The Straight Mind and Other Essays is a (1992) collection of essays by Monique Wittig

Monique Wittig

Monique Wittig was a French author and feminist theorist who wrote about overcoming socially enforced gender roles and who coined the phrase "heterosexual contract". She published her first novel, L'Opoponax, in 1964...

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It was translated into French as La Pensée straight in 2001.

Summary

"One Is Not Born a Woman," follows in the wake of Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir

Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...

's feminist political visions. Wittig writes, 'Lesbians are not women', under the assumption that the term 'woman' is defined by men. Moreover, she compares lesbians to fugitive slaves.

"The Trojan Horse," explains her theory of literature as a "war machine", echoing Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...

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