Sheila Jeffreys Quotes

Women are prevented by the threat and reality of male violence from entering public space on equal terms with male citizens.

This condition in which women live is created out of, and defended by, a system of ideas represented by the world's religions, by psychoanalysis, by pornography, by sexology, by science and medicine and the social sciences.

Male domination, and the low and stigmatised status of women, cause teenage girls to engage in punishment of their bodies through eating disorders and self-mutilation. There is increasing evidence that woman-hating Western cultures are toxic to girls and very harmful to their mental health. It is, perhaps, not surprising, therefore, that there seem to be some girls baling out and seeking to upgrade their status.

The scope of the transgender empire may be reaching its peak, as transcriticism is increasing at a fast pace both within activist feminism and from wives and regretters. There is an increasing groundswell of criticism of the concept and practice of transgenderism from a newly invigorated radical feminist movement. Moreover, the idea of transgenderism has become so vague and general that the category is in danger of being exploded.

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

Pornography as propaganda, according to feminist analysis, represents women as objects who love to be abused, and teaches men practices of degradation and abuse to carry out upon women.

The effect of legalised prostitution on women outside prostitution is to lower the status of all women. Women are recognised by the state in this system as the appropriate objects of male penetration with no consideration for their personhood or pleasure. This teaches that the penetration and use of an unwilling woman is ‘sex’, an idea that lies at the root of sexual violence against women in general. There is no chance of developing a sexuality of equality in which women’s pleasure, right to say no, and bodily integrity are respected whilst the violence of prostitution is allowed to continue with state support for men’s behaviour.

Fundamental to a radical and lesbian feminist politics is the understanding that 'the personal is political'. This phrase has two interrelated meanings. It means that the political power structures of the 'public' world are reflected in the private world. Thus, for women in particular, the 'private' world of heterosexuality is not a realm of personal security, a haven from a heartless world, but an intimate realm in which their work is extracted and their bodies, sexuality and emotions are constrained and exploited for the benefits of individual men and the male supremacist political system. The very concept of 'privacy' as Catharine MacKinnon so cogently expresses it, 'has shielded the place of battery, marital rape, and women's exploited labor'. But the phrase has a complementary meaning, which is that the 'public' world of male power, the world of corporations, militaries and parliaments is founded upon this private subordination. The edifice of masculine power relations, from aggressive nuclear posturing to take-over bids, is constructed on the basis of its distinctiveness from the 'feminine' sphere and based upon the world of women which nurtures and services that male power. Transformation of the public world of masculine aggression, therefore, requires transformation of the relations that take place in 'private'. Public equality cannot derive from private slavery.