Luce irigaray Also available in English THIS SEX WHICH IS NOT ONE by the same authe An Ethics of Sexual Difference Speculum of the Other Woman Translated by CATHERINE POrter with CAROLYN BURKE ORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS York
Contents The publisher gratefully acknowledges the Financial assistance of the 1. The Looking Glass, from the Other Side 9 Originally published in French under the title Ce Sexe qui n'en est pa Copyright 0 1977 by Editions de minuit 2. This Sex Which Is Not One English translation copyright e 1985 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review. this book, 3. Psychoanalytic Theory: Another Look be reproduced in any form without permission address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. 4. The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1985 5. Cosi Fan Tutti 点 Printed in the United States of America ibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 6. The"Mechanics""of Fluids ues 15533338423013 8. Women on the Market ISBN 0-8014-9331-5(pbk.: alk. paper) Cornell University Press strives entally responsible suppliers and materiak to among based, low-VOC inks, and acid-free pape composed of nonwood fibers. Books that bear( 10.Frenchwomen, Stop Trying 198 otmcil) use paper taken fio forests that Have highest standards for environmental and social responsibility. For further information, visit 11. When Our Lips Speak Together 205 Paperback printing 15 14 13 12 10987 Publisher's Note and Notes on Selected Terms
Women on the market Are men all equally desirable? Do women have no tendency toward polygamy? The good anthropologist does not rai questions. A fortiori: why are men not objects of exchange among women? It is because womens bodies-through their de for the condition Women on the market making social life and culture possible, although they remain an unknown"infrastructure"of the elaboration of that social life The society we know, our own culture, is based upon the and culture. The exploitation of the matter that has been sexu- exchange of women. Without the exchange of women, we are alized female is so integral a part of our sociocultural horizon told, we would fall back into the anarchy (?)of the natural that there is no way to interpret it except within this horizon. world, the randomness(? )of the animal kingdom. The passage ito the social order, into the symbolic order, into order as In still other words: all the systems of exchange that or such, is assured by the fact that men, or groups of men, circu- triarchal societies and all the modalities of productive work late women among themselves, according to a rule known as that are recognized, valued, and rewarded in these societies are the incest taboo mens business. The production of women, signs, and com- Whatever familial form this prohibition may take in a giver modities is always referred back to men(when a man buys state of society, its signification has a much br oader impact girl, he"pays"the father or the brother, not the mother..) assures the foundation of the economic, social, and cultural and they always pass from one man to another, from one group order that has been ours for centuries f men to another. The work force is thus always assumed to be Why exchange women? Because they are "scarce[commod- masculine, and" products"are objects to be used, objects of ities]., essential to the life of the group, "the anthropologist transaction among men alone. tells us. 'Why this characteristic of scarcity, given the biological equilibrium between male and female births? Because the"deep Which r t the possibility of our social life, of our polygamous tenden culture. d e on a ho(m)mo-sexual monopoly? The law makes the number of available women seem insufficient. Let us that order ety is the exclusive valorization of men's add that, even if there were as many women as men, these needs/desires, UI CHanges among men. What the anthropolo- women would not all be equally desirable. and that, by gist calls the passage from nature to culture thus amounts to the definit the most desirable women must form a institution of the reign of hom (m)o-sexuality. Not in an"im- mediate” practice, but in its“ social” mediation. From this This text was originally published as"Le marche des femmes, "in Sessualita point on, patriarchal societies might be interpreted as societies functioning in the mode of "semblance. "The value of sym- ship(Les Structures bolic and imaginary production superimposed upon, and elementaires de la parente, 1949, rev. 1967), trans. James Harle Bell, John Rich- even substituted for, the value of relations of mater ard von Sturmer, and Rodney Needham(Boston, 1969), p and p In this new matrix of History, in which man begets man as 171
Women on the market ly desirable? Do women have no ter toward polygamy? The good anthropologist does not raise such 8 questions. A fortiori: why are men not objects of exchange among women? It is because womens bodies-through their Women on the market use,consumption,and circulation--provide for the condition making social life and culture possible, although they remain an unknown"infrastructure"of the elaboration of that social life The society we know, our own culture, is based upon the and culture. The exploitation of the matter that has been sexu- exchange of women. Without the exchange of women, we are alized female is so integral a part of our sociocultural horizon old, we would fall back into the anarchy (?)of the natural hat there is no way to interpret it except within this horizon world, the randomness (?)of the animal kingdom. The passage to the social order, into the symbolic order, into order as In still other words: all the systems of exchange that organize such, is assured by the fact that men, or groups of men, circu- patriarchal societies and all the modalities of productive work te women among themselves, according to a rule known as that are recognized, valued, and rewarded in these societies the incest taboo men's business. The