for keeping before us the goals of feminism that move be- Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the l in stices againist women and deal with oppression and inequality i all antas ol lnt life. As Shelly put it in an article in Sug State: An Agenda for Theory itls aH ,"A(rucial task for feminist scholars emerges, then, not as the lative: ly limited one of documenting pervasive sexism as a social I--duI sha w ing It w we can ni(w hope to change or have in the past stead. it seems that we are wayil linb ing ihe Partir. ulars of womens lives, activities, and Catharine A MacKinnon gfI,u in: ualities where ver they exist ti:4*c e,er. ii e rech,nize ind tescnd l Iat td t(, extend wur Iange (f ison u,"intquahues wherever they ork as feminists enjoins us to achieve this extension not by am时m tements and vague incantations but by paying close atler tio n 1o"the Particulars of women's lives, activities, and goals. "Here lies Eds, Marner 0. keh mmigjor source of insight, the rootedness in human experience that Capo llws us to rethink, redirect, and ultimately to reshape our construc- tious of tlie world /8/,82 Many pcople helped us in the gathering and editing of these essays, which, in the main, atre taken from a special issue of Signs on feminist theary, and we are deeply grateful to them. We turned constantly for dl editorial suggestions to our fellow associates at Signs FrtetI: ll. ( rol Jacklin, Ayra Strober, and Margery wolf Ihen this lu parant aL work is to mal Kism: that which is most I Sign ndI was of invaluable help. Carolyn Lougee, a member of our one's own, yet most taken away. Marxist theory argues that society is literal loard. as well as the then managing editor of signs, gave us fine fundamentally constructed of the relations peop ple form as they do an d e on the essay by julia kristeva make things needed to survive humanly. Work is the social process of I he very cataloging of these names is pleasure, recalling as it does sha transforming the material and social worlds, creating iusuisoi sh:ared thought and work. We are espccially grateful to two who people ngs as they create value. It is tha hat activity by which c Irans formative elfect on this volume: the managing editor and the people become who they are Class is its strcture, production its conse c litoral associate of Signs. The authors who worked with them know as ence, capital its congealed form, and control its issue. dl, how great their contribution was and join us, I am sure, in thie wish lo give the m tie recognition they deserve Dedicated to the spirit of Shelly Rosiaklo in us all. NANNERL O. KEOIAN cnlinlsIn, 1/ a、pan BARBARA C. GELPI on the retation Between m: rxisu ticlte I Rosallslo, ""T'le Use andf Aluse of Anthropology: Ret feminism iself las In the intervening years, the manuscript has been wisely circulated, in Ieinisin an (ausscultusal Linclerst nding, "Signs: Journal f Ionen in Allure #nd Sori process, which I h5,w,3(5ing1U:3洲-17,e417 Silverstein. vale T'ebbetis, Rona Wilensky, Caye williams, Jack Winkler, and Laura X. ork of Martha Freeman and Lat Anm Crier was essential to its production
Feminism, Alanis, Method, and the state Impli il in feiminist theory is a parallel argument: the nolding, di- obscured, or the contributions of two sets of varia es are not tgno ssion of sexuality organizes society into Iwo sexes- They exist to argue, respectively, that the relations in which many work a'n annI aneil-which division underlies the totality of social re- and few gain, in which some fuck and others get fucked, are the prime .11o11. Se uality is that social process which creates, organizes,ex te:sses, itt l directs desire ' creating the social beings we know as women What if the claims of each theory are taken equally seriously, each sI nen, ils thcir relations create society. As work is to marxism, sexal- on its own terms? Can two social processes be basic at once? Can two feininisin is socially constructed yet constructing, universal as ac- nity ytl lis ally specific, jointly comprised of matter and mind.A Can two theories, each of which n ways, or do they merely crosscut? account for the same it organized expropriation of the work of some for the benefit of ing-power as such-be reconciled? Or, is there a connection between oihet's defines a class-workers-the organized expropriation of the the fact that the few hay many andl the fact that those few cuality of some for the use of others defines the sex, woman Hetero- e'xuality is its structure, gender and family its congealed forms, sex roles Confronted on equal terms, these theories pose fundamental ques Is qualities generalized to social persona, reproduction a consequence, tions for each other. Is ale dominance a creation of capitalism or is I control its issu capitalism one expression of male dominance? What does it mean for Marxism and feminism are theories of power and its distribution class analysis if one can assert that a social group is defined and exploited neq(ality. 