Shulamith Firestone Anonymous 2023-05-08 (Mon) 19:15:15 No. 13435 [View All]
So I read this book first a few years ago but it came up again in conversation recently. I wanted to make a thread about it so we can have a proper discussion about its positives and negatives, because I think it has both. First of all, I believe it was maybe the first book (that I know of) to give a properly dialectical treatment to the historical development of reproductive labour relations, building largely off of Engels' work. De Beauvoir had her own stuff but a lot of the marxism in her work is under the surface and indirect, whereas Firestone makes constant reference to Engels. I shall sum up the argument for you, since I know many of you dislike reading. In primitive society, reproductive labour relations for the longest time worked such that matriarchy was the dominant mode of relations for reproductive labour, with differing cultural units for reproductive relations (clan, family, etc). At some point there is a 'flip' under which patriarchal relations begin as the dominant mode, which can be tied to the dawn of 'proper' technological civilisation as we know it (takes place after Engels' notion of barbarism with the rise of aristocracy), occurring as the west begins to exert its power over nature and systematises these relations. Firestone's conclusion is that biologically speaking, woman cannot truly be free until liberated from her biology. I think in many ways it's a beautiful analysis, but also very flawed in the same way of de Beauvoir- namely, Firestone, rather than critiquing the focus of capitalism on productivity and power over nature, instead believes that women should be changing to conform to be 'more like men'. Moreover, I think it must really be supplemented with more modern treatments of gender (like via Judith Butler) given there's I think significant evidence that gender takes on a life of its own (and in many ways always has) which rather than being recourse to mere reproductive labour, also has its foundations in various other intersections of political life (capitalism, etc). Freud I think gives some good insights as to why sex and sexual relations and gender relations by extension have more to do with the human drive for power rather than reproductive relations. Nonetheless, wondering if anyone else has read the text. I think it's a great piece of radfem literature.
120 posts and 31 image replies omitted. Click reply to view. Anonymous 2023-05-08 (Mon) 23:55:03 No. 13565
>>13564 given that it more accurately reflects the position of Marxism, yes.
Anonymous 2023-05-08 (Mon) 23:56:03 No. 13567
>>13565 You already said you only selectively embrace marxism for sophistic purposes
Anonymous 2023-05-08 (Mon) 23:56:20 No. 13568
>>13565 You can't be serious. Hahahahaha oh my fucking god i'm done, kys and a happy victory day
Anonymous 2023-05-08 (Mon) 23:56:39 No. 13569
>>13561 >that chart is actually from a tertiary source and isnt trustworthy then why did you post it in the OP? i just opened the thread, was i supposed to just know that the image YOU CHOSE to post wasn't trustworthy?
also that other chart is shit too
Anonymous 2023-05-08 (Mon) 23:57:00 No. 13571
>>13566 yes those are sections from the book. i dont necessarily agree with that position since im not a monist who thinks we need to care about 'the primal class divisions'
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 00:04:29 No. 13572
>>13571 ok well yeah i think that part is wrong. the idea that we can and should change nature and cyber/xenofeminism are cool its just kind of theoretical and way down the road from where we are at and overfocusing on it exclusively can be detrimental to actual organizing.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 00:11:04 No. 13574
Can you answer actually answer this question?:
>>13569 >>13561 >that chart is actually from a tertiary source and isnt trustworthy then why did you post it in the OP? i j
No troll. It's a straight forward question.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 00:11:47 No. 13575
>>13574 a genuine mistake thinking it was the latter chart.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 00:12:44 No. 13576
>>13575 So the second one is the good chart?
