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martsfrommars's review
3.0
3.5
Some parts were hard to understand for me, a 19yo from Italy, as english isn't my mothertongue, buth overall it is a great book, with interesting analysis
Some parts were hard to understand for me, a 19yo from Italy, as english isn't my mothertongue, buth overall it is a great book, with interesting analysis
katnissevergreen's review
4.0
"It may be that a second wave of the sexual revolution might at last accomplish its aim of freeing half the race from its immemorial subordination - and in the process bring us all a great deal closer to humanity. It may be that we shall even be able to retire sex from the harsh realities of politics, but not until we have created a world we can bear out of the desert we inhabit."
kmatthe2's review
3.0
An important touchstone text in feminist literary criticism. Sets up central terms that helped define a school of thought.
audreybethc's review
Read the first part but stopped at the literary analysis as I had not read any of the novels Millet addressed.
historyofjess's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.25
This book kinda knocked me on my ass from the jump...then I was able to get back up again because it's long and very academic and thus, some of it can drag, but by the latter chunk I was on my butt again. It's kind of astonishing to read a text from 1969 that that discusses things like "gender identity" and cites studies that found that there is no biological link between sex and gender in this current moment of trans-panic.
While Millet does, as one would expect, use some outdated language (or**talism, for one) and does show her white women's privilege at times (could we, perhaps, not suggest that wives had it as bad—or even worse—than Black people in the bonds of chattel slavery just because both were considered property of white men?), so much of this book feels like it could have been written more recently.
The literary analysis can get a little long-winded, especially when it involves some very lengthy passages from some extremely misogynist texts, but buried within those sections are some truly special bits of writing. This is especially true when she writes about the work of Jean Genet, which feels like an author she included so that she could have a respite from the other members of the He-Man Women Hater's Club that she has taken on. This allows Millet, a queer woman, to broaden the intersectionality of this feminist text by discussing not only queerness but also race, something that not a lot of white voices in second wave feminism felt the need to bother with.
Again, it's a dense text, but I found it incredibly rewarding.
While Millet does, as one would expect, use some outdated language (or**talism, for one) and does show her white women's privilege at times (could we, perhaps, not suggest that wives had it as bad—or even worse—than Black people in the bonds of chattel slavery just because both were considered property of white men?), so much of this book feels like it could have been written more recently.
The literary analysis can get a little long-winded, especially when it involves some very lengthy passages from some extremely misogynist texts, but buried within those sections are some truly special bits of writing. This is especially true when she writes about the work of Jean Genet, which feels like an author she included so that she could have a respite from the other members of the He-Man Women Hater's Club that she has taken on. This allows Millet, a queer woman, to broaden the intersectionality of this feminist text by discussing not only queerness but also race, something that not a lot of white voices in second wave feminism felt the need to bother with.
Again, it's a dense text, but I found it incredibly rewarding.
wah38's review
5.0
On the one hand, I agree with the point made in the preface that it's hard to imagine the earnestness with which the second wave deconstructed literature from Big Serious Male Authors like Lawrence, Miller, and Mailer (you could also add Roth and Updike to that list), as it was a product of a time when society actually cared what authors had to say. But on the other hand, this came out of Millett's grad thesis: I can only imagine most grad theses could be accused of abstruseness and imagining a greater societal impact of literature than is actually the case.
sophiewoz's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
on the one hand i had fun, but on the other hand who says apotheosis so much