'They provide accounts of how social arrangements of pat ugh means largely independent of the organization of production, if te'InedI dIsparity can be internally rational yet unjust. But their specificity aformms appioprlille to it? What does it mean for a sex-based analysis if n( nI inc'iicntaL In marxism to be deprived of one's work, in feminism of one can assert that capitalism would not be materially altered if it were ae\lity, defines cach one's conception of lack of sex integrated or n? If the struc I hae y do not mean to exist sice by side to insure that two separate spheres ts served by the socialist state and the capitalist state dif oI' x i l life are not overlooked, the interests of two groups are not terms, are they equally predicated upon sex inequality? To the exten their form and behavior resemble one another could this be their com s and that of all men over all women? ave rendered"marxism"in lower case and"Black"in upper case and have been skeel Iyy the publisher to expLain these choices, It is conventional to capitalize terms that tN panir than confront these questions, marxists and feminists have Astrally either dismissed or, in what amounts to the same thing, sub- sumed each other. Marxists have criticized feminism as bourgeois in heory and in practice, meaning that it works in the interest of the ruling lass. They argue that to analyze society in terms of sex ignores class divisions among women, dividing the proletariat, Feminist demands,it claimed, could be fully satisfied within capitalism, so their pursuit under cuts and deflects the effort for basic change. Efforts to eliminate barriers to women's personhood-arguments for access to life chances without agliNit,Iial, ur religious ethnicity, all of which are conventionally recognized ly are seen as liberal and individualistic. Whatever women have in common is considered based in nature, not society; cross-cultural Desire"is selecter as a lern p arallel u"value"in marxist theory to rel wial and con- torical and lacking in cultural specificity The womens movemen a raises of commonalities in womens social conditions are seen a in Helene Cixous, "The Laugh of Medusa: viewpoin Ir:uIs. Keith Cahen and Pauka Cohen, Signs: Journal of ivoReN iu Cala (Suinner 1976): 875-93: and in works by garay. Ie Clere, Duras, and Krasic 2. I know no nondegraded English verh New Frrach Feiinisins: .a anthology, ed. Ehine Marks and Isabelle de Courtivron (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980). My use of the term is to he di apply to nearly any aciivity. This fact of ang nished [rum that of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizo- muia (New York: Viking Press, 1977); and Guy Hocquenghem, Homosexual Desire( m1: Allison Busby, 1978). for example presses tle social world these words support heterosexual values
Mackinnon feminism, Marxism, aretha, and the State It1 a tlitudles alld feelings as powerful components of social reality is irrelevant. In this sense, the argunent is(to some It can also justify limiting the extension of the franchise to women who 1 sI purportedly of middlle-cliass eclu planation for its opportunism "lecong to"men of the s: me class that already exercises it, to the further linits charge tlit marxisn is Imale defined in theory and in Detriment of the excluded underclass, "their "women inclucled goi lite. meaning that it moves within the world view and in the interest This kindl of ng is confined neither to the issue of the vor al tell. Fe ists argue that analyzing society exclusively in class terms nor to the nineteenth century. Mill's logic is embedded in a theoretical :)res the distinctive social experiences of the sexes, obscuring w'omen's ch contemporary feminist theory and nni. M exist clemands, it is claimed, could be (and in part have been stifles much of the marxist critique. That women should be allowed to isfied without alering women's inequality to men. Feminists have engage in politics expressed Mill's concern that the state not restrict olel fod tlat working-class movements and the left undervalue individuals'sell-government, their freedom to develop talents for their nens work and concerns, neglect the role of feelings and fo us on institutional and material change, denigrate women in proce humanity. As an empirical rationalist, he resisted attributing to biology life, and in general fail to distinguish them- any other ideology or group domin:ed by m: le interests Inost sex-balsedl ine litics inaccurate or dubious, inefficient, and there- M i sisIs and feminists thus accuse each other of secking (what in each fore unjust. T'he liberty of women as inclividluials to achieve the limits of n, terus is) reforin-changes that appease and assuage without ad self-clevelopment without arbitrary interference extended to women his oing tie grounds of cliscontent-where (again in each one's terins)a meritocratic goal of the self-made man, condemning(what has since cone to be icrinedl)sexism as an interference with personal initiative and n)I only that the uther's analysis is incorrect, but that its laissez-faire The hospitality of such an analysis to marxist concerns is su y uli tt o allegations is groundless. In the feminist view, sex,in lematic. One might extend Mill's argument lll sis illl in reality, does divide classes, a fact imore arbitrary, socially conditioned factor that produces inefficient de- velopment of talent aud unjust distribution of resources among individ lave seen parts of tie woumen's movement function as it special interest uals. But although this might be in a sense materialist, it would not be a group to advance the class-privileged: educated and professional class analysis. Mill does not even allow for income leveling. Unequal ll.To consider this group coextensive with"the womens move- distribution of wealth is exactly what laissez-faire and unregulated pe men"precludes questioning a definition of coalesced interest and resis- sonal initiative