The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory by Marilyn Frye

The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory Reviews

• 
  AJ

  I enjoyed the essay on oppression, which set the stage for what I was hoping to be an excellent collection of feminist essays. I found the subsequent essays to be dreadfully academic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just not my idea of pleasure reading. But whatever, I skimmed through the parts I found to be less interesting and the essays were okay.
  
  Then I got to the essay "Lesbian Feminism and the Gay Rights Movement" which is basically a giant rant about how gay men are the torchbearers of the patriarchy. Her points are as follows:
  
  - Gay men love other men, other men have penises, therefore gay men are all about penis worship, and therefore are upholding the patriarchy. (She mentions naught about heterosexual women. Are they upholding the patriarchy as well if they have relationships with men?) She only briefly mention how gender-bending gay men can be, and how this may serve to break down the male/female gender binary. But mostly she states that effeminacy just serves to ridicule women. I don't even think I need to explain how problematic this idea is, that loving men hurts women, period.
  
  - Some gay men are married to women (and may have children), which means they not only can love other men, but can still grab onto their male privilege to subjugate women in the institution of marriage. What about gay men who came of age in an area (or era) where it wasn't safe to be out and proud about homosexuality? What about gay men who wanted to have children, but weren't able to adopt due to draconian laws forbidding gays from adopting children? What about men who, still to this day, remain closeted due to (not unwarranted) fear about coming out?
  
  - Gay men hate women. Wait, what? Marilyn Frye seriously has this as one of her bullet points. For a feminist who rails against the "feminists hate men" stereotype, she seems quite eager and willing to uphold a "gay men hate women" stereotype. I can't even fathom this as being remotely true.
  
  After reading this essay I really lost respect for the author, and only just skimmed briefly through the last essay (a confusing one about how lesbians and women aren't part of phallocratic societies, therefore they don't exist).
  
  I really wouldn't recommend this book to anybody, unless they had to read it for a women's studies course. In that case I'd ask them to read it with a very skeptical and questioning mind.
• 
  sæfaɪɚ

  This book is a must-read for anyone invested in feminism. It's the sort of book that you can read more than once, and learn something new or gain a different insight the second/third/fourth time around. The book is *so* structured, and her arguments are so succinct and well-formulated, so it's not a matter of the content being poorly explained; the content is just very, very deep. The imagery Frye uses, especially, is really profound and elegant: the bird in a wire cage as an analogy for oppression, the stagehands and the actor as an analogy for woman's relationship to men. She's utterly no-nonsense, and does not cater to men, not even gay men, in a way that is truly refreshing given today's political climate. I found the last chapter, especially, to be really insightful, and it contextualized a lot of lesbian/feminist experiences for me in a way that really resonated with my life. I highly recommend this book to any feminist.
• 
  l

  “Oppression” is a very clear essay, and a good what is and what isn’t oppression 101.
  
  “Some reflections on separatism and power” is amazing and necessary. Down with male parasitism!
  
  “A note on anger” has a good insight: “Anger. Domain. Respect.”
  
  Wasn’t sold on the rest. Some of her reflections on race are bizarre - “natives of India and Pakistan are generally counted as white in [america]”??? Also the navel gazing - “does being white make it impossible for me to be a good person?” Pass. The chapter on gay rights vs lesbian rights is also weird af. I understand there was a certain amount of tension between gay and lesbian activists but jfc.
• 
  freya

  Before I say anything, I will say I am a queer and genderqueer teenager reading this to book for a family member. The dissection of my thoughts on the essays is not a criticism of Marilyn Frye or anybody mentioned. I don’t hate anybody! These essays are much older than I, and thus the ideas in them are not made for me.
  
  That said, I’m honestly shocked about the exclusion of trans people from the essays in this book. There was one off-hand (joke?) about not asking male people to get a “sex change” to be true feminists. The other was a vague mention of intersex people (without using that term) in the last essay which made no sense to me personally. My relationship with being raised as a girl and my sexuality are totally linked to my less than normal gender identity. I was a bit disappointed to find out that she wasn’t going to mention trans or nb people, as that was the whole reason I read it.
  
