Marilyn French (1929-) is an American author, known for her feminist novels and nonfiction. In her work, French has emphasized that women's oppression is an intrinsic part of the male-dominated global culture. French's 1985 history of patriarchy, Beyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals, is examination of the effect of "patriarchy" on the world. French defines patriarchy as a system of values that holds power and control most important, and rejects life and pleasure as equally--or more--valuable. Critics argue, however, that this is a generalized and simplistic assessment based less on fact than on ideology.

French's 1977 novel, The Women's Room (ISBN 0345353617) follows the lives of several women who met as graduate students at Harvard and became feminists during the heyday of Women's Liberation. One of the characters, Val, becomes a lesbian separatist, stating (over her friend Mira's protests) "Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relationships with men, in their relationships with women, all men are rapists, and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes" (p. 462). Anti-feminist critics have sometimes quoted Val's dialogue as evidence of misandry by French (and other feminists by association), without noting that the passage is spoken by one of many characters in a novel (cf. ^*, etc.).

Selected bibliography

• The Book As World: James Joyce's Ulysses (1976)
• The Women's Room (1977)
• The Bleeding Heart (1980)
• Shakespeare's Division Of Experience (1981)
• Beyond Power: On Women, Men, and Morals (1985)
• Her Mother's Daughter (1987)
• The War Against Women (1992)
• Our Father (1993)
• My Summer With George (1996)
• Season In Hell (1998)
• Introduction: Almost Touching The Skies (2000)
• Women's History Of The World (2000)
• From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in Three Volumes (2002)

Gender studies | Feminist scholars | 1929 births | Living people

Marilyn French | Marilyn French