produces. The individlual concept of rights that this theory requires on a juridical level (especially but not only in the eco Broadly lased segment. But advocates of woen's interests have not nomic sphere), a concept which produces ihe tension between liberty for alwa ys been class conscious; some have exploited class-basecl arguer each and equality among all, pervades liberal feminisan, substantiating lor advantage, even when the interests of working-class women were the criticism that feminism is for the privileged few The marxi Declin ple, in 1866. in an act often thought to inaugurate the first titudes is also based on something real: the centrality of e of feminism, Join Stuart Mill petitioned the English parliament Io raising Consciousness raising is the major technique of analysis, struc suffrage with the following partial justification:"Under what ure of organization, method of practice, and theory of social change of ever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admittedl to sul- he womens movement. G In consciousness raising, often in groups, the on:ally supported universal suffrage. under the same. The majority of women of any class are not likely to gon the stle Perhaps Mill means that, to the extent class determines opi is nethod in the way developed lere. See I'ameLt Allen, Free Space: d Perspect o SNiall Group in tended to exclude from"the hess Raising, "in Aother Ivas Hsm+15hEm.的Aes duette(New York: Juln wiley Sons, 1971): Joan Cassell, A Group Called Ivomlen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), Pp rrhoNd& Symbolism in the Feminist Alowement(New York: David McKay, 1977); and Nancy
Rotative ol tlall experience. Because marxists tend to conceive on 2 Impact of male dominance is concretely uncovered and analy from the proletariat. They are parasites of the parasites of the social tiutnugi: the collective speaking of women,'s experience, from the body. "8 Her symp thies lay with"proletarian women "who derive their cht to vote from being"productive for society like the men. "3 With a her own perspective, L.uxemb e'lesstss, lirsI and last, ias concrete and externally imposed, they believe defends womens suffrage on class grounds, although in both cases the lh it lluist be concretely and externally undone to be changed. Wom ote wouild have benefited women without regard to class tlis Powerlessness has been found through consciousness raising to be lothe ilized and externally imposed, so that, for Women as women, across ciass distinctions and apart from nature, my is identity to women as well as desirability to men. The feminist were simply unthinkable to Luxemburg, as to most marxists. Feminist t oicept ol consciousness and its place in social order and change emerge heory asks marxism: what is class for women? Luxemburg, again like Irom this practical analytic. What marxism conceives as change in con- Mill in her own context, subliminally recognizes that women derive their class position, with concomitant privileges and restriction a form of social change in itself. For fer out because women's oppression is not just in the head, feminist con- Associations with men. For a feminist, this may explain why they do not just in the head either. But the pain, isolation, and Inite against male dominance, but it does not explain that dominance, t hingification of women who have been u rous from being no- which cuts across class lines even as it takes forms peculiar to classes What distinguishes the bourgeois woman from her domestic servant is bxorly for so long"7--is difficult for the materially deprived to see as a form that the latter is paid (if barely), while the former is kept (if con gently). But is this a difference in social productivity or only in its pression, particularly for women whom no man has ever dices, indices which themselves may be products of women,'s under Marxism, similarly, has not just been misunderstood. Marxist theory alued status? U Luxemburg sees that the bourgeois woman of her time s raditional led to compre 8. Rost I.uxehuIrg, Womens Suffrage and Class Struggle, "in Selece in class Terns pect, sex parallels race and nation as an un- digested lout persistently salient challenge to the exclusivity-or ev primacy-of class as social explanation. Marxists typically extend class to ly accurate suspicion that they do may have cover women, a division and submersion that, to feminism, is inadequate suffrage as much as any principled view of divergent and common ex nce. In 1912 Rosa luxer rg, for example, addressed a group of women on the issue of suf- 10. This question is most productively explored in the controversy over wages for frage: Most of these bourgeois women who act like lionesses in the work. See Margaret Ber struggle against'male prerogatives'would trot like docile lambs in the ve and clerical reaction if they had the suffrage. In deed, they would certainly be a good deal more reactionary than the prefessions. the bourgeoisie do not take part in social production. They ( July 1971), pp 92-100; andI M I at ne It. I I uranuS. I'I+" s anel P* ee tive, "Qur: A Feminist QUarter 2, ler Capitalism. "New Lyft Rewind 83(January- ll,y chiliren and tMs little neans to car m or herself in"The Pill; Genocide oIe."The Housewife and Her lal 3-24; I ilx rain: in Tr Binck I'uunH: du nthodugy, eL. To Auveri an library. 1970). P. 168. By using her phrase in altered context, I do i 9(May-June 197): 11-19: Nicole Cox and Sylvia Federici, Counter-Planning fre g nudes differ. (Thus, it is very different to lady, but neither is"somebody"by male Che es Dne (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1975): Jeanette Silveira, The Housewife or, 1975)(pam available fre lating the particularity of Ingber and Cley any woinalni's experience. Whenever this fails, the stalement is simply wrong and will have ry-February 1975):47- t le qualified or the aspiration (or abandoned Modern Times Group. "The Social Faciory. "Falling IVa Review, no, 5(1976), Pp. 1-7
