womenandlove

Hite Research International

THE THESIS OF WOMEN AND LOVE:

'WHAT IS LOVE?'

Women have always been told their place in society is to be the 'caretakers of families', those who are loving and giving -- taking care of others, especially husbands and children but also aging parents and other people generally.

If, for the last 2,000 years, women have been told they should be giving and loving, now, if women are claiming the right to define themselves, how are women themselves defining 'love'?

This was the basic question of the inquiry that Shere Hite launched, asking thousands of women their experiences, opinions, thoughts and beliefs about 'what is love?'.

The result is an important document in which thousands of women debate -- in their own voices (being cited directly but anonymously by Hite) -- whether love is passion or caring, whether love feels more important when it is filled with passionate desire, or whether a life is better built on caring for someone and knowing them over a long period of time; can one feel love via sexual desire, are the emotions one feels during passionate sex also 'love'? why do so many people feel like saying 'I love you' when they are making love? how automatic is monogamy, how do women feel about being monogamous, how often do they experience various partners (for example, when they are single and dating -- or when married and having an affair); is love necessary and important for sex, or vice versa, is love possible without sexual feeling, and so on.

This book put an important issue on the table, and documents an historic moment in which women are re-examining, thinking for themselves about 'what love is', rather than simply accepting the role of 'being loving' that has been given to them. (This does not mean that 'being tough like a guy', not sentimental or 'romantic', is the 'correct result' of re-examining the meaning of love...nothing this simplistic is proposed or implied in this very subtle debate.)

Caused a storm of protest when it was published that continues to surround this book until the present.

[ a breakthrough in theory and historical analysis]

[Books]