Woman's Estate - (Feminist Classics) by Juliet Mitchell (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Combining the energy of the early seventies feminist movement with the perceptive analyses of the trained theorist, Woman's Estate is one of the most influential socialist feminist statements of its time. Scrutinizing the political background of the movement, its sources and its common ground with other radical manifestations of the sixties, Woman's Estate describes the organization of women's liberation in Western Europe and America. In this foundational text, Mitchell locates the areas of women's oppression in four key areas: work, reproduction, sexuality and the socialization of children. Through a close study of the modern family and a re-evaluation of Freud's work in this field, Mitchell paints a detailed picture of patriarchy in action.

Review Quotes

"The quality of Mitchell's thinking is revealed by her ability both to be critical of certain aspects of the women's movement, and yet keep herself free of the bitterness and disillusion of radicals of an older generation."
--Richard Sennett, New York Review of Books

"Juliet Mitchell's brilliant book from 1970 knew in advance that movements of liberation are linked, that economic analysis alone cannot fully describe oppression, and that recourse to feelings can only be a point of departure for analyzing social conditions and structures that produce women as a class. Her analysis brought complexity and passion to the understanding of the feminist movement that is all too timely today as recourse to biological reductionism moves some forms of feminisms to the Right. This book offers a splendid analysis that keeps the reader moving through dimensions of oppression still only rarely thought together - family, class, race, education, and religion. A new benchmark then and now for social analysis that thinks gendered life in its formative political and psychic conditions, and a persistent and compelling vision of the reflective alliances needed for overcoming oppression."
--Judith Butler, author of Who's Afraid of Gender?

About the Author

Juliet Mitchell is Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Psychoanalysis and Feminism; Siblings: Sex and Violence; and Mad Men and Medusas.