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Snitzer 1 Erin Snitzer Professor Klobucka WGS Capstone 20 February, 2017 Firestone’s Critiques of the Nuclear Family Throughout Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex, almost every facet of society and its gendered structures are broken down and heavily criticized at their base levels. In particular, the family structure created by patriarchal civilization is a heavy target. Aside from the obvious dichotomy and imbalance of the modern family, Firestone takes aim at the impracticality, inefficiency, and expectations of child rearing all involved in the nuclear family. While she compartmentalizes and offers solutions to all of these issues, there is still a lack of analysis in pertinence to non – heterosexual living arrangements, even in the polyamorous communities she proposes. In the chapter titled “Feminism in the Age of Ecology” Firestone highlights the many pseudo – scientific and popular lines of reasoning for maintaining a patriarchal family structure and not releasing the means of reproduction. One point she asserts that provides a great example of the issues ingrained into the nuclear family structure is that it allows for a mental disconnect from the general populous. Specifically she claims that patriarchal structure encourages, “Us – Against – Them chauvinism (blood is thicker); the division between … the public and the private … the privatization of the sex experience; the power psychology; and so on.” (222-223) Due to the nuclear structure Snitzer 2 containing a hierarchy that carries throughout generations – and relying on the persistent creation of generations – citizens dissociate empathy for any lives other than those of their progeny and their significant others. This subsequently halts revolution for fear of the individual ego; and also creates a microcosm of this dichotomy. Allegorically, men begin to dissociate empathy for women and children in the interest of their own power. The nuclear structure asserts that men should be the head of a household and should be willing to risk their lives for their family and/or country. When men do not allow women and children physical, fiscal, nor political autonomy they can then claim that it is in the interest of the family structure, when it is factually in the interest of maintaining patriarchal power. In this sense, men become a family in and of themselves that will only fight and defend their own; and women must – as Firestone asserts – wage revolution against them as men would’ve done against their own state or republic. Something that Firestone curiously omits from her analysis of the nuclear family is its absolute reliance on heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality. Throughout the chapter titled “Conclusion: The Ultimate Revolution” she introduces alternatives to the modern family structure. This includes a lack of maternal and paternal relationships to children, community parenting, and non monogamous relationships. (270-271) Although Firestone abandons all other facets of heteronormative relationships in striving for a utopian and egalitarian household structure, heterosexuality is still the only discussed sexuality that is qualified for kinship. Lesbian and Gay individuals are still viewed as outsiders even in this extremely liberal definition of family. This could be for a few Snitzer 3 reasons, one in particular being that Lesbian and Gay couples cannot biologically reproduce in and of themselves. While in the previous chapter Firestone asserts that, “Artificial reproduction is not inherently dehumanizing.” (227), she still structures a family around how children are raised and how dependent they should or shouldn’t be on the adults in their community. For efficiency’s sake, Lesbian and Gay folks are not particularly needed in this system an are subsequently re - oppressed by a system that is meant to be egalitarian. Firestone does a brilliant job in analyzing the issues with the nuclear family structure. In particular, she assesses the ways in which a patriarchal system dichotomizes the public and the private; and therefore women and men. We learn from Firestone that revolution cannot happen if we do not first rethink the way we view a family unit. While she succeeds in this realm, she ultimately fails to discuss the inevitable inclusion of Lesbian and Gay relationships into this heterosexual “utopian” view of kinship. As long as Lesbian and Gay folks are removed from the possibility of revolutionary family structures, they cannot participate in revolutionary action under Firestone’s dialectic. Snitzer 4 Works Cited Firestone, Shulamith. The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. New York: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1970. Print.