Sexual Politics (1970) is a non-fiction book by American author and activist Kate Millett based on her PhD

dissertation. Millett argues that sex has a frequently neglected political aspect. She explores the role patriarchy
plays in sexual relations, especially those between men and women. She focuses on the work of famous
authors, including D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Norman Mailer, looking at the way they view and
discuss sex through a traditional male filter. She also explores some newer, alternative, authors, and looks at
the work of famous psychologists who explored concepts of sex including Sigmund Freud. Exploring themes
of sexual discrimination, alternative sexualities, and the sociopolitical underpinnings of gender
discrimination, Sexual Politics is considered one of the first works of radical feminism and was largely
influenced by Simone De Beauvoir’s 1949 book The Second Sex. Many of Millett’s assessments are
controversial to this day, although it is still widely read and was most recently reissued in 2016.
Sexual Politics is divided into chapters, with the opening segment being a general exploration of the concepts
of Millett’s thesis. Her main focus is an analysis of the patriarchal bias that underlies virtually all literary
productions. Sexual Politics was the first major work to apply feminist literary theory to specific works of
literature. She focuses on how male-dominated culture produces writers and literary works that are degrading
to women and set back the cause of reforms that would alleviate the negative conditions that women deal with
every day. Chapter 1 describes the concept of sexual politics, Millett’s primary concept. She makes an attempt
to define, describe, and provide examples of what she refers to as “the ancient and universal scheme for the
domination of one birth group by another—the scheme that prevails in the area of sex.” Millett argues that sex
underlies all political questions and that it is essential to bring this principle into the public eye before any
positive steps can be taken to repair the damage it’s done over centuries.
Chapter 2 serves as a history of the early feminist movement, looking at the cultural and historical
underpinnings of the movement and providing a blueprint that Millett argues future feminist agitators must
follow. The segment breaks down the movement by historical periods, beginning with the first phase of the
sexual revolution, which took place from 1830 to 1930. Millett explores the political, polemical, and literary
movers and thinkers of the era before moving forward and looking at what she dubs the counterrevolution,
which took place from 1930 to 1960 and reversed a lot of the successful advances of the previous era. In her
discussion of reactionary policy, Millett focuses on both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which though
polar opposites in politics, held many of the same goals in social policy—the reversal of equality for women
and a celebration of “traditional roles,” especially motherhood. She also looks at the counterrevolution in
ideology, exploring how Sigmund Freud and the influence of psychoanalytic thought impacted the feminist
movement. She explores the work of post-Freudians and looks at the influence of Functionalism as a
psychological model.
The third and longest segment of the book focuses on Millett’s analysis of significant literary figures and how
their works were influenced by and perpetuated the concept of patriarchy. The first writer she focuses on is
D.H. Lawrence, the English author best known for his novels Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Lawrence was one of the first popular twentieth-century authors to feature explicit sexual content in his work,
but Millett criticizes him for prioritizing the male perspective. Her next focus is the twentieth-century
American author Henry Miller, best known for his semi-autobiographical works, including Tropic of
Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. His books largely combined philosophical and social analysis with explicit
language and sexual content, but Millett portrays his work as epitomizing toxic masculinity. The popular
American playwright and novelist Norman Mailer is Millett’s next focus, as she takes apart several of his
works including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Executioner’s Song, exploring their sexual and social politics.
Mailer, like Millett, is firmly on the left-wing side of the spectrum, but Millett argues his progressivism does
not extend to his portrayal of women. She contrasts their work with that of the French novelist and activist
Jean Genet, who was one of the earliest proponents of feminism and progressive politics across the spectrum
among prominent male authors.
Kate Millett was an American feminist author, educator, artist, and activist, best known for her book Sexual
Politics. She was active in many political movements of the era, including the third-wave feminist movement,
peace activism, civil rights activism, and anti-psychiatry movements. Her art was exhibited around the world,
and she published eleven books during her lifetime. She was involved in six documentaries for film and
television, either producing or appearing on screen. Before her death in 2017, she was inducted into the
National Women’s Hall of Fame.