This Sex Which Is Not One by Luce Irigaray
Published 1977 · 55,000 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism, Philosophy, Feminist Theory, Nonfiction
How hard is This Sex Which Is Not One to read?
This Sex Which Is Not One scores 84 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it very challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 78 out of 100
- Psychoanalytic and philosophical vocabulary (the phallus, the Symbolic, mimesis, specularity) combined with Irigaray's own theoretical coinages.
- Sentence structure: 78 out of 100
- Varies between rigorous philosophical critique and poetic, performative writing. The poetic sections deliberately resist conventional syntax.
- Abstraction: 85 out of 100
- Philosophical critique of the deepest assumptions of Western thought about sex, language, and being.
- Information density: 75 out of 100
- Dense with philosophical argument and psychoanalytic reference. The poetic sections are less informationally dense but conceptually rich.
- Narrative indirection: 35 out of 100
- The performative writing strategy means some arguments are enacted rather than stated. Irigaray's mimetic method requires attentive reading.
- Symbolic density: 40 out of 100
- The 'two lips,' the speculum, the mirror — Irigaray's central images carry heavy theoretical weight.
- Ironic distance: 30 out of 100
- Irigaray's 'mimicry' strategy — deliberately inhabiting and exaggerating patriarchal discourse to expose its assumptions — is deeply ironic.
- Resolution withholding: 35 out of 100
- Irigaray opens questions about sexual difference that she deliberately leaves unresolved — the feminine exceeds any definition.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Collection of essays mixing philosophical critique with poetic writing. The alternation between modes requires adaptive reading.
How This Sex Which Is Not One is regarded
This Sex Which Is Not One holds a literary regard score of 81 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.