Kate Millett Quotes

Quotes about:

Culture Hell Humanity Illness Madness Mental Illness Patriarchy

The complete destruction of traditional marriage and the nuclear family is the 'revolutionary or utopian' goal of feminism.

Kate Millett

Goal, Feminism, Nuclear Families

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The image of the woman as we know it is an image created by men and fashioned to suit their needs.

Kate Millett

Men, Needs, Suits

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When one group rules another, the relationship between the two is political. When such an arrangement is carried out over a long period of time it develops an ideology (feudalism, racism, etc.). All historical civilizations are patriarchies: their ideology is male supremacy.

Kate Millett

Civilization, Two, Long

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Many women do not recognize themselves as discriminated against; no better proof could be found of the totality of their conditioning.

Kate Millett

Discrimination, Proof, Conditioning

Kate Millett (2016). “Sexual Politics”, p.55, Columbia University Press

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We are women. We are a subject people who have inherited an alien culture.

Kate Millett

People, Culture, Aliens

Kate Millett (2000). “Flying”, p.507, University of Illinois Press

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Perhaps patriarchy's greatest psychological weapon is simply its universality and longevity. ... Patriarchy has a still more tenacious or powerful hold through its successful habit of passing itself off as nature.

Kate Millett

Powerful, Successful, Weapons

Sexual Politics ch. 2 (1970)

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A sexual revolution begins with the emancipation of women, who are the chief victims of patriarchy, and also with the ending of homosexual oppression.

Kate Millett

Revolution, Oppression, Victim

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During depression the world disappears. Language itself. One has nothing to say. Nothing. No small talk, no anecdotes. Nothing can be risked on the board of talk. Because the inner voice is so urgent in its own discourse: How shall I live? How shall I manage the future? Why should I go on?

Kate Millett

Depression, Voice, Anecdotes

Kate Millett (1990). “The Loony-bin Trip”, p.283, University of Illinois Press

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Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality.

Kate Millett

Bisexual, World, Homosexuality

Kate Millett (2000). “Flying”, p.97, University of Illinois Press

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To love is simply to allow another to be, live, grow, expand, become. An appreciation that demands and expects nothing in return.

Kate Millett

Appreciation, Love Is, Return

Kate Millett (2000). “Sita”, p.181, University of Illinois Press

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Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different.

Kate Millett

Life, Two, Males

Kate Millett (2016). “Sexual Politics”, p.31, Columbia University Press

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Aren't women prudes if they don't and prostitutes if they do?

Kate Millett

Women, Prudes, Ifs

"Word Origin Comics: Being a Prude While Maintaining Your Pride" by Larry Paros, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 9, 2015.

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However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power

Kate Millett

Power, Culture, Fundamentals

Kate Millett (2016). “Sexual Politics”, p.25, Columbia University Press

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The lesbian is the archtypical feminist, because she's not into men - she's the independent woman par excellence.

Kate Millett

Sex, Independent, Men

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The great mass of women throughout history have been confined to the cultural level of animal life in providing the male with sexual outlet and exercising the animal functions of reproduction and care of the young.

Kate Millett

Women, Exercise, Animal

Kate Millett (2016). “Sexual Politics”, p.119, Columbia University Press

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Intercourse is an assertion of mastery, one that announces his own higher caste and proves it upon a victim who is expected to surrender, serve, and be satisfied.

Kate Millett

Sex, Mastery, Surrender

Kate Millett (2016). “Sexual Politics”, p.20, Columbia University Press

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The enormous social change involved in a sexual revolution is basically a matter of altered consciousness, the exposure and elimination of social and psychological realities underlying political and cultural structures. We are speaking, then, of a cultural revolution, which, while it must necessarily involve the political and economic reorganization traditionally implied by the term revolution, must go far beyond this as well.

Kate Millett

Women, Reality, Political

Kate Millett (2016). “Sexual Politics”, p.362, Columbia University Press

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You have to be a little patient if you're an artist. People don't always get you the first time.

Kate Millett

Artist, People, Littles

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The concept of romantic love affords a means of emotional manipulation which the male is free to exploit, since love is the only circumstance in which the female is (ideologically) pardoned for sexual activity.

Kate Millett

Happiness, True Love, Mean

Kate Millett (2016). “Sexual Politics”, p.37, Columbia University Press

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Let us stop being afraid. Of our own thoughts, our own minds. Of madness, our own or others'. Stop being afraid of the mind itself, its astonishing functions and fandangos, its complications and simplifications, the wonderful operation of its machinery--more wonderful because it is not machinery at all or predictable.

Kate Millett

Mind, Madness, Wonderful

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In sex one wants or does not want. And the grief, the sorrow of life is that one cannot make or coerce or persuade the wanting, cannot command it, cannot request it by mail order or finagle it through bureaucratic channels.

Kate Millett

Sex, Grief, Order

Kate Millett (2000). “Sita”, p.178, University of Illinois Press

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How crazy craziness makes everyone, how irrationally afraid. The madness hidden in each of us, called to, identified, aroused like a lust. And against that the jaw sets. The more I fear my own insanity the more I must punish yours.

Kate Millett

Crazy, Insanity, Lust

Kate Millett (1990). “The Loony-bin Trip”, p.68, University of Illinois Press

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No one should be adored, it's fundamentally immoral.

Kate Millett

Should, Immoral

Kate Millett (1990). “The Loony-bin Trip”, p.69, University of Illinois Press

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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.

Kate Millett

Sex, Women, Reality

Kate Millett (2016). “Sexual Politics”, p.363, Columbia University Press

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Hostility is expressed in a number of ways. One is laughter.

Kate Millett

Laughter, Anger, Numbers

Kate Millett (2016). “Sexual Politics”, p.45, Columbia University Press

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Born: September 14, 1934
Occupation: Writer
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