Frninisn, Alaris, alethe A alle savile of a parasite"lut fails to consider her commonality with the cern of revolutionary leadership for ending women,'s confinement to n woan who is the slave of a slave. In the case of bourgeois raditional roles tov often seems limited king their labor available amen, Io linit the analysis of women's relationship to capitalism to to the regime, leading feminists to wonder whose interests are served by To fail his version of liberation. Women become as free as men to work outside d, tlis in the case of proletarian women is to miss its vicarious aspec the home while men remain free from work within it. This also occul as of women's situation in socialist countries, under capitalism. When woman,'s labo ilitancy suits the needs of aIt hough not conclusive on the contribution of marxist theory to under- emergency, she is sucldlenly man's equal, only to regress when the ling womens situation, havc supported the theor ai critique. In urgency recedes. Feminist ts do not argue that it san tIe feminist view, these countries have solved many social problem women to be on the bottom in a feudal regime, a capitalist regime, and a tlination not included The criticism is not that socialism socialist regime; the commonality argued is thaL, despite real changes, is not automatically liberated women in the process of transforming bottom is bottom P'Itlucticn(assuming that this transformation is occurring). Nor is it to Where such attitudes and practices come to be criticized, as in Cuba cliHinish the significance of such changes for women: "There is a dif- or China, changes appear gradual and precarious, even where the effor ene lx Iwten a society in which sexism is expressed in the form of n:alk inlan ic ile and a socicty in which sexism takes the form of un- on the Central Commitee. And the difference same way, as a class analysis of sex would (and in some cases did)pre. artil dl>ing for. "12 The criticism is rather that these countries do not lict. 4 Neither technology nor socialism, both of which purport to alter lIl ke il Priority of working for women that distinguishes them from women's role at the point of procluction, have ever yet equalized wor uonstxialisl stxietics (a pitalist countries value women in terms of thei cns stattls relative lo men the feminist view, nothing has. At nerit"by male standards; in socialist countries women are invisible minimum, a scparate effort appears required-an effort that can be exeept in their capacity as"workers, "a term that seldom includes wom shaped by revolutionary regime and work relations--but a separate ef. r'lI's distinctive work: housework, sexual service, childbearing. The con- fort nonetheless. In light of these experiences, women's struggles whether under capitalist or socialist regime In coion with each other than with leftist struggles anywhere. Attempts to create a synthesis between marxism and feminism. . July-August 1976/: 88-i0y"nd the Structure of Conscription, "MonthbyRrviear 28,no.3 Pa\che k: Monopoly Stacey (nl. II alove) ed. Typically they begin with th ruili as cle women,qualified lay reservations l nec a (Sardo n. The Fouwith Mownim in (cambridge, Mla Working Papers. 1975) 02 ne w'itk n.N. Princeton University Press, 1978), Pp. 392-47vihilism, and Halshewisar(Prince- 14. See Fidel Castro, Ilomen and the Caban Rewnlntion(New York: Pathfinder Press When Patriarchy k guilin,mre the C:hinese Family ofCulkn Women, "NoNtImber 24, 1974, Cuba Revin 4(December 1974): 17-23. Stephani tl-1 12: Jalia Kristeva. buuf Chine Urla ang, i Rraofutiul within a Rrolwliou: Owen in Guinen-Hiusau(Boston: New England :ss, I.l. ).Ilis lild: Sttl, IJea Suciclisan ra/ruM Eastern Europe (o . l Ns. I e at un Preas, 1974); Ma garet R nall, CubaN l ulmen ate(Toronto: Womens " gs.1949-1973,Aoc elisabeth Srull, ed, The IYowmrew's lowe meut in China: A Selection of o『 women by men(see 197-i) from Underdevelopment: isctssicn by Stuart Schram, The Palitical Though! of Alao Tse-Tuag(New York: Pnaege rhy nd the Case for Saciclisf Fewinisan, of sex as bourgeois deviation(see Croll, ed, Pp. 19, 22 Review press, 1979). 12. Barbara Ehrenreich, What Is Socialist Feminism:"WIn(-June 3, 1976), reprint which the lauer loca reflect is express on the Woman Question, "excerpted as appendix in The lOmAmi Question(New York: difficulty separator sh- Even ; un the Central Committee "("Notes of an Ex-China Fan, llage Vaire, quoted in Batya Weinbaum, The Curious Cusrtship f wommen's Liberation and Su inline[Bestem: South Ea Press, 137 78].p7
