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Feminist Theories
Kate Millett
(1934 -)
An American feminist writer, artist and activist.
An radical feminist
A seminal influence on second-wave feminism
Sexual Politics
Sexual Politics "the first book of academic feminist literary criticism“
-- P. T. Clough (1994)The Sociological Quarterly, vol 35 no 3, page 473 The Hybrid Criticism of Patriarchy: Rereading Kate Millett's "Sexual Politics" "one of the first feminist books of this decade to raise nationwide male ire“
--Norma Willson (1974) The English Journal vol 63 no 6 page 15 "Majority Report: A Liberated Glossary: Guide to Feminist Writings"
Sexual Politics an important theoretical touchstone for the second wave feminism of the 1970s.
Arguments ranges over history, literature, psychoanalysis, sociology etc.
Ideology indoctrination & economic inequality Women’s oppression
Sexual Politics
“sex has a frequently neglected political aspect"
The role that patriarchy plays in sexual relations
(is Pervasive and demand ‘a systematic overview- as a political institution’)
Patriarchy subordinates the female to the male or treat the female as an inferior male, and this power is exerted, directly or indirectly, in civil and domestic life to constrain women.
Sexual Politics
Distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’
Sex: biological
Gender: psychological and cultural
‘sexual politics’:
The acting-out of these sex-roles[Treat the culturally learned ‘female’ characteristics(passively) as ‘natural’] in the unequal and repressive relations of domination and subordination
Sexual Politics
Social construction of femininity: the way literary values and conventions have themselves been shaped by men, and women have struggled to express their own concerns in what may well have been inappropriate forms example: ‘Male’ impetus and purposiveness in shaping adventure and romantic pursuit in narratives.
Sexual Politics
Social construction of

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