  I also found the book to be very dry. It took me four months to read this because it is so dense and difficult to understand. However, I am glad I finished it.
  
  Some things I found important:
  - I truly appreciate Frye’s inclusion of women and their assimilation into the same society currently dominated by men. This was mentioned in an essay in “Out of Harm’s Way”. I find that today I see a lot of people in different enclaves of oppression who focus solely on becoming “equal” to the ideal cis-het white man. I will use an example from my life. In the suburb I live in, there are quite a few married gay couples in opposite-gender relationships. These people have kids, and a house in the suburbs and have successfully achieved the American dream. My town is predominantly liberal millennial and gen x homeowners and very old conservatives. Will the straight suburbanites living in the pride flag-ridden houses ever accept these couples as a “normal” part of their neighborhood (despite their performative decor)? Of course not. And yet, these gay families tend to harbor disturbing views on Trans people who years ago would have been just beside them. This seems very flawed to me, and I applaud Marilyn for speaking about this through a lesbian and or feminist lenze (I KNOW THAT’S NOT HOW YOU SPELL IT BUT I CAN’T FIGURE IT OUT). It is refreshing to hear feminists of older waves think in a more nuanced way and challenge systems of oppression rather than trying to climb the ladder themselves.
  - When I think of minority separatism, I personally think of Black Separatism, and the Black Power movement. And yet I found myself relating to a lot of behaviors Frye listed in an essay about this topic. I do limit my consumption of media that excludes or unfairly represents people like me. I do limit my circle to people who I know understand at least some of my experiences. I found this really interesting, and it’s something I’d like to take more time to think about in relation to my gender, my queerness, and my values.
  - The essay “Lesbian Feminism and Gay Rights” really threw me off. I have zero idea what it was like to be a queer person seen as a woman in the 1970s. I will be critiquing this essay through my experiences with queer men, and people I perceive as queer men. Most of this essay was spent on Frye’s grievances with queer men. Her claims mostly rely on the idea that queer men are penis worshiping, and inherently misogynistic because of their attraction to men. This is a very simplistic way of looking at a large group of people that I can’t under any circumstances look past. I have met more queer men than queer women, and I can say that from my surface-level relationships with most of them, this isn’t a universally true thing. Painting things like this with such a wide brush is unwise. I was really uncomfortable with a passage in the essay about effeminate gay men “appropriating” femininity. This kind of rhetoric is pushed a lot by TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) in the exact same words. I thought she was also very closed-minded when it comes to what it means to be feminine. Frye herself presents in a pretty gender non-conforming way, so to suggest that men being feminine was phallocratic made me feel icky and uncomfortable. Challenging the status quo of gender presentation can be very dangerous, and thinking of it as a purposeful "attack" on women feels wrong to me.
  
  Recommendation: I think that if you are a person raised as a boy who is just coming into feminism and what it means for you, then this is a good read. Take the last two essays with a grain of salt, take breaks to do something fun, and you’ll be fine. If you like me were raised as a girl with pretty “left-leaning” guardians, I don’t feel like this is a necessary read. I felt kinda depressed hearing about the state of the world being reiterated over and over again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I can make myself sad thank you very much.
• 
  Wyatt

  In The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory, American feminist philosopher Dr. Marilyn Frye compiles a collection of her essays (nine in total) pertaining to patriarchy, separatism, race, and oppression (among other topics). Overall, the arguments were candid, concise, and structured (although I do take issue with some of her conclusions). The prose was scholarly but occasionally veered into territories of inaccessibility and academic jargon.
  
  The first essay, "Oppression," is an effective articulation of the eponymous concept, particularly in its application to the experiences and situation of women in a patriarchal world. The birdcage analogy really drove this point home and is easily transferable to other axes of oppression such as race, class, et cetera. "In and Out of Harm's Way" is a fascinating account of exploitation and enslavement as they pertain to feminist epistemology. "A Note on Anger" is a poignant illustration of the trivialization and invalidation of women's anger unless said anger is amenable to patriarchal norms and mores.
  
