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Quote by Sheila Jeffreys

“Masculinity is part of a binary and requires its opposite, since, in the absence of femininity, masculinity would have no meaning.”

Quote by Sheila Jeffreys

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Sheila Jeffreys
Sheila Jeffreys

Sheila Jeffreys is a renowned political scientist born on May 13, 1948. Her research focuses on gender politics and feminist theory, offering profound insights into issues of gender inequality and women's rights. more

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“It should not be a surprise to find that s/m fantasy is significant in women's sex lives. Women may be born free but they are born into a system of subordination. We are not born into equality and do not have equality to eroticise. We are not born into power and do not have power to eroticise. We are born into subordination and it is in subordination that we learn our sexual and emotional responses. It would be surprising indeed if any woman reared under male supremacy was able to escape the forces constructing her into a member of an inferior slave class.”

IfsShouldMayWould BeAbleForceSexBornClassFantasyEmotionalMembersSlaveSurpriseResponseMalesSignificantSurprisingInferiorsSupremacySubordinationEmotional ResponseBorn Free
Author:Sheila Jeffreys
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“As a feminist, I consider the female pronoun to be an honorific, a term that conveys respect. Respect is due to women as members of a sex caste that have survived subordination and deserve to be addressed with honour. Men who transgender cannot occupy such a position.”

MenSexTermPositionMembersDeserveFemaleFeministDuesHonourSurvivedTransgenderCastesSubordinationPronouns
Book:Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism
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“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 objectification would not exist and therefore the particular buzz provided by pornography, the excitement of eroticised dominance for the ruling class, would be unimaginable.”

MenEnoughWould BeNumbersClassParticularIndustrySexyGenderSexualityInequalityPropagandaExcitementPassiveRulingPornographyDominanceBuzzReconstructionUnimaginableObjectification
Author:Sheila Jeffreys
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“Men have been adjudicating on what women are, and how they should behave, for millennia through the institutions of social control such as religion, the medical profession, psychoanalysis, the sex industry. Feminists have fought to remove the definition of what a woman is from these masculine institutions and develop their own understandings.”

MenShouldHas BeensSocialSexUnderstandingIndustryInstitutionsDefinitionsFeministProfessionMedicalBehaveRemoveMasculinePsychoanalysisMedical ProfessionSocial Control
Author:Sheila Jeffreys
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“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 masters, as well as justify men's rule over them. They do not represent 'truth' but have been promoted as if they were, with the backing of science and patriarchal views of biology.”

IfsMenWellsHas BeensIdeasViewsPositionMastersAdvantageCharacteristicsJustifyBiologyRulingCastes
Book:Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism
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“At least three further requirements supplement the strategies of environmentalists if we were to create and preserve a less violent world. 1) Every culture must begin to affirm the female future. 2) Species responsibility must be returned to women in every culture. 3) The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately ten percent of the human race.”

IfsMenWorldHumansCultureThreeRaceResponsibilityTenPercentFemaleStrategySpeciesViolentPreservesHuman RaceProportionRequirementsSupplementsEnvironmentalist
Author:Sally Miller Gearhart
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“The experience of oppressed people is that the living of one’s life is confined and shaped by forces and barriers which are not accidental or occasional and hence avoidable, but are systematically related to each other in such a way as to catch one between and among them and restrict or penalize motion in any direction. It is the experience of being caged in: all avenues, in every direction, are blocked or booby trapped.”

PeopleWayLife IsForceRelatedBarriersTrappedOppressedAvenuesConfinedOccasionalBlockedCaged
Book:The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory
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