The classic trap for any revolutionary is always, “What's your alternative?” But even if you could provide the interrogator with a blueprint, this does not mean he would use it: in most cases he is not sincere in wanting to know. In fact this is a common offensive, a technique to reflect revolutionary anger and turn it against itself. Moreover, the oppressed have no job to convince all people. All they need know is that the present system is destroying them.
Shulamith Firestone...love is essentially a much simpler phenomenon--it becomes complicated, corrupted or obstructed by an unequal balance of power.
Shulamith FirestoneEmancipated' women found out that the honesty, generosity, and camaraderie of men was a lie.
Shulamith FirestoneIn my own case, I had to train myself out of that phony smile, which is like a nervous tic on every teenage girl. And this meant that I smiled rarely, for in truth, when it came down to real smiling, I had less to smile about. My 'dream' action for the women's liberation movement: a smile boycott, at which declaration all women would instantly abandon their 'pleasing' smiles, henceforth smiling only when something pleased them.
Shulamith Firestone...he will go to his grave feeling cheated, never realizing that there isn't much difference between one woman and the other, that it is the loving that creates the difference.
Shulamith FirestoneHe has let her in not because he genuinely loved her, but only because she played so well into his preconceived fantasies.
Shulamith FirestoneThe 'natural' is not necessarily a 'human' value. Humanity has begun to transcend nature: we can no longer justify the maintenance of a discriminatory sex class system on grounds of its origins in nature. Indeed, for pragmatic reasons alone it is beginning to look as if we must get rid of it.
Shulamith Firestone