Marilyn Frye Quotes

• The experience of oppressed people is that the living of one’s life is confined and shaped by forces and barriers which are not accidental or occasional and hence avoidable, but are systematically related to each other in such a way as to catch one between and among them and restrict or penalize motion in any direction. It is the experience of being caged in: all avenues, in every direction, are blocked or booby trapped.

  Marilyn Frye

  People, Way, Life Is

  Marilyn Frye (1983). “The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory”, Crossing Press, Incorporated

  60 Copy quote

• Differences of power are always manifested in asymmetrical access.

  Marilyn Frye

  Power, Differences, Access

  Marilyn Frye (1983). “The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory”, Crossing Press, Incorporated

  21 Copy quote

• There is so much pressure on women to be heterosexual, and this pressure is both so pervasive and so completely denied, that I think heterosexuality cannot come naturally to many women: I think that widespread heterosexuality among women is a highly artificial product of the patriarchy. . . . I think that most women have to be coerced into heterosexuality.

  Marilyn Frye

  Thinking, Heterosexuality Is, Pressure

  Marilyn Frye (1992). “Willful virgin: essays in feminism, 1976-1992”, Crossing Pr

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• Female heterosexuality is not a biological drive or an individual women's erotic attraction or attachment to another human animal which happens to be male. Female heterosexuality is a set of social institutions and practices... Those definitions... are about the oppression and exploitation of women by men.

  Marilyn Frye

  Animal, Men, Heterosexuality Is

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• Differences of power are always manifested in asymmetrical access. The President of the United States has access to almost everybody for almost anything he might want of them, and almost nobody has access to him. The super-rich have access to almost everybody; almost nobody has access to them. ... The creation and manipulation of power is constituted of the manipulation and control of access.

  Marilyn Frye

  Power, Differences, President

  18 Copy quote

• I would like you to rise each morning and know that you are heterosexual and that you choose to be heterosexual - that you are and choose to be a member of a privileged and dominant class, one of your privileges being not to notice.

  Marilyn Frye

  Morning, Heterosexuality Is, Class

  Marilyn Frye (1992). “Willful virgin: essays in feminism, 1976-1992”, Crossing Pr

  17 Copy quote

• I wish you would grow to the understanding that you choose heterosexuality.

  Marilyn Frye

  Understanding, Wish, Heterosexuality

  Marilyn Frye (1992). “Willful virgin: essays in feminism, 1976-1992”, Crossing Pr

  14 Copy quote

• I wish you would stop and seriously consider, as a broad and long-term feminist political strategy, the conversion of women to a woman-identified and woman-directed sexuality and eroticism, as a way of breaking the grip of men on women's minds and women's bodies, of removing women from the chronic attachment to the primary situations of sexual and physical violence that is rained upon women by men, and as a way of promoting women's firm and reliable bonding against oppression. . . .

  Marilyn Frye

  Men, Long, Political

  Marilyn Frye (1992). “Willful virgin: essays in feminism, 1976-1992”, Crossing Pr

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• What is it about separation, in any or all of its many forms and degrees, that makes it so basic and so sinister, so exciting and so repellent?

  Marilyn Frye

  Degrees, Separation, Form

  Marilyn Frye (1983). “The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory”, Crossing Press, Incorporated

  13 Copy quote

• I wish you would notice that you are heterosexual.

  Marilyn Frye

  Wish, Heterosexuality, Wish You

  Marilyn Frye (1992). “Willful virgin: essays in feminism, 1976-1992”, Crossing Pr

  6 Copy quote

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