Mackinnon Feminism, Marxism, Alrihod. and the state d sa ialist-feuninism, have not recognized the depth of the an the persuasion of the marxist, women bccome a caste, a stratuin, isn or the separate integr ity of each theory. These juxtaposition ultural group, a division in civil society, a secondary contradiction, as unconfiontedl as they started: either feminist or marxist, ust or a nonantagonistic contradiction; womens liberation becomes a pre ls tlie l:atler. Socialist-ieminist practice often divides along the same condition, a measure of society's general emancipation, part of the line:s, ()listing largely in organizational cross-meimberships and mutual superstructure, or an important aspect of the class struggle. Most com- upopoI'l ol specific issues Is Women with feminist sympathies urge at- monly, women are reduced to some other category, such as"women tention to women's issues by left or labor groups; marxist wom (une lhc-ther and divide, often at the x plicitly socialist-feminist groups issues of class within feminist groups hat has become near reflex, women become"the family. hyph ingle form of women's confinement(then clivided on class lines, then on Most attempts at synthesis attempt to integrate or explain the appeal racial lines)can he presumed the crucible of womens determination. Or fetminisIn by incorporating issues feminism identifies as central--the family, housework, sexuality, reproduction, socialIt Eise c]. p. 57) ots at synthesis that push the Lie Ga yle Rubin, "The Traffic in Women: Notes on 15. Shil: RaswIxMhanl, Ilid den /roun Iliary: Rrliorering Wfomrn in iliary from the ation and the Ne Polit 7(Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1971): Annette Kuhn an Mone'nalnudl he Socialist Pany, 1901-1911. "in Allnach, ec (n. IO alive): Rolxert Shale :dl M M4auen luel the (tnuniNl Iary, USA, 1930-1940, "Socialist Review 3 (May-June lodes of Productian, cdl. Annette kuIn and Ann]larie Wolpe(Londlon: Rouleclge& Regan i4:i3-1I8. Capnteinperary attempts to create socialist-feminist group 8): Ann For anen and the Fanily in alanis as 7): Meredith Tax an nolilieel Irtm:ann."Capitalism, Patriarchy, aul Job Se 2( Spring1976):137-69,an I Jant ary-Marcl 1974): 69-82: 1. vender and Red Union, The Pwitical Penlrrtie yf the ange of Marxism anel Fe mcner and Red Union (los Angeles Groups 1-5, in Er dlat Gordon. IVoan's IVoIRan's Right; d Social History of Bin t hesky. "Dissolving the Ilyplen: A Repor eL (l II above), and Red Apple Collective, "Socialist-Feminist Women's Unions: Past and Contrul iu america(New York: (rossman Publishers, 1976), pp. 403-18. Also see linca Plesent. "Qnrsl:. Franis Gordon,"Ile Struggle for Reproductive Freedom: Three Stages ol terns, as if only tnat coukl make them legitimate. This an timore: Diana Press, 197-1)exemplifies, withouit explicitly articulating, feminist ethod attempts,ihhough feminism has largely redirected its elTors from justifying itself within on does and Socialism Related?"in Fr ud Socialism, edl. I india Jeuness(New York: P thlinler Press, 1972), pp 18-26; Wealthes mail Rendulic HuNt in the Mordern Iuri (New York: Random louse, 1972): Zillah Eise King,"Cuhat's Allack on Women,'s Second Shift, 1971-1926nColleci The social alism, the Family an r 19 7G):51-58: "The polit Virginia Ield, "Marx, Sex Philosoply: Toward a Throry yf Liberati 1976). This i, Mh Untere af Radical Political Ecomomics 4, no. 3(July 1972).See also Selm and Work, or IVhert Is Not to Be Done(Bristol: Falling Wall Press, rol C. Gould and M: wolsky(New York: G i rk"theory in the sense that it sees women as 15-67; ILal Draper, "Marx and Engels 190. Engels(n. I- above): Icon Trotsky, WOmen and the Family, trans. Max Eastman et Raherla Salper (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1972). pp. 83-107. No tm: ter hot of fe Clan to Patriarchal Family(New York: Pathfinder Press, 1975): Lise Voge the womlen's nmovement can provide the basis for liking a new and authenic ages tha tempts cast feminism, uliinan ily. "Radical merica 7, nos. 4-5(uly-Octoler 1973) 50: Kollon alitics of the Family: A Marxist View"(paper prepared for Socialist Femi socialism"(Nancy Hartsock, Feminist Theory and the Development of Revolutionary at Yellow Springs, Ohio, July 4-6, 1975): L. a Limpus, Liberation of wOmen: Sexual Repre
Fewinisin, Marxism, aethod, and the Stale 3 leaning of reproduction, the iteration of productive I ion is accomplished. Ilowever synl question"is always reduced to some other question, instead of being seen lured into a nl analy f biological rep the question, c: lling for analysis on Its own terms clilfcrences Iro u meIl, all dI as il this social analogue to the biological makes women" dls efc task of synthesis as deed definiti n material, thercfore hased on a division of labor afier all, there. ore re:l, therefore(potentially)unequal zu Sexuality, if noticed at all, is, is if the union had already occurred and need only be celebrated. The r'y day life, "2 an: lyzed neutral terms, as if its social gcan Ix presu cd the same, or coequal, or complementary toconfront each on its own ground: at the level of method.Method s each the social realily. It iel and men. 2 Although a unified theory of taged progression,and lem, grou d process, and creates as a consequence its distinctive II'esiged ii these strategies of subordinate of womens concerns to left concerns, at most an uneven onception of politics as such. Work and sexuality as concepts, then, asps, interprets, and inhabits its world. Clearly, there is a relationship Press,, nl); Ma rene I)ixn. "On tl 11: David P. Levine and hS Ieue, "I'ttalleins in the MarsiN I leery of the Family "pholucopicel (Depart- class? a feminist methocl without sex? Method in this sense organizes the apprehension of truth; it determines what counts as evidence and felines what is taken as verification. Instead of engaging the debate over ach, in turn, often becon which ciame (a: comes)first, sex or class, the task for theory is to explore the conflicts and connections letween the methods that found it mean s "Socialist Rerulutiou 21 gIul to analyze social conclitions in terms of those categories in the first 1.224 I ntl ry 14 73): 7-36: Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of. Mothering: Psychmaaaly cHe r )u long y(irnder( Berkeley: University uf' C lifornia Press. 