When the French government passed a ban on the veil in 2011, surprisingly few French feminists spoke out against the racist measure. Christine Delphy – the sociologist whom Simone de Beauvoir once described as “France’s most exciting feminist writer” – was one of the notable few. Castigating humanitarian liberals for demanding cultural assimilation of the women they were purporting to save, Delphy...

When the French government passed a ban on the veil in 2011, surprisingly few French feminists spoke out against the racist measure. Christine Delphy – the sociologist whom Simone de Beauvoir once described as “France’s most exciting feminist writer” – was one of the notable few. Castigating humanitarian liberals for demanding cultural assimilation of the women they were purporting to save, Delphy showed how criminalizing Islam in the name of feminism was fundamentally paradoxical.

Dominating Others is Delphy’s manifesto against this tendency, and for a fluid understanding of political identity that does not place different political struggles in a false opposition. Dismantling the absurd claim that Afghanistan was invaded to save women, alongside the notion that homosexuals and immigrants alike should reserve their self-expression for private settings, Dominating Others is a call for a true universalism that sacrifices no one at the expense of others.


From the Trade Paperback edition.