Talk:Shulamith Firestone

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 September 2019 and 11 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Raeganzottl, Miss.Ashlyn. Peer reviewers: Jbouchie, Leslyn S.

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 January 2020 and 7 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jlschell. Peer reviewers: Kyamauc.

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Not that it sounds impluasible at all, but I'm always suspiscious of misplaced additions by ananoymous IPs, so having not read her works thoroughly myself, I was wondering if anyone could confirm the following:

Firestone also advocated raising children in units of eight to ten adults who would all live together and share the responsibilities of childcare amongst them. Units could apply for a licence to have a child artificially or a woman could opt to have the child herself although the rest of the unit would share the responsibility for supporting her while she was pregnant and would share the child care responsibilities once the child was born.

-Erolos 19:04, 14 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

This isn't necessarily an inaccurate addition, but it is misleading. There is a chapter in The Dialectic of Sex in which Firestone suggests possible alternative social structures, but it's a lot less prescriptive than the passage above makes out. It's in the context of a discussion about avoiding an Orwellian society, not creating one. Firestone is careful to point out that she does not aim at the eradication of individual life, emotion or choice - in fact, she aims at the exact opposite. A fairer summary of the point she makes would be to say "Firestone explored a number of possible social changes that she argued would result in a post-patriarchal society, including the abolition of the nuclear family and the promotion of community living." I'll amend the article. -- TinaSparkle 15:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

The article mentions that, "Kathleen Hanna, among others, often cites it [eg, the Dialectic of Sex] as a critical work." I think this should be removed per WP:UNDUE. With all respect to Kathleen Hanna, I do not think that she is more important than any of numerous other feminists who have cited The Dialectic of Sex as a critical work. Devil Goddess (talk) 19:35, 22 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

I've changed my mind, and relocated this information instead. Devil Goddess (talk) 23:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

I reverted the mention of her death which was unsourced, and so far not mentioned in any reliable source that I can find, although it appears to be an Internet rumor. It can be reinstated with proper sourcing, which I will try to follow up on. MCB (talk) 19:58, 29 August 2012 (UTC)Reply

It's confirmed. http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/110721/shulamith-firestone-1945-2012 108.6.19.94 (talk) 19:37, 30 August 2012 (UTC)Reply

The first paragraph of "Life and Career" seem largely lifted word for word from the New York Times obit, an article that is cited only for another part of the entry. :/ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/nyregion/shulamith-firestone-feminist-writer-dies-at-67.html?_r=0 Beigefolder (talk) 05:21, 22 January 2013 (UTC)BeigefolderReply

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Is there any discussion on how her severe mental illness may have affected her ideas? Also I am curious as to why there is no section criticizing her work. Surely such radical ideas had detractors. van Lustig (talk) 11:29, 25 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hello,

I agree with your thoughts. I noticed that a lot of other Wikipedia pages of sociologists or anyone that has published work has a section with critiques. As I was finding sources to refer to when adding information to some article sections, I noticed that there are plenty of sources with their own critiques about Firestone and her work. Unfortunately, I have limited access to some of these sources, as they either require money or a code to access them. If anyone has any free primary sources that they could link below, that would be great! Daniellesoriano (talk) 03:14, 5 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

This is a pretty common 3rd rail, many leaders of this movement from her era were demonstrably mentally ill. For instance, Kate Millet actually wrote about her experiences being forcibly hospitalized due to things like going catatonic at public events, barricading herself in an airport bathroom in the middle of an episode, etc. and used it to basically say the mental health system should be disregarded, but there's not even a scintilla of discussion about how it might have affected her ideas. If the topic is broached, you'll basically get the pushback that mental illness and hospitalization is used as a tool to silence women who speak out against the patriarchy. JamesG5 (talk) 18:01, 18 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi all,

As a college student editing this page, I really think it would be beneficial to have more information in her "Education" section. I know there is a lot of information about her activism when she was around the age of a college student (22-25), but I am having a hard time finding more information about her being involved specifically with WashU STL and The Art Institute of Chicago. I'm curious to how her classmates and professors viewed her, and what kind of reputation she had during her time at school. I'm also interested to know of any possible influences she could have had during her time in college. I know that a lot of her work is inspired by Marx and many other sociologists, but I wonder if there's anyone that taught her in higher education that influenced her to initiate more radical kinds of conversations and inspire such great change. Surely there are some primary resources out there, perhaps something more biography style, that would have this kind of information in it, but I cannot find any on my end. Daniellesoriano (talk) 02:47, 5 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

The lead is normal (Canadian-American radical feminist writer and activist), mentioning her countries of origin and citizenship in accordance with the standard guidelines for leads, but when I type 'Shulamith Firestone' in the search box, the description that appears is 'Jewish radical feminist activist (1945-2012)', oddly focusing on her ethnic origins as her most defining feature apart from her politics. I don't know how this can be changed, but it should. 78.154.15.163 (talk) 06:59, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Looks like it was changed in 2023 [1] with the edit summary Factual description of her heritage so we’re sure nothing is hidden or obscured. Yeah, that's not weird or anything. That being said, I'm not entirely sure what her nationality was. She was born in Canada and emigrated to the US as a child, so you'd assume that at some point she would have naturalized, but looking at biographies that mention her nationality, stuff like Ebsco[2] and the CBC[3] only say that she was "Canadian born" at most. Given that in unclear cases we leave nationality out, and given that her being born in Canada is that relevant to her notability, I'm just going to trim the citizenship bit out. If somebody wants to restore it, they can find a source. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 21:04, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

What, exactly, was Firestone’s attitude toward pedophilia? Several of her contemporaries, such as Kate Millett, were sympathetic towards it (and even advocated eliminating age-of-consent laws). There are numerous articles online claiming Firestone also defended pedophilia, but since most of these sources have an ideological axe to grind against feminism in general, they don’t qualify as reliable sources by Wikipedia’s standards. Are there any, more neutral, sources that would clear up the answer to this question? 173.27.3.111 (talk) 03:47, 1 September 2025 (UTC)Reply