>>13472 It's not any better, but thanks for your clarification.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 00:14:36 No. 13577
>>13575 >>13576 i noticed before other people pointed it out, but i figured people here werent so petty to get hung up on something so non-central to the point. alas i was wrong. you all feel a license to talk as experts about books you havent read. i forgot that is the way of leftypol. the second chart is obviously better since it doesn't use some pseudo-keynesian class distinction but more properly describes the marxist divisions of history (with supplement from Engels)
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 00:18:31 No. 13578
>>13577 Before some genius says 'you forgot X'
From Engels' Origins of the family:
>The sketch which I have given here, following Morgan, of the development of mankind through savagery and barbarism to the beginnings of civilization, is already rich enough in new features; what is more, they cannot be disputed, since they are drawn directly from the process of production. Yet my sketch will seem flat and feeble compared with the picture to be unrolled at the end of our travels; only then will the transition from barbarism to civilization stand out in full light and in all its striking contrasts. For the time being, Morgan’s division may be summarized thus: >Savagery – the period in which man’s appropriation of products in their natural state predominates; the products of human art are chiefly instruments which assist this appropriation. >Barbarism – the period during which man learns to breed domestic animals and to practice agriculture, and acquires methods of increasing the supply of natural products by human activity. >Civilization – the period in which man learns a more advanced application of work to the products of nature, the period of industry proper and of art. >The distinction of rich and poor appears beside that of freemen and slaves – with the new division of labor, a new cleavage of society into classes. The inequalities of property among the individual heads of families break up the old communal household communities wherever they had still managed to survive, and with them the common cultivation of the soil by and for these communities. The cultivated land is allotted for use to single families, at first temporarily, later permanently. The transition to full private property is gradually accomplished, parallel with the transition of the pairing marriage into monogamy. The single family is becoming the economic unit of society. Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 02:30:03 No. 13580
>>13513 Not a single point was raised in any of those posts.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 02:37:49 No. 13581
>>13504 Caliban and the Witch
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 08:03:05 No. 13582
>>13577 Idolatry is the way of /leftypol/
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 09:00:38 No. 13584
Anarchofem threads (or theory, in general) are not just a waste of time but are actively
harmful when it comes to revolution. Had the very smart anarchofem poster actually read the authors they proclaim are their ideological predecessors, they would've seen their mistakes. Anarchofem in principle does the following:
>Human knowledge is not (or does not follow) a straight line, but a curve, which endlessly approximates a series of circles, a spiral. Any fragment, segment, section of this curve can be transformed (transformed one-sidedly) into an independent, complete, straight line, which then (if one does not see the wood for the trees) leads into the quagmire, into clerical obscurantism (where it is anchored by the class interests of the ruling classes). Rectilinearity and one-sidedness, woodenness and petrification, subjectivism and subjective blindness—voilà the epistemological roots of idealism. And clerical obscrutantism (= philosophical idealism), of course, has epistemological roots, it is not groundless; it is a sterile flower undoubtedly, but a sterile flower that grows on the living tree of living, fertile, genuine, powerful, omnipotent, objective, absolute human knowledge. [
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/misc/x02.htm ]
The fixation on the single dimension of class society, namely the remnants of sexism rooted in primitive class divisions (according to ability, age and gender) without further, deeper, proper class analysis is fideism. It leads to subjectivity and to ideological confusion. This is most clearly demonstrated in the OP, where empty phrases decorate the shell of dialectical materialism.
<woman cannot truly be free until liberated from her biology. <gender takes on a life of its own. Take note and avoid such ultra-radical deviations from Marxism into idealism.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 09:18:08 No. 13585
>>13584 it's crazy how you can say so many words without absolutely zero content
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 09:20:28 No. 13587
>>13568 Yes go watch Putin's speech instead of trying to sit at the adult's table
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 09:23:06 No. 13588
>>13585 (📽️)
>>13587 (📽️)
Take note* Marxists. You may not like it, but this is what peak theory looks like.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 09:26:17 No. 13589
>>13588 Anarcho-Nihilism with cannibal characteristics is the future
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 09:57:50 No. 13591
>>13590 are men really this fragile?
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 10:00:12 No. 13592
>>13546 >You aren't a Marxist, you're just a dead, ossified piece of bone rather than a green, living tree root oof
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 10:00:28 No. 13593
>>13591 Why tf are you assuming my gender? Look at any of my post, it is written to you but in a gender-neutral language. This is the least you could do for me as well. But you are a mentally ill, petite-bourgeois hypocrite, so you get to the decide the rules of discourse but they are not applicable to you. Quite Stalinist, indeed.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 10:35:01 No. 13595
>>13594 Very nice! Accuse those who understand dialectical materialism and has practical lived experience of anarcho-fem organizing not to have any points! Dishonest little poster. Every post of yours reeks of revisionism and extreme left-deviations.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 10:39:55 No. 13596
>>13593 stop weaponising mental illness. a lot of people on this board are 'mentally ill'. its not appropriate or kind but a mere tool of power and control. if you really think i am mentally ill, then congratulations, you are harassing a mentally ill perosn.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 11:09:03 No. 13597
>>13592 Postmodernists love to claim they're profound
With their ideas so complex and unbound
But in truth, they always come to common sense conclusions
And wrap them up in thousands of pages of confusing and idealistic llusions.