production of women, signs, and com- Whatever familial form this prohibition may take in a given modities is always referred back to men(when a man buys a state of society, its signification has a much broader impact. It girl, he"pays"the father or the brother, not the mother... ), assures the foundation of the economic. social. and cultural and they always pass from one man to another, from one group order that has been ours for centuries of men to another. The work force is thus always assumed to be Why exchange women? Because they are"scarce [com masculine, and"products"are objects to be used, objects of sential to the life of the group, " the anthrop transaction among men alone. lls us. Why this characteristic of scarcity, given the bio equilibrium between male and female births? Because the"deep Which means that the possibility of our social life, of our polygamous tendency, which exists among all men, always culture, depends upon a ho(m)mo-sexual monopoly? The law makes the number of available women seem insufficient. Let us that orders our society is the exclusive valor add that, even if there were as many women as m needs/desires, of exchanges among men. What the anthropolo- women would not all be equally desirable. . and that, by gist calls the passage from nature to culture thus amounts to the definition the most desirable women must forrm a Institution of the reign of hom(m)o-sexuality. Not in an"im minority. 2 mediate"practice, but in its"social"mediation. From this This text was originally published as"Le marche des femmes, ""in int on, patriarchal societies might be interpreted as societies pm functioning in the me e politica,(Milan: Felcrineli, 1978 deof“ semblance:” The value of sym Imaginary productions n Sturmer, and Rodney Needham 1969),p.36. even substituted for, the value of relations of material, natural, and corporal (re) roduction In this which 171
This Sex Which Is Not One Women on the market his own likeness, wives, daughters, and sisters have value only in that they serve as the possibility of, and potential benefit in ganization of such societies, and the operation of the symbolic relations among men. The use of and traffic in wormen subtend system on which this organization is based-a symbolic system and uphold the reign of masculine hom(m)o-sexuality, even whose instrument and representative is the proper name: the while they maintain that hom(m)o-sexuality in speculations, name of the father, the name of God--contain in a nuclear form mirror games, identifications, and more or less rivalrous appro- the developments that Marx defines as characteristic of a cap priations, which defer its real practice. Reigning italist regime: the submission of "nature"to a "labor" on the although prohibited in practice, hom(m)o-sexuality is played part of men who thus constitute"nature"as use value and out through the bodies of women, matter, or sign, and hetero- exchange value; the division of labor among private producer Whose"sociocultural endogamy excludes the, o e and hetero- exuality has been up to now just an alibi for the smooth work- owners who exchange their women-commodities among gs of mans relations with himself, of relati themselves, but also among producers and exploiters or ex- ploitees of the social order; the standardization of women ac that other, so foreign to the social order: woman. Exogamy cording to proper names that determine their equivalences; a doubtless requires that one leave one's family, tribe, or clan, in tendency to accumulate wealth, that is, a tendency for the rep order to make alliances. All the same, it does not tolerate mar- resentatives of the most"proper"names-the leaders-to cap riage with populations that are too far away, too far removed italie more women than the others; a progression of the social from the prevailing cultural rules.A cultural endogamy work of the symbolic toward greater and greater abstraction would thus forbid commerce with women. Men make com- and so forth merce of them, but they do not enter into any exchanges with To be sure, the means of production have evolved, new tech them. Is this perhaps all the more true because exogamy is an niques have been developed, but it does seem that as soon as the economic issue, perhaps even subtends economy as such? The father-man was assured of his reproductive power and had exchange of women as goods accompanies and stimulates marked his products with his name, that is, from the very anges of other "wealth"among of men. The econo- origin of private property and the patriarchal family, social ex- my-in both the narrow and the broad sense-that is in place in ploitation occurred. In other words, all the social regimes of our societies thus requires that women lend themselves to alie History"are based upon the exploitation of one"class"of ation in consumption, and to exchanges in which they do not producers,namely, women. Whose reproductive use value(re- articipate, and that men be exempt from being used and circu- productive of children and of the labor force)and whose con- lated like commodities stitution as exchange value underwrite the symbolic order as such, without any compensation in kind going to them for that work. For such sation would imply a double system of exchange, that is, a shattering of the monopolization of the proper name(and of what it signifies as appropriative power) Marx's analysis of commodities as the elementary form of capitalist wealth can thus be understood as an interpretation of Thus the social body would be redistributed into prodr subjects no longer functioning as commodities because 173
