(Male) culture was (and is) parasitical, feeding on the emotional strength of women without reciprocity.
Shulamith FirestoneRead
In 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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the societal expectation for women to smile and be pleasing, advocating for authentic self-expression.
Shulamith Firestone's quote highlights the pressure placed on women to maintain a facade of happiness through forced smiles, often viewed as a 'nervous tic.' She expresses a desire for a revolution in women's expression, suggesting a smile boycott where women only smile genuinely, thus reclaiming their authenticity and challenging the cultural norms that compel them to please others with their demeanor.
Themes
SmileAuthenticityWomenExpressionSociety
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a women's empowerment event to emphasize the importance of authentic self-expression.
More from Shulamith Firestone
All quotes →Emancipated' women found out that the honesty, generosity, and camaraderie of men was a lie.
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a revolutionary in every bedroom cannot fail to shake up the status quo. And if it is your wife that is revolting, you can't just split to the suburbs. Feminism, when it truly achieves it's goals, will crack through the most basic structures of our society.
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If women are differentiated only by superficial physical attributes, men appear more individual and irreplaceable than they really are.
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But in psychoanalysis there are no unimportant thoughts; there are only thoughts that pretend to be unimportant in order to not be told.
Shulamith FirestoneRead
Just as the end goal of socialist revolution was not only the elimination of the economic class privilege but of the economic class distinction itself, so the end goal of feminist revolution must be, ... not just the elimination of the male privilege, but of the sex distinction itself; genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally.
Shulamith FirestoneRead
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