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Distributed for Black Rose Books

Sexuality and the Impurity of the State

This book focuses on the ideas of Emma Goldman as they relate to the centrality of sexuality and reproduction. These ideas, on the liberatory potential of women’s sexuality -- birth control, voluntary motherhood, homosexual rights and the aggressive nature of marriage, religion and the State -- are relevant to the current feminist debates on sexuality’s pleasures, rather than its dangers, and as such, equates women’s freedom with sexual freedom. Goldman’s ideas are significant for contemporary feminism and social reform because of their relevance to the ’difference’ versus ’equality’ debates. Rejecting a truncated view of womanhood in which women are single, childless professionals sacrificing their emotional and sexual expression in service to the State, Goldman affirmed women’s specificity while, at the same time, sought women’s freedom to develop their full human potential.

214 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2

Women's Studies


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Table of Contents

Table of Contents Sexuality, Reproduction & Anarchism Kropotkin & Ibsen: Supplying the Theoretical Foundation for Goldman’s Vision of Anarchism Community Versus Society: Goldman’s View of the Supremacy of Instinct The Social Historical Context Surrounding

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