Mina Loy’s Feminist Manifesto (1914): Foresight and Controversy
By Taylor Jasmine | On August 8, 2021 | Updated August 27, 2022 | Comments (0)
Mina Loy’s Feminist Manifesto is considered among her most notable works, though it wasn’t published until well after her death. In this 1914 piece, Loy vehemently asserted women’s need to fight for their selfhood rather than subsuming their personalities and desires to those of the patriarchy.
Mina Loy (1882 – 1966), the English-born modernist poet, playwright, and artist was was lauded by her peers for her dense analyses of the female experience in early twentieth-century Western society. The undercurrent of the Manifesto hints at Loy’s struggles with modernism — the artistic philosophy of her day — and its central aesthetic of impersonality.
Feminist Manifesto was finally published in 1982, in The Last Lunar Baedeker, a posthumous collection of her various works, including essays and poetry.
By writing the Manifesto before women even achieved the right to vote on either side of the Atlantic, it might be tempting to say that Loy was far ahead of her time. In many ways, she was indeed, but truthfully, she was expressing the frustration that legions of women of her day felt at their lack of rights and inferior position.
Why hasn’t the Manifesto stood the test time as a relevant feminist tract? There are at least two fatal flaws. It’s marred by the passage that begins, “Every woman of superior intelligence should realize her race-responsibility …” which has been interpreted as possibly rooted in eugenicist thought.
In addition, Loy argues for “the unconditional surgical destruction of virginity throughout the female population at puberty.” Though this assertion was made due to the value of virginity to the roles of wife and mistress, the suggestion is as abhorrent now as it was back in 1914.
Analyses of Feminist Manifesto
Here are links to two insightful analyses of Mina Loy’s Feminist Manifesto:
“Feminist Manifesto, that now most popular text, is actually shot through with a dilemma: as a feminist and woman writer, Loy wants to claim women’s equality within modernism; yet, she also seems to feel that modernist impersonality, a key aesthetic of the period, is a luxury that women writers cannot afford.” (by Christina Walter, for the Yale Modernism Lab)
“… It is a short work — in fact it can be read in just a couple of minutes — but the striking tone of the manifesto, as well as its highly radical ideas are what make it so memorable. Speaking to women and particularly contemporary feminists rather than patriarchal society, she starts by saying, “The feminist movement as at present instituted is Inadequate.” (“Mina Loy’s Feminist Manifesto” in King’sNews.org)
This pictorial representation just below of the Feminist Manifesto is in the original, modernist style that Loy intended for it to be printed. Following this will be a text version for searchability.
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
Feminist Manifesto by Mina Loy (text version)
The feminist movement as at present instituted is
Inadequate
Women if you want to realize yourselves-you are on the
eve of a devastating psychological upheaval-all your pet illu-
sions must be unmasked—the lies of centuries have got to go—
are you prepared for the Wrench—? There is no half-
measure—NO scratching on the surface of the rubbish heap
of tradition, will bring about Reform, the only method is
Absolute Demolition
Cease to place your confidence in economic legislation, vice-
crusades & uniform education-you are glossing over
Reality.
Professional & commercial careers are opening up for you—
Is that all you want?
And if you honestly desire to find your level without preju-
dice—be Brave & deny at the outset—that pa-
thetic clap-trap war cry Woman is the
equal of man—
for
She is NOT!
The man who lives a life in which his activities conform to a
social code which is protectorate of the feminine element—
is no longer masculine
The women who adapt themselves to a theoretical valuation of
their sex as a relative impersonality, are not yet
Feminine
Leave off looking to men to find out what you are not —seek
within yourselves to find out what you are
As conditions are at present constituted—you have the choice
between Parasitism, & Prostitu-
tion—or Negation
Men & women are enemies, with the enmity of the exploited
for the parasite, the parasite for the exploited—at present they
are at the mercy of the advantage that each can take of the
others sexual dependence—. The only point at which the
interests of the sexes merge—is the sexual embrace.
The first illusion it is to your interest to demolish is the
division of women into two classes the mistress,
& the mother every well-balanced & developed woman
knows that is not true, Nature has endowed the complete
functions—there are no restrictions on the woman who is
so incompletely evolved as to be un-self-conscious in sex, will
prove a restrictive influence on the temperamental expansion
of the next generation; the woman who is a poor mistress will
be an incompetent mother—an inferior mentality—& will
enjoy an inadequate apprehension of Life.
To obtain results you must make sacrifices & the first &
greatest sacrifice you have to make is of your ”virtue”
The fictitious value of a woman as identified with her physical
purity—is too easy to stand-by rendering her lethargic in
the acquisition of intrinsic merits of character by which she
could obtain a concrete value—therefore, the fist self-
enforced law for the female sex, as a protection against the
man made bogey of virtue—which is the principal instrument
of her subjection, would be the unconditional surgical
destruction of virginity through-out the female population at
puberty—.
The value of man is assessed entirely according to his use or
interest to the community, the value of woman depends
entirely on chance, her success or insuccess in maneouvering
a man into taking the life-long responsibility of her—
The advantages of marriage are too ridiculously ample—
compared to all other trades—for under modern conditions a
woman can accept preposterously luxurious support from a
man (with-out the return of an sort—even offspring)—as a thank
offering for her virginity
The woman who has not succeeded in striking that
advantageous bargain—is prohibited from any but
surreptitious re-action to Life-stimuli—& entirely
debarred maternity.
Every woman has a right to maternity—
Every woman of superior intelligence should realize her race-
responsibility, in producing children in adequate proportion to
the unfit or degenerate members of her sex—
Each child of a superior woman should be the result of a
definite period of psychic development in her life—& and not
necessarily of a possible irksome & outworn continuance of an
alliance—spontaneously adapted for vital creation in the
beginning but not necessarily harmoniously balanced as the
parties to it—follow their individual lines of personal
evolution—
For the harmony of race, each individual should be the
expression of an easy & ample interpenetration of the male &
female temperaments—free of stress
Woman must become more responsible for the child than
man—
Woman must destroy in themselves, the desire to be loved—
The feeling that it is a personal insult when a man transfers
his attention from her to another woman
The desire for comfortable protection instead of an intelligent
curiosity & courage in meeting & resisting the pressure of life
sex or so called love must be reduced to its initial element,
honour, grief, sentimentality, pride and & consequently jealousy
must be detached from it.
Woman for her happiness must retain her deceptive fragility of
appearance, combined with indomitable will, irreducible
courage, & abundant health the outcome of sound nerves—
Another great illusion is that woman must use all her
introspective and clear-sightedness & unbiassed bravery to
destroy—for the sake of her self respect is the impurity of sex
the realization in defiance of superstition that there is nothing
impure in sex—except in the mental attitude to it—will
constitute an incalculable & wider social regeneration than it
is possible for our generation to imagine.
. . . . . . . . .
More about Mina Loy on this site
- Mina Loy and “The Crowd” — Modernists in 1920s Paris
- That is the New Rhythm: Mina Loy and Marianne Moore
Leave a Reply