They call me a bone and portray themselves as tree roots so green,
This is but a poetic dream.
Their words are but falling leaves, detached from any real root,
Falling to the ground, failing to bear any useful fruit.
Their ideas are shallow, their analysis thin
And all their complexity is but a wokeshow for their libkin.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 11:11:12 No. 13598
>>13597 At least you tried to say something instead of whining crying and throwing a tantrum
My issue is not with you
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 11:12:40 No. 13600
>>13597 Desire for a day
Broken futures, fragmented
History's hopeless
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 11:14:12 No. 13601
I text a lot of boys, but I rarely fuck em Ducking clouds, breaking down, got my head up in an oven Shut my mouth, blacking out, yeah my brain is fucking bludgeoned Though I've had my doubts I know my stuff is straight disgusting And I mean that in the best way Flipping shit like burgers or fake furs or a sex change Right onto the next phase, got my buddies in the backseat Don't like what I do then get your lips up off my ass cheek
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 11:25:20 No. 13602
"Theories come and go," the anfem yells, "All is to be criticized, no page left unread." To the Marxists in the thread he tells, "Listen to me, I am redder than red" "It's simple, almost banal really, Class analysis is for the angry men I hate; All the 'materialism' you hold dearly Is to be turned into radical bait" "Dialectics is but a curtain, Which favors the not so certain; I am Kantian in all but name, And a Humist too – it's all the same!" For this defect, there's no one to blame, But (You), dear comrade, for engaging the dame.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 11:32:08 No. 13603
>>13602 >You are actually the cancer which >prevents spontanoeus outbursts of popular opinion with over-moderation and ivory tower theory >gatekeeping, accusing those who do not want to engage in philistine, fideistic behavior, >to just 'not get it'. noble taste defeated;
rabble rises to the top–
with your dialectics!
lovely poem though, im actually quite flattered
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 11:34:59 No. 13604
>>13602 Now, look here. Because you sicced the cops on this thread, less people will be able to see your writing. That's a paradoxical behavior.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 12:07:10 No. 13606
Firestone is right and this thread is Full of incels. Artificial wombs will save women.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 12:37:41 No. 13607
>>13595 You lying weasel shit faggot! Your """points"" have already been BTFO by anfemanon. Cope and sneed.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 13:05:35 No. 13608
>>13607 They have just policed my language. They think that calling things by different names changes their underlying idealism and ideological incoherence. Nice use of a slur, + the /pol/ dictionary really shows the incel to fascist to white gender-non-conforming aristocratic radical theorist (ala Contrapoints) is true. (I am replying feom my phone, if the mod wonders about the different IP)
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 15:15:04 No. 13609
>>13522 No, it wouldn't have. It would've been attacked, just for largely different reasons.
Why was this thread put on auto-sage anyway? The OP is only antagonizing the "books are harmful" faction of this board, which we hardly need anyway. They weren't engaging with anything she said and apparently considered it a personal virtue not to be able to understand, rather than the effect of their own self-induced stupidity.
Even though I disagree in some way with most of these threads, every time I start to write something critical I see the moron brigade out in full force and have to stop myself. If you want to moderate these threads, make examples of them and get rid of their posts rather than the discussion.
Using "communism" as an excuse for this behavior is disgusting and the anti-intellectualism is reminiscent of fascism. It's also ironically one of the most American things about this board.
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 15:21:14 No. 13610
>>13609 >"books are harmful" faction of this board Yeah, about that
That's the whole board with few exceptions
Anonymous 2023-05-09 (Tue) 17:04:22 No. 13611
Not even a fan of most radfem thought but OP is right tbh.
Anonymous 2023-05-11 (Thu) 00:14:11 No. 13612
Damn, it's incredible how the OP immediately triggered those incels. We really need to clean up this board. t. misogynist who's tired of the incel spam
Anonymous 2023-05-15 (Mon) 20:42:35 No. 13613
>>13612 A misogynist is a failed misanthrope
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