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Sexual Politics is a classic feminist text written by Kate Millett
Kate Millett

Kate Millett is an United States feminism writer and activist. She is best known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics....
. Based on her dissertation, it was published in 1970. Millet argues that "sex has a frequently neglected political aspect" and goes on to discuss the role that patriarchy
Patriarchy

Patriarchy can be defined as the structuring of society on the basis of family units, where fathers have primary Social responsibility for the welfare of, and authority over, their families....
 plays in sexual relations, looking especially at the works of D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an England author, poet, playwright, essayist and literary criticism. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization....
, Henry Miller
Henry Miller

Henry Valentine Miller was an United States novelist and Painting. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of...
, and Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was an United States novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S....
. Millet 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
Jean Genet

Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial France novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activism. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing....
.






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Sexual Politics is a classic feminist text written by Kate Millett
Kate Millett

Kate Millett is an United States feminism writer and activist. She is best known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics....
. Based on her dissertation, it was published in 1970. Millet argues that "sex has a frequently neglected political aspect" and goes on to discuss the role that patriarchy
Patriarchy

Patriarchy can be defined as the structuring of society on the basis of family units, where fathers have primary Social responsibility for the welfare of, and authority over, their families....
 plays in sexual relations, looking especially at the works of D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an England author, poet, playwright, essayist and literary criticism. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization....
, Henry Miller
Henry Miller

Henry Valentine Miller was an United States novelist and Painting. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of...
, and Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was an United States novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S....
. Millet 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
Jean Genet

Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial France novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activism. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing....
. Other writers discussed at length include Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalysis of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of Psychological repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through dialogue...
, George Meredith
George Meredith

| name= George Meredith| image = George Meredith.1893.jpg| imagesize = 200px| caption = George Meredith in 1893 by George Frederic Watts....
, John Ruskin
John Ruskin

John Ruskin was a British art critic and social thought, also remembered as an author, poet and artist. His essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian era and Edwardian period eras....
, and John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill , United Kingdom philosopher, political economy, civil servant and Parliament of the United Kingdom, was an influential liberalism thinker of the 19th century....
.

Sexual Politics was an important theoretical touchstone for the second wave feminism of the '70s
1970s

The 1970s, or the Seventies was the decade that ran from January 1, 1970 to December 31, 1979.In the western world, social progressive values that began in the 1960s, such as increasing political awareness and political and economic liberty of women, continued to grow....
. It was also extremely controversial. Norman Mailer, whose work, especially his 1965 novel An American Dream
An American Dream

An American Dream is Norman Mailer's fourth novel, published by Dial Press. Mailer wrote it in serialized form for Esquire , consciously attempting to resurrect the methodology used by Charles Dickens and other earlier novelists, with Mailer writing each chapter against monthly deadlines....
, had been criticised by Millett, wrote the article "The Prisoner of Sex" in response, attacking Millett's claims and defending Miller and Lawrence. More recently, Camille Paglia
Camille Paglia

Camille Anna Paglia is an United States author, teacher, social critic and dissident feminist. Since 1984 Paglia has been a Professor at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
 accused Sexual Politics of spawning what she sees as the excesses of women's studies
Women's studies

Women's studies is an interdisciplinary List of academic disciplines devoted to topics concerning women, feminism, gender identity, and politics....
 departments, especially for attacks on the sexism of male authors of the Western canon
Western canon

The Western canon is a term used to denote a wiktionary:canon of Western literatures, and, more widely, European classical music and Western art history, that has been the most Power in shaping Western culture....
.

Editions (incomplete list)

  • Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1970)
  • Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (London: Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd., 1971)
  • Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000)