Perhaps patriarchy's greatest psychological weapon is simply its universality and longevity. ... Patriarchy has a still more tenacious or powerful hold through its successful habit of passing itself off as nature. Kate Millett More Quotes by Kate Millett More Quotes From Kate Millett When one group rules another, the relationship between the two is political. When such an arrangement is carried out over a long period of time it develops an ideology (feudalism, racism, etc.). All historical civilizations are patriarchies: their ideology is male supremacy. Kate Millett civilization two long During depression the world disappears. Language itself. One has nothing to say. Nothing. No small talk, no anecdotes. Nothing can be risked on the board of talk. Because the inner voice is so urgent in its own discourse: How shall I live? How shall I manage the future? Why should I go on? Kate Millett anecdotes voice depression Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality. Kate Millett homosexuality bisexual world To love is simply to allow another to be, live, grow, expand, become. An appreciation that demands and expects nothing in return. Kate Millett return love-is appreciation We are women. We are a subject people who have inherited an alien culture. Kate Millett aliens culture people Many women do not recognize themselves as discriminated against; no better proof could be found of the totality of their conditioning. Kate Millett conditioning discrimination proof A sexual revolution begins with the emancipation of women, who are the chief victims of patriarchy, and also with the ending of homosexual oppression. Kate Millett oppression revolution victim You have to be a little patient if you're an artist. People don't always get you the first time. Kate Millett artist littles people In sex one wants or does not want. And the grief, the sorrow of life is that one cannot make or coerce or persuade the wanting, cannot command it, cannot request it by mail order or finagle it through bureaucratic channels. Kate Millett grief order sex Aren't women prudes if they don't and prostitutes if they do? Kate Millett prudes women ifs The complete destruction of traditional marriage and the nuclear family is the 'revolutionary or utopian' goal of feminism. Kate Millett nuclear-families feminism goal Let us stop being afraid. Of our own thoughts, our own minds. Of madness, our own or others'. Stop being afraid of the mind itself, its astonishing functions and fandangos, its complications and simplifications, the wonderful operation of its machinery--more wonderful because it is not machinery at all or predictable. Kate Millett madness mind wonderful However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power Kate Millett power fundamentals culture The image of the woman as we know it is an image created by men and fashioned to suit their needs. Kate Millett suits men needs Isn't privacy about keeping taboos in their place Kate Millett taboo privacy The enormous social change involved in a sexual revolution is basically a matter of altered consciousness, the exposure and elimination of social and psychological realities underlying political and cultural structures. We are speaking, then, of a cultural revolution, which, while it must necessarily involve the political and economic reorganization traditionally implied by the term revolution, must go far beyond this as well. Kate Millett women political reality It may be that a second wave of the sexual revolution might at last accomplish its aim of freeing half the race from its immemorial subordination--and in the process bring us all a great deal closer to humanity. It may be that we shall even be able to retire sex from the harsh realities of politics, but not until we have created a world we can bear out of the desert we inhabit. Kate Millett women sex reality Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different. Kate Millett males life two In many patriarchies, language, as well as cultural tradition, reserve the human condition for the male. With the Indo-European languages this is a nearly inescapable habit of mind, for despite all the customary pretense that 'man' and 'humanity' are terms which apply equally to both sexes, the fact is hardly obscured that in practice, general application favors the male far more often than the female as referent, or even sole referent, for such designations. Kate Millett practice men sex They are more beautiful than anything in the world, kinetic sculptures, perfect form in motion. Kate Millett sculpture perfect beautiful
