Sexual Politics

A sensation upon its publication in 1970, Sexual Politics documents the subjugation of women in great literature and art. Kate Millett's analysis targets four revered authors—D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, and Jean Genet—and builds a damning profile of literature's patriarchal myths and their extension into psychology, philosophy, and politics. Her eloquence and popular examples taught a generation to recognize inequities masquerading as nature and proved the value of feminist critique in all facets of life. This new edition features the scholar Catharine A. MacKinnon and the New Yorker correspondent Rebecca Mead on the importance of Millett's work to challenging the complacency that sidelines feminism.

This thought-provoking book, first published in 1991, examines sexual politics in a world which is being radically changed by the challenges of feminism. Seidler explores how men have responded to feminism, and the contradictory feelings men have towards dominant forms of masculinity. Seidler’s stimulating and original analysis of social and political theory connects personally to everyday issues in people’s lives. It reflects the growing importance of sexual and personal politics within contemporary politics and culture, and demonstrates clearly the challenge that feminism brings to our inherited forms of morality, politics and sexuality.

Sexuality and sexual politics have been much debated over the last 20 years. Feminists, in particular, have been responsible for politicising the debate: pointing out how something that is usually regarded as private and personal is, in fact, a public and political issue. The very title of this book signals the debt owed by feminists to Kate Millett whose pioneering work in the field was first published in 1969. The arguments and debates have moved on since then, and, heterosexuality in particular can no longer be taken for granted and must, along with other forms of sexuality, be explicitly addressed. Discussing sexuality in a diverse range of contexts, from hetero-sensibilities on the Oprah Winfrey show to Women Warriors in the Gulf war, (Hetero)sexual Politics illustrates the diversity and excitement of debates about sexuality in Women's Studies and feminism today, and points to new paths for feminist analysis, thinking and action.

Almost wherever we look, depictions of sexuality, both subtle and not-so-subtle, are omnipresent. Whatever the medium, popular culture representations tell us something about ourselves and about the ideologies of which they are symptomatic. These essays examine the strategies of power implicit in popular representations of sexuality. The authors--scholars in fields such as sociology, philosophy, biology, political science, history, and English literature-- eschew rigid disciplinary boundaries.

Preface, 1998AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart 1. Identity, Community, and Oppression: A Sexual Minority in the Making1. Homosexuality and American Society: An Overview2. Forging a Group Identity: World War II and the Emergence of an Urban Gay Subculture3. The Bonds of Oppression: Gay Life in the 1950sPart 2. The 1950s: Radical Visions and Conformist Pressures4. Radical Beginnings of the Mattachine Society5. Retreat the Respectability6. Dual Identity and Lesbian Autonomy: The Beginnings of Separate Organizing Among Women7. The Quest for LegitimacyPart 3. The 1960s: Civil Rights and the Pursuit of Equality8. Gay Life in the Public Eye9. Civil Rights and Direct Action: The New East Coast Militancy, 1961-196510. The Movement and the Subculture Converge: San Francisco During the Early 1960s11. High Hopes and Modest GainsPart 4. The Liberation Impulse12. A New Beginning: The Birth of Gay Liberation13. ConclusionAfterword, 1998Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Explores the complex relationship between sexuality and socialist politics in Britain, arguing that sexuality has been a key, though often neglected aspect of party politics in the last century and a half. It also explores the relationship between the personal and the political in a wide-ranging study of British society.

First published in 1991, this title examines sexual politics in a world which is being radically changed by the challenges of feminism. Seidler explores how men have responded to feminism, and the contradictory feelings men have towards dominant forms of masculinity.

How did far-right, hateful and anti-democratic ideologies become so successful in many societies in Europe? This volume analyses the paradoxical roles sexual politics have played in this process and reveals that the incoherence and untruthfulness in right-wing populist, ultraconservative and far-right rhetorics of fear are not necessarily signs of weakness. Instead, the authors show how the far right can profit from its own incoherence by generating fear and creating discourses of crisis for which they are ready to offer simple solutions. In studies on Poland, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Austria, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portugal, France, Sweden and Russia, the ways far-right ideologies travel and take root are analysed from a multi-disciplinary perspective, including feminist and LGBTQI reactions. Understanding how hateful and antidemocratic ideologies enter the very centre of European societies is a necessary premise for developing successful counterstrategies.