Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Feuerstein died a few days ago. August 28th to be exact. Her death wasn’t unexpected, nor was it much noticed. A shame really because Shulie, as she was better known, was a true pioneer in the feminist movement.
Shulie was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Ottawa, Canada, in 1945. Her family later relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, Americanizing the family name to Firestone. Shulie’s younger sister Tirzah became a rabbi and authored books on female figures in Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah.
Shulie wrote books too. In 1970 when she was just 25 years old she published her first and best known book, The Dialectic of Sex: A Case for Feminist Revolution. That tome by this unruly wench, in concert with Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics, the anthology Sisterhood is Powerful edited by Robin Morgan and other contemporary works ignited controversy and fomented much public debate on the topic of feminism and civil rights in general.
This was the beginning of the second wave of the women’s movement and the result was greater freedom and opportunity for women.
This was the beginning of the second wave of the women’s movement and the result was greater freedom and opportunity for women.
In Dialectic Shulie put a very interesting spin on the debate... arguing that true gender equality would be an impossible achievement until science freed women from their biological role as bearers of children. Shulie took a science fiction approach to the differences, envisioning an artificial womb in which fetuses could be grown and birthed from. The infants would then be raised in communal households with eight or ten mothers and fathers.
Dialectic was Shulie's single contribution to feminist theory, but until about the turn of the millennium she remained required reading in college women's studies programs.
Dialectic was Shulie's single contribution to feminist theory, but until about the turn of the millennium she remained required reading in college women's studies programs.
The women’s movement of the 70’s produced several memorable stories and considerable concrete result. Shulie’s ideas remain farfetched, yet her death is especially poignant in light of the ongoing assault from the religious right on the freedoms gained by women over these past 40 years.
Maybe we need a new Shulie to step forward. Something needs to happen to hold back the coming new dark age.
Maybe we need a new Shulie to step forward. Something needs to happen to hold back the coming new dark age.
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