''Sexual Politics'' is the debut book by American writer and activist

Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors ...

, based on her PhD dissertation. It was published in 1970 by Doubleday. It is regarded as a classic of

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and one of radical feminism's key texts. ''Sexual Politics'' analyses the subjugation of women in prominent art and literature in the 20th century, specifically looking at the ubiquity of male domination in culture.

Summary

Millett argues that "sex has a frequently neglected political aspect" and goes on to discuss the role that patriarchy plays in sexual relations, looking especially at the works of

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...

, and Norman Mailer. Millett argues that these authors view and discuss sex in a patriarchal and sexist way. In contrast, she applauds the more nuanced gender politics of homosexual writer Jean Genet. Other writers discussed at length include

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...

George Meredith George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but he gradually established a reputation as a novelist. '' The Ord ...

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

, and John Stuart Mill.

Influences

''Sexual Politics'' was largely influenced by Simone de Beauvoir's 1949 book ''

The Second Sex ''The Second Sex'' (french: Le Deuxième Sexe, link=no) is a 1949 book by the French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, in which the author discusses the treatment of women in the present society as well as throughout all of histor ...

'', although Beauvoir's text is known for being more intellectually-focused and less emotionally invigorating than Millett's text.

Reception

''Sexual Politics'' has been seen as a classic feminist text, said to be "the first book of academic feminist literary criticism", and "one of the first feminist books of this decade to raise nationwide male ire", though like

Betty Friedan Betty Friedan ( February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book ''The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the se ...

's ''

The Feminine Mystique ''The Feminine Mystique'' is a book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States. First published by W. W. Norton on February 19, 1963, ''The Feminine Mystique'' became a bestseller, initially selling o ...

'' (1963) and

Germaine Greer Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and public intellectual, regarded as one of the major voices of the radical feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literat ...

's ''

The Female Eunuch ''The Female Eunuch'' is a 1970 book by Germaine Greer that became an international bestseller and an important text in the feminist movement. Greer's thesis is that the "traditional" suburban, consumerist, nuclear family represses women sexual ...

'' (1970), its status has declined. ''Sexual Politics'' was an important theoretical touchstone for the second wave feminism of the 1970s. It was also extremely controversial. Norman Mailer, whose work, especially his novel '' An American Dream'' (1965), had been criticised by Millett, wrote the article " The Prisoner of Sex" in '' Harper's Magazine'' in response, attacking Millett's claims and defending Miller and Lawrence, and later extensively attacked her writings in his non-fiction book of the same name. The psychoanalyst Juliet Mitchell argues that Millett, like many other feminists, misreads Freud and misunderstands the implications of psychoanalytic theory for feminism.

Christina Hoff Sommers Christina Marie Hoff Sommers (born 1950) is an American author and philosopher. Specializing in ethics, she is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

writes that, by teaching women that politics is "essentially sexual" and that "even the so-called democracies" are "male hegemonies", ''Sexual Politics'' helped to move feminism in a different direction, toward an ideology that Sommers calls "gender feminism". The author Richard Webster writes that Millett's "analysis of the reactionary character of psychoanalysis" was inspired by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir's ''

'' (1949). The critic

Camille Paglia Camille Anna Paglia (; born April 2, 1947) is an American feminist academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. She is critical of many aspects of modern cultu ...

called ''Sexual Politics'' an "atrocious book", which "reduced complex artworks to their political content". She accused it of spawning what she sees as the excesses of

women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...

departments, especially for attacks on the alleged pervasive sexism of the male authors of the

Western canon The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, ...

. The historian

Arthur Marwick Arthur John Brereton Marwick (29 February 1936 – 27 September 2006) was a British social historian, who served for many years as Professor of History at the Open University. His research interests lay primarily in the history of Britain in the ...

described ''Sexual Politics'' as, alongside

Shulamith Firestone Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Firestone (born Feuerstein; January 7, 1945 – August 28, 2012) was a Canadian-American radical feminist writer and activist. Firestone was a central figure in the early development of radical feminism and second-w ...

's ''

The Dialectic of Sex ''The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution'' is a 1970 book by the radical feminist activist Shulamith Firestone. Written over a few months when Firestone was 25, it has been described as a classic of feminist thought. Firestone a ...

'' (1970), one of the two key texts of radical feminism. Doubleday's trade division, although it declined to reprint it when it went out of print briefly, said ''Sexual Politics'' was one of the ten most important books that it had published in its hundred years of existence and included it in its anniversary anthology. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' published a review of the book in 1970 that predicted it would become "the Bible of Women's Liberation." The article was written by Marcia Seligson and praised the book as "a piece of passionate thinking on a life-and-death aspect of our public and private lives."

Editions (incomplete list)

*Kate Millett, ''Sexual Politics'' (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1970) *Kate Millett, "Sexual Politics" (New York: Avon Discus (trade paperback reprint), 1971 *Kate Millett, ''Sexual Politics'' (London: Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd., 1971) *Kate Millett, ''Sexual Politics'' (London: Virago, 1977) *Kate Millett, ''Sexual Politics'' (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000) *Kate Millett, ''Sexual Politics'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016)

References

{{Radical feminism 1970 non-fiction books American non-fiction books Books by Kate Millett Books of literary criticism Debut books Doubleday (publisher) books English-language books Feminist criticism of marriage Non-fiction books about sexuality Radical feminist books Second-wave feminism Sociology books