This Sex which Is not One Women on the market provided the standard of value for commodities, and into com- of her body-although her body constitutes the material sup- modity-objects that ensured the circulation of exchange with- port of that price out participating in it as subjects. But when women are exchanged, womans body must be eated as an abstraction. The exchange operation cannot take place in terms of some intrinsic, immanent value of the com- modity. It can only come about when two objects-two wom en-are in a relation of equality with a third term that is neither Let us now reconsider a few points in Marx's analysis of the one nor the other. It is thus not as "women"that they are value that seem to describe the social status of women xchange, but as women reduced to some common feature- their current price in gold, or phalluses-and of which they Wealth amounts to a subordination of the use of things to would represent a plus or minus quantity. Not a plus or a minu their accumulation. Then would the way women are used matter of feminine qualities, obviously. Since these qualities are aba less than their number? The possession of a woman is certainly doned in the long run to the needs of the consumer, woman h indispensable to man for the reproductive use value that she value on the market by virtue of one single quality: that of being a represents; but what he desires is to have them all. To"accu- product of nulate" them, to be able to count off his conquests, seductions On this basis, each one looks exactly like every other. They possessions, both sequentially and cumulatively, as measure or all have the same phantom-like reality. Metamorphosed standard(s) identical sublimations, samples of the same indistinguishable All but one? For if the series could be closed, value might work, all these objects now manifest just one thing, namely well lie, as Marx says, in the relation among them rather than in that in their production a force of human labor has been ex- the relation, to a standard that remains external to them- pended, that labor has accumulated in them. In their role as whether gold or phallus crystals of that common social substance, they are deemed to The use made of women is thus of less value than their appro- priation one by one. And their usefulness"is not what counts the most. Womans price is not determined by the"properties' As commodities, women are thus two things at once: utilitarian objects and bearers of value. "They manifest th ves therefore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so far as they have two forms, a physical or natural form, and a value form”(p.55) WiL lin ge o i rede rick ing s, erer. Eist: ur nn(New York But "the reality of the value of commodities differs in this ept the question, t be addressed also, and in the first respect from Dame Quickly, that we dont know where to have it'(ibid. ).Woman, object of exchange, differs from worman, to Marx, determine the relation of form to matter by analogy with etween masculine and feminine? ro use value, in that one doesn't know how to take (hold of her, for between the sexes would amount instead, then, to going back since "the value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality of their substance, not an atom of matter 175
This sex which is not one Women on the market enters into its composition. Turn and examine a single com- labor. The mirror that envelops and paralyzes the com- modity, by itself, as we will. Yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it"(ibid. ) The value of a specularizes, speculates (on)mans "labor. "Com omen,are a mirror of value of and for man. In order to woman always escapes: black continent, hole in the symbolic Ich, they give up their bodies to men as the support breach in discourse... It is only in the operation of exchange ing material of specularization, of speculation. They yield to among women that something of this-something enigmatic to be surecan be felt. Woman thus has value only in that she him their natural and social value as a locus of imprints, marks, of his be exchanged In the passage from one to the other, something else finally exists beside the possible utility of the"coarseness Commodities among themselves are thus not equal, nor of her body. But this value is not found, is not recaptured, in alike, nor different, They only become so when they are com- her. It is only her measurement against a third term that re- pared by and for man. And the prosopopoeia of the relation of mains external to her, and that makes it possible to compare her commodities among themselves is a projection through which pro- with another woman, that permits her to have a relation to ducers-exchangers make them reenact before their eyes their foreign to both. ty in terms of an equivalence that remains another commodit operations of specula(riza tion, Forgetting that in order to re- flect(oneself), to speculate(oneself), it is necessary to be a Womenl-as-commodities are thus subject to a schism that divides subject, and that matter can serve as a support for speculation them into the categories of usefulness and exchange value; into but cannot itself speculate in any wa matter-body and an envelope that is precious but impenetrable. starting with the simplest relation of equivalence be ungraspable, and not susceptible to appropriation by women tween commodities, starting with the possible exchange of hemselves; into private use and social use women, the entire enigma of the money form-of the phallic function-is implied. That is, the appropriation-disappropria- In order to have a relative value, a commodity has to be con tion by man, for man, of nature and its productive forces, fronted with another commodity that serves as its equivalent insofar as a certain mirror now divides and travesties both Its value is never found to lie within itself. And the fact that it is nature and labor. Man endows the commodities he produces worth more or less is not its own doing but comes from that to with a narcissism that blurs the seriousness of utility, of use which it may be equivalent. Its value is transcendent to itsel Desire as soon as there is excha perverts"need. But that perversion will be attributed to commodities and to their al- In other words, for the commodity there is no mirror that copies it so leged relations. Whereas they can have no relationships except that it may be at once itself and its"own"reflection. One com from the perspective of speculating third partic felloay cannot be mirrored in another, as man is mirrored in his n. For when we are dealing with commodities the The economy of exchange-of desireis man's business For two self-same, mirrored, is not"its"own likeness, contains noth reasons: the exchange takes place between masculine subjects value added to the body of the commodity of its properties, its qualities, its"skin and hair ""The likeness and it requires a here is only a measure expressing the fabricated character of the supplement which gives it a valuable form. That supplement will be found, Marx writes, in another commodity, whose commodity, its trans-formation by mans(social, symbolic value becomes, from that point on, a standard of value 177
