Sexual Politics - Softcover

Millett, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252068890 ISBN 13: 9780252068898

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2000

Synopsis

"Praised and denounced when it was first published in 1970, "Sexual Politics" not only explored history but also became part of it. Kate Millett's groundbreaking book fueled feminism's second wave, giving voice to the anger of a generation while documenting the inequities - neatly packaged in revered works of literature and art - of a complacent and unrepentant society. "Sexual Politics" laid the foundation for subsequent feminist scholarship by showing how cultural discourse reflects a systematized subjugation and exploitation of women. Identifying patriarchy as a socially conditioned belief system masquerading as nature, Millett demonstrates in detail how its attitudes and systems penetrate literature, philosophy, psychology, and politics. Her incendiary work rocked the foundations of the literary canon by castigating time-honored classics - from D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's "Lover" to Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" - for their use of sex to degrade and undermine women. A new introduction to this edition draws attention to some of the forms patriarchy has taken recently in consolidating its oppressive and dangerous control."

About this title

Book Description

A sensation upon its publication in 1970, Sexual Politics documents the subjugation of women in great literature and art. Kate Millett builds a damning profile of literature's patriarchal myths and their extension into psychology, philosophy, and politics. This new edition features Catharine A. MacKinnon and Rebecca Mead on the importance of Millett's work to challenging the complacency currently sidelining feminism.

About the Author

Kate Millett is an American feminist writer, artist, and activist. Her most recent books are Mother Millett, A.D.: A Memoir, and The Politics of Cruelty: An Essay on the Literature of Political Imprisonment. She is director of the Millett Center for the Arts and lives in New York City and upstate New York.

Catharine A. MacKinnon is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at Michigan Law School and the long-term James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Rebecca Mead is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of My Life in Middlemarch and One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252068890
• ISBN 13: 9780252068898
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 424