1978). See also Herbert 23, Marxist mcthod is not monolithic. Beginning with Marx, it has divided hel historicity and one that claims iTself. In tIe first ticle prolact me tines to the The project af the i >ed by social being, the conditions of which are extemal to no theory bed as"a theory of ad R kics, " Class Conscious IfwomrH. (SE. Palnphket n. # Stage I(london: Conference af Socialis Economists, 1977) Mass. AIT Pl alogical reproduction as a part of lir in the context k(n 18 aix tion"(Ph. D. d synthesis, see (iortkin 1:号:xte 1) stinct: being can only he ailied with knowledge of the real, as in dialectical materialism, bet Dark: \ infe Freud (New ecologically set apart hoti a. Ileal fro reali 955); wilken 934 winglike, independent of both ideology ary, Isniclcokogical. Since ide 11173). This is also trie af Michel Fax Although unTil le dlisc tessell at the silne tiue as method, power, class, and the lw, he does not Marr[London: Verso, 1973). P 170).t. occupies it, haunts it, or lies in wiit for ir o w ce only exists on onthly Review Press, 1971). ia\ social, nor the content of its cetermination as a sexist social order that eroticize potency text, Pp. 537-42)The problem with using scientific method situ:ution is that it is precisely unclear and crucial what is though and what is thit (:as male) and victimization(as fenmale)
Mackinnon Feminism, Alurxisn, Method, and the State 15 triarchal fanily, becoming society as a patri Feminism has not been pei d as having a method, or even a extensions, by tl central argument, with whicl: to contend. It has been perceived not as a chy";or as caused by artificial gender roles and their attendant y sleliatit analysis but as a loose collection of factors, complaints, and titudes, 2& Informed by these atlempts, but conceiving nature, law, the issues which, taken together, describe rather than explain the mis- fortunes of the female sex. The challenge is to demonstrate that feminism fundamentally identifies sexuality as the primary social sphere of male power. The centrality of sexuality emerges not from Freudian Teiinisin systematically converges u a central explanation ol sex inequility through an approach distinctive to its subject yet applicable to inceptions 2s butt from fe nist practice on diverse issues, including abortion, birth control, sterilization abuse, domestic battery, rap nce te wiole of social life, including class L'neler the rubric of feminism, woman's situation has been ex- lesbianism, sexual harassment, prostitution, female sexual slavery, and plained as a consequence of biology2+or of reproduction and mothering pornography. In all these areas, feminist efforts confront and change Iw'ial organizations ol biolog: s as caused by the marriage law26or, as women's lives concretely and experientially. Taken together, they are producing a feminist political theory centering upon sexuality: its social H intine prtl determination, daily construction, birth to death expression, and ulti he clouninant tradition Feminist inquiry into these specific issues began with a broad un- masking of the attitudes that legitimize and hide women's status, the mational envelope that contains woman,'s body ons that women e only lay creating that girls'experiences n of life whil that career women plot and advance by sexual parlays prosit are lustful, that wife beating expresses the intensity of love. Beneath aleI4'p4sHm al all val destined for the each of these ideas was revealed bare coercion and broad connections to oman's social definition as a sex. Research on sex roles, pursuing e\imple. wluc:ler the social value placed upon"repetition of life, "the fact that it is seen as x'an,I'e Mal Simone de beauvoir insigl ila\e la ther than generative, ar the fact tha women are more identified with it than are Ilh'31, ate IIIemselves secial artifacts of wumeo's subordination, rather than existential de woman,"disclosed an elaborate process: how and what one learns to logical lia t. Shulamith Firestone substitutes the contradiction of sex for ckt become one. Gender, cross-culturally, was found to be a learned quality, an acquired characteristic, an assigned status, with qualities that vary ndepenclent of biology and an ideology that attributes them to nature. uet dhiMtibutiontt"(Thr Dialectic identic f Sex: The Case Far FewiniMf Revoluion [New York Il.an Mhn Itw &(., 19721, P. 3). Iler solutions are consistent; Ile freeing of ory, generalized in much contemporary feminism, that women are appressed by y, meaning a systen originating in the househol wherein the father doni- inyOur ivill: Alen, I1'a A Se listen, 19 7bn)exp bilogical theory of rape within a cial rchy,'s chief instituion is the family"(Sexual Politics[New York: Ballantine Books, 1969] 3】,45) dra l Bem and Daryl J Bem, "Case Study of Nonconscious Ideology: Train- a natural predator and the human Culi「 prey"φpp.4,6).Sh not seem to think it necessiry to logy df Sex Differences(Stanford, Calif y Press, 1974); and ssibility Crit eitz, Sex Roles: BioLogical, Psychological and Sacial Foundations(New York: Oxford with rape, she finds them ess, 1977) Nor does it grow directly I roots. although French feminists have 2. and Institution(N from within that tradition. 30. De Beauvoir(n 24 alx nceptions of Sex Role: Some Cross-cultural and Longite Iiz:line Arns, Iumarulale Deception: d Nau Look at l omen and Childbirth int Americe 3H邮2mn 973):512-26: Nancy Chodorov he Socialization of Males and laughton Millin Co., 1975) Being and Doing: A Cross-cultural Examin 26. I take Mill's"The Subjection of Women"(n. 4 above)to be the original articulation Females, "in WomeN in Sexist Sociely, ed, V. Gornick and B. K Moran (New York: Basic
