even bom— and so we cannot know what kind of art will be
made in that new world. Our work, which does full honor to
those centuries of sisters who went before us, is to midwife
that new world into being. It will be left to our children and
their children to live in it.
2
Renouncing Sexual “E q u a lity ”
Equality: 1. the state of being equal; correspondence in
quantity, degree, value, rank, ability, etc. 2. uniform character, as of motion or surface.
Freedom: 1. state of being at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint. . . 2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc. 3.
power of determining one’s or its own action. . . 4.
Philos, the power to make one’s own choices or decisions
without constraint from within or without; autonomy,
self-determination. . . 5. civil liberty, as opposed to subjection to an arbitrary or despotic government. 6. political or national independence. . . 8. personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery. . .
— Syn. f r e e d o m , i n d e p e n d e n c e , l i b e r t y refer to an absence of undue restrictions and an opportunity to exercise one’s rights and powers, f r e e d o m emphasizes the opportunity given for the exercise of one’s rights, powers,
desires, or the like. . . i n d e p e n d e n c e implies not only
lack of restrictions but also the ability to stand alone, unsustained by anything else. . .
— Ant. 1-3. restraint. 5, 6, 8. oppression.
Justice: 1. the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness . . . 2. rightfulness or lawfulness. . . 3. the moral principle determining just conduct.
4. conformity to this principle, as manifested in conduct;
just conduct, dealing, or treatment. . .
from The Random House Dictionary
of the English Language
In 1970 Kate Millett published Sexual Politics. In that book
she proved to many of us— who would have staked our lives
Delivered at the National Organization for Women Conference on Sexuality,
New York City, October 12, 1974.
on denying it— that sexual relations, the literature depicting
those relations, the psychology posturing to explain those relations, the economic systems that fix the necessities of those relations, the religious systems that seek to control those relations, are political. She showed us that everything that happens to a woman in her life, everything that touches or molds her, is political. 1
Women who are feminists, that is, women who grasped her
analysis and saw that it explained much of their real existence
in their real lives, have tried to understand, struggle against,
and transform the political system called patriarchy which
exploits our labor, predetermines the ownership of our bodies,
and diminishes our selfhood from the day we are bom. This
struggle has no dimension to it which is abstract: it has
touched us in every part of our lives. But nowhere has it
touched us more vividly or painfully than in that part of our
human lives which we call “love” and “sex. ” In the course of
our struggle to free ourselves from systematic oppression, a
serious argument has developed among us, and I want to bring
that argument into this room.
Some of us have committed ourselves in all areas, including
those called “love” and “sex, ” to the goal of equality, that is,
to the state of being equal; correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, ability; uniform character, as of motion or surface. Others of us, and I stand on this side of the argument,
do not see equality as a proper, or sufficient, or moral, or
honorable final goal. We believe that to be equal where there
is not universal justice, or where there is not universal freedom is, quite simply, to be the same as the oppressor. It is to have achieved “uniform character, as of motion or surface. ”
Nowhere is this clearer than in the area of sexuality. The
male sexual model is based on a polarization of humankind
into man /woman, master/slave, aggressor/victim, active/
passive. This male sexual model is now many thousands of
years old. The very identity of men, their civil and economic
power, the forms of government that they have developed, the
wars they wage, are tied irrevocably together. All forms of
dominance and submission, whether it be man over woman,
white over black, boss over worker, rich over poor, are tied
irrevocably to the sexual identities of men and are derived
from the male sexual model. Once we grasp this, it becomes
clear that in fact men own the sex act, the language which
describes sex, the women whom they objectify. Men have written the scenario for any sexual fantasy you have ever had or any sexual act you have ever engaged in.
There is no freedom or justice in exchanging the female
role for the male role. There is, no doubt about it, equality.
There is no freedom or justice in using male language, the
language of your oppressor, to describe sexuality. There is no
freedom or justice or even common sense in developing a
male sexual sensibility— a sexual sensibility which is aggressive, competitive, objectifying, quantity oriented. There is only equality. To believe that freedom or justice for women,
or for any individual woman, can be found in mimicry of male
sexuality is to delude oneself and to contribute to the oppression of one’s sisters.
Many of us would like to think that in the last four years, or
ten years, we have reversed, or at least impeded, those habits
and customs of the thousands of years which went before— the
habits and customs of male dominance. There is no fact or
figure to bear that out. You may feel better, or you may not,
but statistics show that women are poorer than ever, that
women are raped more and murdered more. I want to suggest
to you that a commitment to sexual equality with males, that
is, to uniform character as of motion or surface, is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered. I want to ask you to make a different commitment— a commitment to the abolition of poverty, rape, and murder; that is, a commitment to ending the system of oppression called patriarchy; to ending the male sexual model itself.