“Fundamental to a radical and lesbian feminist politics is the understanding that 'the personal is political'. This phrase has two interrelated meanings. It means that the political power structures of the 'public' world are reflected in the private world. Thus,… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share Image
“Women incorporate the values of the male sexual objectifiers within themselves. Catharine MacKinnon calls this being "thingified" in the head (MacKinnon, 1989). They learn to treat their own bodies as objects separate from themselves. Bartky explains how this works: the wolf whistle sexually objectifies a woman from without with the result that, ''"The body which only a moment before I… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share
Men have been adjudicating on what women are, and how they should behave, for millennia through the institutions of social control such as religion,… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share Image
Girls learn to love and have sexual feelings in a position of low status, and the eroticization of powerlessness is a normal part of… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share Image
As a feminist, I consider the female pronoun to be an honorific, a term that conveys respect. Respect is due to women as members… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share Image
“The main problem for women trying to emulate male sexuality is that as a ruling-class sexuality, it is constructed around the fact that they have a subordinate class on whom to act sexually. Women are that subordinate class. The elements that constitute male sexuality depend upon the possession of ruling-class status such as objectification, aggression, and the separation of sex… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share
“Both the veil and makeup are often seen as voluntary behaviours by women, taken up by choice and to express agency. But in both cases there is considerable evidence of the pressures arising from male dominance that cause the behaviours. For instance, the historian of commerce Kathy Peiss suggests that the beauty products industry took off in the USA in… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share
“Men's sexual freedom has depended, and still does to a large extent, upon their ownership of women's bodies. Men have bought, sold and traded women as things to be used. Women are still regularly raped in marriage, even though most Western countries have now changed their laws to recognize that wives have a right not to be raped. Women are… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share
Men's ideas about what women are have been formed from their ruling caste position, and have assigned women characteristics that would most advantage their… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share Image
Pornography is not egalitarian and gender-free. It is predicated upon the inequality of women and is the propaganda that makes that inequality sexy. For women to find passive, objectified men sexy in large enough numbers to make a pornography industry based upon such images viable, would require the reconstruction of women's sexuality into a ruling-class sexuality. In an egalitarian society… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share
Masculinity cannot exist without femininity. On its own, masculinity has no meaning, because it is but one half of a set of power relations.… — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share Image
Male supremacy is centered on the act of sexual intercourse, justified by heterosexual practice. — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share Image
Masculinity is part of a binary and requires its opposite, since, in the absence of femininity, masculinity would have no meaning. — Sheila Jeffreys Copy Share Image