  "On Separatism and Power" wasn't very convincing. While I was intrigued by Frye's thoughts on male parasitism, I was left unsure by the objective of the essay. In short, she makes the case that separatism unsettles men because of their dependence on women, but closes on the point that separatism remains controversial. And, furthermore, she demonstrated a blind spot concerning the ability or lack thereof of women to practice forms of separatism. This blind spot or privilege returns in her essay "On Being White" where she attempts to seriously reflect on race as a white person. I definitely appreciate that she recognized intersectionality and elucidated some of the ways white feminism doesn't include or assist women of color, but Frye inevitably centered white feelings and whether a white person can be good.
  
  "Lesbian Feminism and the Gay Rights Movement" was a shotty affair. The crux of this essay is that, contrary to expectation, the mission of the gay rights movement overlaps much more with traditional patriarchal masculinity than lesbian feminism. While Frye makes a lot of interesting points about heterosexual masculinity like the presence of male homoeroticism and the worship of the phallus, her claim that gay masculinity is the "logical extension" of patriarchy was suspect, especially because some of her specific stances aren't substantiated. Like, most notably, that some gay men's effeminacy is a form of contempt toward women.
  
  There were other problems that encompassed all the essays. Frye doesn't discuss or even acknowledge any dismantlement of the gender binary as a viable approach. Any trans issues or trans perspective is also sorely lacking. In short, Frye's essays are seminal works for the time and context in which they were developed. A few of them definitely retain their relevance to this day, but others have been built upon by other philosophers, writers, and activists to promote an overall more inclusive feminism.
• 
  Reading Addict

  AMAZING!!!!!!!! SO GREAT!!!! I LOVED IT!!!!!
• 
  Mariya

  Don't know what I can add to the 500+ reviews apart from read this amazing book!! Thanks Marilyn for putting into short words the feelings I've been feeling but not been able to put down in words.
• 
  Lina Ellis-Lorde

  This book has changed my life and I will read it again and again!
• 
  Chase

  Like some of my recent reads, I read only a part of this text for the polit. theory class I am currently in at university. Reading just the first essay of Frye's book titled Oppression gave me good information regarding the definition of oppression (specifically by gender) and in what ways it affects the oppressed and the oppressor. One thing I really liked was Frye's distinction of oppression vs. boundaries and restrictions. I found it very pertinent to the COVID conversation around mask and vaccine mandates, as the people opposed to such laws commonly cry about how "oppressed" they are by mandates put in place for the safety of everyone (just like traffic laws do). In the situation of the aspects of being a woman or man, I agree with most of what Frye has to say; women and other oppressed identities are forced into a double bind scenario with many societal norms. Men, however, are not apart of the "oppressed" in this dynamic and only face limitations, boundaries, and restrictions that otherwise help maintain supremacy over women. However, due to the "2nd 1/2 Wave" Feminist theory Frye discussed within, but not as a generalization in her whole canon of theory (as I have just read this one essay), she does not delve into the topic of intersectionality of identities and the other oppressions that can emerge with that. Of course, intersectionality would not become more mainstream until 4th wave feminism, but in the conclusion of the essay I could not help but feel Frye painted with too broad of brushstrokes when stating to what extent men have power regardless of disability, race, gender, class, and other intersecting identities. Surely much of the institution of male supremacy also receives mutual support from white supremacy and the dictatorship of the bourgeoise, no? I would chalk this up to Frye rather just wanting to focus on the particular institution of male supremacy over women instead of continuing in this specific essay to the relationship this dialectic has with other relations of power.
• 
  Maya

  As a radical feminist, I bought this book in the hope that I would gain more insight into radfem theory. But holy crap, am I ever disappointed.
  