Mackinnon Feminism, Marxism, Alethod, and the State I he discovery that the female archetype is the feminine stereotype ex men, which means sexual attractiveness, which means sexual posed"woman"as a social construction, Contemporary ind availability on male terms s What defines woman as such is what turns e'ty's version of her is docile, soft, passive, nurturant, vulnerable, weak, men on. Goocl girls are"attractive, "bad girls"provocative "Gendler llart'issistic, childlike, incompetent, masochistic, and domestic, made for socialization is the process through which women come to identify them t hill care, home care, and husband care. Conditioning to these values Ives as sexual beings, as beings that exist for men. It is that process InIcates the upbringing of girls and the images for emulation thrust through whic omen internalize(make their own)a male image of Mon women. Wonen who resist or fail, including those who never dlic. their sexuality as their identity as women. 6 It is not just an illusion fil-lon example, black and lower-class wonen who cannot survive if inquiry into womens own experience of sexuality revises prior hey are stlt and weak and incompetent, 2 assertively sell-respecting comprehensions of sexual issues and transforms the concept of sexual soiuIcD, women with ambitions of male dimensions-are considered less itself--its determinants and its role in society and politics. According to n:le, lesser women. w ho comply or succeed are elevated as this revision, one"becomes a woman"acquires and identifies with the statuis of the female--ne luch through phy atton o their natural place and dismissed as having participated if they com sulcation into appropriate role behavior as through the experience of sexuality: a complex unity of physicality, emotionality, identity, and Literature on sex roles and the investigations of status affirmation. Sex as gender and sex as sexuality are thus defined in sues are read in light of each other, each element of the female gender terms of each other, but it is sexuality that determines gender, not the stereotype is revealed as, in fact, sexual. Vuinerability means the ther way around. This, the central but never stated insight of K trance/reality of al access: passivity means receptivity and Ailletr' s Sexual Politics, a? resolves the duality in the term"sex"itself: wl women learn in order to"have sex, " in order to"become women"- means pregnability by something hard. Incompetence seeks help as yul woman as gendler-comes through the experience of, and is a condition nerability seeks shelter, inviting the embrace that becomes the invasion, for, "having sex"woman as sexual object for man, the use of women,'s ladling exclusive access for protectior from the same access. Domes- sexuality by men. Indced, to the extent sexuality is social, women's sexu icity nurtures the consequent progeny, proof of potency, and ideally ality is its use, just as our femaleness is its alterity waits at home dressed in saran wrap. IVoman's infantilization evokes pedophilia; fixation on dismembered body parts(the breast man, the leg scl any issues that appear sexual from this standpoint have not been n:an)evokes fetishism; idolization of vapidity, necrophilia. Narcissism in example, is commonly seen as a question of distinguishing the real evil, a ures that woman identifies with that image of herself that man hoids up: crime against the family, from girlish seductiveness or fantasy. Con portrait, so that you can begin traception and abortion have been framed as matters of reproduction Iloidd still, we are going to do Masochism that pleasure in violation and fought out as proper or improper social constraints on nature. On becomes her sensuality. lesbians so violate the sexuality implicit in they are seen as private, minimizing state intervention into intimate re. female gendler stereotypes as not lations. Sexual harassment was a nonissue, then became a problem of Socially, femaleness means femininity, which means attractiveness distinguishing personal relationships or affectionate flirtation fror abuse of position. lesbianism, when visible, has been either a perversion am ks, I:J71): R.R. Sears, "Development of (inler Role. aandd Brhunior ed. I or not, to be tolerated or not. Pornography has been considered a ques- tion of freedo to speak and depict the erotic, as against the obscene or 2, Naional hlack enis Organ il iwe -e aersecuit d for raving sur" 9s violent. prostitution has been understood either as mutual Iust and deg- radation or an equal exchange of sexual need for economic need. The 47:1. in. Funvcric' I1uking IFuMtrl. f Iac Kanrnlnry Ilistuly. 160) to the Prement, ed. Ra issue in rape hnas been whether the intercourse was provoked/mutually I 1\. nLull, I indat ( al, and Susin Reverdy (New York: Vintage beKk 35. Indications are th: at tliis is true not unly in Western inchutstrial society: furl caIRI rir onal level. Firestone (n. 2-f above), chap. 6. (OldTaPpan, N. . Fleming It. Revell 37. Mille'tt's initly S).""Total Won: n "inakes blasphemous sexuality into a what prostitutes have marketed as forbidden pointed criticisms of wonmen's dep ler explicit discussion, however, vacillates s.l. Cixous (u. I abxiv'e), P. 892 tween clear glimpses of that argume clements nearly to the contrary
