If there were another word more all-embracing than revolution we would use it.” So opens Shulamith Firestone’s radical feminist manifesto The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. Published in 1970, the book’s ferocity and imagination still gesture towards a horizon more radical than revolution – even as we approach its 50th anniversary.
Firestone was 25 when she wrote The Dialectic of Sex. Born in 1945 – her mother was a German refugee, her father an American serviceman who took part in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen – Firestone chafed against the conservatism of her Orthodox Jewish parents and left home, bound for art school in Chicago.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
