Marilyn French (1929–2009,) née Edwards, was a radical feminist American author. Her works explored her radical beliefs about relationships between the sexes and the subjugation of women.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, French studied philosophy and English literature at Hofstra College. She also got a master’s degree in English literature from Hofstra and a PhD from Harvard.
French caused uproar with her début novel The Women’s Room (1977,) a fictional examination of gender, power, and radicalism through the life of the protagonist Mira Ward. It attracted fame and notoriety for its best-known line, “All men are rapists, and that’s all they are.” It became the best-selling feminist novel ever, selling more than 20 million worldwide, and was translated into 20 languages.
French’s nonfiction polemics and scholarly works on patriarchy and women’s history include Beyond Power: Women, Men & Morals (1985) and From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women (4 vols., 2002.) She also wrote two more novels, The Bleeding Heart (1980) and Her Mother’s Daughter (1987.) Her A Season in Hell: A Memoir (1998) dealt with her battle with esophageal cancer.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Marilyn French
To nourish and raise children against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.
—Marilyn French
Topics: Parents, Parenting
One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape… it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.
—Marilyn French
Topics: Arts, Artists, Art
Well, love is insanity. The ancient Greeks knew that. It is the taking over of a rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction. You lose yourself, you have no power over yourself, you can’t even think straight.
—Marilyn French
Topics: Love
Nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you like parts of the role you’re trying to escape?
—Marilyn French
Topics: Identity
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