.

A fair and generous woman is (at best) respected, but seldom loved.

[U]nless oppressed groups stick together, and on alliances of self interest rather than do-goodism; nothing can be accomplished in the long run to dismantle the apparatus of oppression.

We should keep in mind that Revolutions anywhere are always glad to use any help they can get, even from women. But unless women also use the Revolution to further their own interests as well as everyone else's, unless they make it consistently clear that all help given now is expected to be returned, both now and after the Revolution, they will be sold out again and again.

The best way to raise a child is to LAY OFF!

Women and love are underpinnings. Examine them and you threaten the very structure of culture.

No matter how many levels of consciousness one reaches, the problem always goes deeper.

But in psychoanalysis there are no unimportant thoughts; there are only thoughts that pretend to be unimportant in order to not be told.