Marilyn French

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Marilyn French (born November 21, 1929) is an American author, known for her feminist novels and non-fiction. In her work, French has asserted that women's oppression is an intrinsic part of the male-dominated global culture. Beyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals (1985) is an historical examination of the effects of patriarchy on the world. French defines patriarchy as a system that values power and control above life and pleasure. Critics argue, however, that this is a simplistic assessment, based less on fact than on ideology.^{[citation needed]}

French's 1977 novel, The Women's Room, follows the lives of several women who meet as graduate students at Harvard University 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). Antifeminist 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 only one of many characters in the novel (cf. [1], [2], [3], etc.).