Skip to content

Women throughout history before the advent of birth control were at the continual mercy of their biology - menstruation, menopause, and "female ills," constant painful childbirth, wetnursing and care of infants, all of which made them dependent on males (whether brother, father, husband, lover, or clan, government, community-at-large) for physical survival.

— Shulamith Firestone The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

Another quote →

More quotes by Shulamith Firestone

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

The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

Love has never been understood, though it may have been fully experienced, and that experience communicated.

The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

To live without love in the end proves intolerable to men just as it does to women.

The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

Self-regulation is the basis of freedom, and dependence the origin of inequality.

The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

The goals of feminism can never be achieved through evolution, but only through revolution. Power, however it has evolved, whatever its origins, will not be given up without a struggle.

The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

All Shulamith Firestone quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Shulamith Firestone (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.