  Her first essay (on oppression) was pretty good; but the rest of the book read like an exercise in making interesting things boring. She couldn't be more dry if she tried. Her essay on separatism wasn't the slightest bit convincing, either. The gist of her argument was that separatism makes men nervous and makes it impossible for them to pursue hierarchical relationships with women. That's true, but a heterosexual relationship with an assertive, feminist women would arguably achieve a similar result. She doesn't mention anything about that, but simply goes on repeat (over and over again) that separatism is controversial. Perhaps she subscribes to some juvenile notion of rebellion in which controversy is per se taken to be good; in any event, her argument is unconvincing, and leaves out the overwhelming majority of women, both in "developed" countries and around the world, for whom separatism is simply not possible. What are they to do? Do they "deserve" their fates because they cannot afford the bourgeois luxury of separatism?
  
  Hey essay on racism is similarly condescending; she dismisses a WOC who challenges her as "angry", and goes on to wax lyrical about whether or not being white makes her a bad person. Newsflash: racism isn't your precious feelings as a white person. Get over yourself.
  
  Her essay about gay politics is also very shallow in its analysis, and will probably not make the slightest bit of sense to those who are not already intimately familiar with radical feminist critiques of male sexuality.
  
  All in all, this is a shallow, bourgeois, poorly written collection of essays.
• 
  Vanshika

  Overall the book was good. It made me question things and I guess that really was the objective of the book. The essays related to oppression and sexism were really great but when it came to subjects that she wasn't related to (ie gay) she had me lost.
  * spoiler *
  I think her opinion was really unfair when it came to gay men and what role they played in supremacy. It almost made it sound like it was a sin to be in love with a man, whether you are a man or a woman, which is harmful. Also, her essay regarding racial issues was a little muddled, I guess she was trying to be more nuanced about the topic but not hitting the mark. I hoped she'd had more information about the topic, when she said how Indian/Pakistani were considered white, she should have mentioned how at that time they didn't have an option to chose that as a race so the bankers would put them as caucasian, it didn't mean they didn't face racism.
  Either way, I would still recommend this book cause it is a great jumping point to learn about feminism. If you aren't looking for a book talking about feminism without the technical talk you may find this a bit dry or maybe dense. Even tho it was a short book I had to take breaks from it to just properly understand it.
• 
  Christopher Mullins

  Pretty intense things she's suggesting. Particularly about gay men's role in reinforcing the phallocracy. However intense I also find a bit of truth to it in the sense that male loving can only beget more male loving in an already male loving culture. Although the notion that the goal of the gay rights movement is to create an unlimited, boundless masculinity is a bit out there.
  
  Her other points about feminism and specifically escaping the phallocracy being predicated on the people who keep the burden of knowledge and choose to invent new ways of being was simultaneously inspiring and isolating as it presented the whole concept of individuality from such a contrived perspective I could not necessarily agree with. However I do believe in what she presents on the principal that those who are willing to play with the strings of gender and identity to create something outside of the already existing paradigms can be the forerunners of revolution.
  
  Overall a good book. I mostly picked it up to read that part where she talked about homosociality but got really dragged in about as I read looking for that section.
• 
  Janelle

  Another fantastic but challenging read. These essays really cover a wide range of topics that are extremely informative and helpful to understand the modern world around us. I’ve highlighted so much of this book but it was reading a quote in a YouTube comment (of all places) that made me buy this book.
  
  “To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women.
  
  All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men.
  
  The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honour, whom they imitate, idolise, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honour, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men.
  
  In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honour is removal to the pedestal.
  
  From women they want devotion, service and sex. Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving.”
  
  
• 
  Rachel Jackson

  It took me months to finish reading The Politics of Reality because for every page of good thought-provoking feminist content, there was another five pages of abstract philosophical gobbledigook that I couldn’t stand. I’d heard vaguely about Marilyn Frye being a highly recommended feminist theorist, which I can’t disagree with, but overall her writing was not for me. I agreed with many of Frye’s points about women’s experiences in the phallocentric world, but I grew frustrated when she would be talking about what anger fundamentally is, for example, but then not go on to provide examples or contexts of men’s and women’s anger or what that looks like in a practical setting. I think if Frye had been more concise and strong in her arguments, rather than resorting to explaining definitions of terms or talking in circles about the same subject, The Politics of Reality would have been a much more enjoyable read for me.
• 
  ⚢ ghazal ⚢

  What I liked: almost all of the essays, and how self-aware the writer is of her white privilege and the rift between white and black feminists/feminists of colour.
  
