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 asserts that women's oppression is an intrinsic part of the male-dominated global culture.^{[citation needed]} 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 Mira and her friends in 1950s and 60s America, reinterpreted through the eyes of Val, a militant radical feminist. The novel portrays the details of the lives of women at this time and also the feminist movement of this era in the United States.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Mira and her friends represent a wide cross section of American 1950s & 60s society. Lily is a working class woman from an abusive background who marries and has children to escape, but is later repeatedly institutionalised for her failure to fit into society and her fear of her own son, whose personality is similar to that of her own abusive father. Mira herself is from a middle class background. She is mildly rebellious in that she disagrees with her mother's view of the world, and in her late teens gains a bad reputation because she dances with several different men on an evening out with one of them. Nonetheless, she later marries Norm, a medical student, becoming a well respected doctor's wife and bearing two sons. After many years of marriage, Norm files for divorce, leaving Mira on her own. Following the divorce, Mira goes to Harvard University to study for a PhD in English literature. There she meets Val, a militant radical feminist divorcee with a teenage daughter, Chris. It is the heyday of Women's Liberation and Mira now too, finally able to verbalise her discontent at the society around her, becomes a feminist, although a less radical and militant one than Val.

Following the rape of Val's daughter Chris, Val states (over 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). Critics have sometimes quoted Val's dialogue as evidence of French's misandry without noting that the passage is only spoken by one of many characters in the novel [1][2].

French has survived esophageal cancer. This experience was the basis for her book A Season in Hell: A Memoir (1998).