Method, and t desired, or whether it was forced: was it sex or violence: Across and These investigations reveal rape, incest, sexual harassment, pornog- )cueath these issues, sexuality itself has been divided into parallel prov- riply, and prostitution as not primarily abuses of physical force,vio inces: Traditionally, religion or biology; in modern transformation nce,authority,, or economics. They are abuses of sex. They nee norality or psychology. Almost never politics not and do not rely for their coerciveness upon forms of enforcement In a feminist perspective, the formulation of each issue, in the terms her than the sexual; that those forms of enforcement, at least in this lst described expresses ideologically the same interest that the problem context, are themselves sexualized is cl expresses concretely: the interest from the male erotization of something else; eroticism itse! exists in their form. Nor are vonen experience the sexual events these issues codify they perversions of art and morality. They are art and morality from th lich cach resonates. The defining theme of that oint of view. Tley are sexual because they express the relations, w huale is the male pursuit of control over women's sexuality--men ngs,norms,and behaviors of ti uality, in which ch considering things like rape, pornography, incest, or lesbianism deviant, lny Hlike'ness as socially constructed, of which this pursuit is definitive perverse, or blasphemous is part of their excitement potential . ho need abortio ggle ly for control over the biological products of exuality, then, is a foum sten and men are divided by gender. er. Gender, as socially constructed embodies it, not the reverse. ver the social rhythms and mores of sexual intercourse. These norms e know t the social requirements of ion even when the heterosexuality, which institutionalizes male sexual dominance and o.k)is at hand. As an instance of such norms, women not nt looks a great deal like ordinary heterosexual in ce that sexual female sexual submission. If this is true, sexuality is the linchpin of llion under gender inequality. onclitions of gender inequality. Few women are in a position to refuse A woman is a being who identifies and is identified as one whose Unwanted sexual initiatives. That sexuality exists for someone else, who is socially male. Women,'s sexuality the line letween rape and intercourse further exposes the inequality in is the capacity to arouse desire in that someone If what is sexual about a urmal social expectations. So does the substantial amount of male force woman is what the male point of view requires for excitement, hay allowed in the focus on the woman's resistance, which tends to be dis equirements so usurped its terms as to have become them? Consi abled by socialization to passivity. If sex is ordinarily accepted as some- women's sexuality in this way forces confrontation with whether there is Illing men do to women, the better question would be whether consent is any such thing. Is women's sexuality its absence? If being or another is ngal ce Penetration(olten by s)is also substantiall the wholc of women's sexual construction, it can be no more escaped by ure ccntral to both the legal definition of rape and the male definiti eparausm, mens temporary concrete absence, than eliminated qualified by permissiveness, which, in this context, looks like women INle me. Ripe in ma rriage expresses the male sense of entitlement emulating male roles. As Susan Sontag said: "The question is: that sexu- css Io women tliey annex; incest extends it. Although most women ality are women to be liberated to enjoy? Merely to remove the onus r e l e: by men they know, the closer the relation, the less women are placed upon the sexual expressiveness of women is a hollow victory if the allowed to clin it was rape. Pornography becomes difficult to distin sexuality they become freer to enjoy remains the old one that converts guish Irom art and ads once it is clear that what is degrading to women is omen into objects... TIis already 'freer'sexuality mostly reflects a compelling i) the consumer. Prostitutes sell the unilaterality that por- graphy advertises. That most of these, issues codify behavior that is and Kathleen Thompson, Agae ope(New York: Farrar, Strans Giroux, 1974) ed by omen's Press, 1977): Susan Griffin, Rape: T Francisco: r'ienee as victims: these behaviors are eithe the African lively permitted on a large scale. As womens experience blurs the lines Ix: Iwcen deviance and normalcy, it obliterates the distinction between BO), pp. 25-10 On inces, see Judith Herman and Lisa Hirs abuses of women and the social definition of what a woman is ay 735-56.On harassment, sce my Sexual llarmsyment of Working IVoMeu(New Haven. 3.上al cond pan of this Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Kris in luker, Taking Chances: door IJrvisonl Naf tu Contracept(Berkeley: University of California Press,1975).O al E.Il.Russell, Rupr: The Victimn's Perspective(New York: Stein Day, 19 如mp