  What I didn't like: the political lesbianism vibes, the grouping of feminists and lesbians, and Frye getting a bit too semantic and philosophical at points. My least favourite essay was unexpectedly the namesake one. Thought it was weak and underwhelming for the title and closing essay.
• 
  Megan

  Talk about getting whiplash from a collection of essays... On one hand, "Oppression" and "On Separatism and Power" contained some interesting, thought-provoking ideas. On the other, there's "Lesbian Feminism and The Gay Rights Movement," which offers a plethora of terrible stereotypes about gay men 🙄
  
  Overall, I give it a "meh" for containing some very good essays and some that were unbearable.
• 
  harveyreads

  has a lot of good points and is fairly fundamental in a lot of its writings but she lost me towards the end.. some of her writings about race and gay men are questionable and her writings on penises borderline terf territory. that being said its a good example of what second wave feminism was like and a lot of her ideas are genius. good but needs to be looked at very critically
• 
  Genae Matthews

  A philosopher who I look up to gifted me this book and said that it was so good that she has referenced when writing nearly all of her work. :') The book stood up to even these very high expectations!
• 
  Sarah

  This is a seminal work in feminist philosophy. Prepare to read each one through several times in order to get a firm understanding of what's going on.
• 
  Jessica Ippolito

  Impactful. Author successfully articulated many of societies social injustices that usually are overlooked and have been ingrained for centuries.
• 
  Tavo

  These series of essays do a great portrayal of the social aspects surrounding feminism that still hold true even after 30 years of being written. The book was mostly an easy reading with a bit of philosophical jargon every now and then, but didn't slow down the pace of the arguments it described on each essay.
  
  Even though I appreciate how the author approached the problem from different angles, I sometimes found that her writing style was not fitting. For instance I couldn't fully relate to the simplistic and binary view offered in one of the chapters and found it difficult to empathize with the offered explanations (an arrogant vs a loving eye). Also in a subsequent chapter, the author addresses the problem as being caused by "the guardians of male-supremacy" which only rings as conspiracy talk and negatively impacts the tone of the argument.
  
  All in all, this is a book that I would recommend to someone starting to read about feminism and I'm glad to have read it.
• 
  renée jones

  Equal parts esoteric and approachable, dated and groundbreaking, this is a practical sampling of radical feminist theory.
  As a recommendation, I would offer only selected essays, as the entire collection was a bog to get through. Frye took a philosophical approach to discussing feminism, making her arguments relevant in the grand scheme of women’s oppression. (Yes women specifically; she seems a bit TERFy…) This approach, while necessary to imagining a different world to strive towards, made the content a bit inaccessible, particularly if you have no background in philosophy, history, or academic writing.
• 
  Christina

  This is a dense but worthwhile read. If you normally are able to consume sociology or history books at a pretty good clip, be prepared to slow down with this one. But the value in the density is immense. It presents arguments that apply not only to feminism (still sadly accurate after nearly 40 years), but to life in general, if you're open to considering them thoroughly.
  
  I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but for anyone interested in thinking deeply about the nature of interaction between genders, definitely give it a chance.
• 
  Halee Bishop

  The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory is a seminal feminist literary work. Marilyn Frye is foundational to radical theory and her work does a superb job at critiquing the patriarchy and patriarchal ideology at a level which is both foundational and relevatory. The work is by no means the end all for feminist theory as radical feminist ideology cannot address many of the nuances which crip theory, intersectional feminism, indigenous studies, and transnational feminist attempt to address and analyze. However, radical feminism is easily argued to be foundational to many of the feminist which have preceded Frye. The work is essential to a feminist personal library and a great starting point for those interested in studying feminist theory.
• 
  Rebecca Zanrè

  Even if this essays have been written many years ago they still hold a lot of truths in them.
  I enjoyed the cage metaphor, the essay on white feminism and the, the essay on Lesbian feminism and gay rights (even though I think that some aspects of them would have be written differently if the book had been written in 2021)
  Overall a deep and insightful reading experience.