Women on the market But that surplus-value enjoyed by one of the commodities might vary: just as many a man strutting about in a gorgeous So commodities speak. To be sure, mostly dialects and patois, lan- niform counts for more than when i muft”(p.60).O guages hard for subjects"to understand. The important thing is A, for instance, cannot be your majesty'to B, unless at the that they be preoccupied with their respective values, that their same time majesty in B's eyes assume the bodily form of A remarks confirm the exchangers'plans for them and, what is more, with every new father of the people, chan- ges its features, hair, and many other things besides"(ibid. The body of a commodity thus becomes, for another such Commodities-"things"produced-would thus have the re- commodity, a mirror of its value. Contingent upon a bodily spect due the uniform, majesty, paternal authority. And even supplement. A supplement opposed to use value, a supplement God.The fact that it is value, is made manifest by its equality representing the commoditys super-natural quality(an impri with the coat, just as the sheep's nature of a Christian is shown that is purely social in nature), a supplement completely differ- in his resemblance to the Lamb of God"(ibid ent from the body itself, and from its properties, a supplement Commodities thus share in the ault of the father,and that nevertheless exists only on condition that one commodit triving to resemble, to copy, the one who is his representative. It is agrees to relate itself to another considered as equivalent:Fc from that resemblance, from that imitation of what represents instance, one man is king only because other men stand in the paternal authority, that commodities draw their value-for relation of subjects to him"(p. 66, n. 1) men. But it is upon commodities that the producers-exchangers This supplement of equivalency translates concrete work into bring to bear this power play. We see, then, all that our analy- abstract work. In other words, in order to be able to incorpo- rate itself into a mirror of value, it is necessary that the work the linen itself. so soon as it comes into communication with itself reflect only its property of human labor: that the body of a another co'mmodity, the coat. Only it betrays its thoughts in commodity be not than the materialization of an ab that language with which alone it is familiar, the language of stract human labor. That is, that it have no more body, matter nature, but that it be objectivization, a crystallization as visible commodities. In order to tell us thatYe abour, it says that the value is created by object, of man's activity. coat, in so far as it is worth as much as the linen, and therefore is value, consists of the same labour as the linen. In order to In order to become equivalent, a commodity changes bodies. A inform us that its sublime reality as value is not the same as its uper-natural, metaphysical origin is substituted for its material buckram body, it says that value has the appearance of a coat origin. Thus its body becomes a transparent body, pure phe and consequently that so far as the linen is value, it and the coat nomenality of value. But this transparency constitutes a supple- are as like as two peas. We may here remark, that the language ment to the material opacity of the commodity of commodities has, besides Hebrew, many other more or less Once again there is a schism between the two. Two sides, two correct dialects. The German'werthsein, to be worth. for in- poles, nature and society are divided, like the perceptible and the intelligible, matter and form, the empirical and the transcenden stance, expresses in a less striking manner than the Romance verbs'valere, 'valer, ' valoir, that the equating of commodity tal... The commodity, like the sign, suffers from metaphysical B to commodity A, is commodity A's own mode of expressing dichotomies. Its value Ith, lies in the social element, But its value. Paris vaut bien une messe"(pp 60-61) this social element is added on to its nature, to its matter. and the social subordinates it as a lesser value, indeed as nonvalue Par- 179
This Sex Which Is Not One Women on the market ticipation in society requires that the body submit itself to a secularization, a speculation, that transforms it into a value that man seeks in it, are ek-stasized. In that suspension in the bearing object, a standardized sign, an exchangeable signifier, a commodity of the relationship among men, producer-con- likeness", with reference to an authoritative model. A co- sumer-exchanger subjects are alienated. In order that they woman-is divided into two irreconcilable bodies"her might " bear"and support that alienation, commodities for "natural"body and her socially valued, exchangeable bod their part have always been dispossessed of their specific value which is a particularly mimetic expression of masculine valt On this basis, one may affirm that the value of the commodity No doubt these values also express"nature, "that is, the expen takes on indifferently any given form of use value. The price of diture of physical force. But this latter-essentially masculine, the articles, in fact, no longer comes from their natural form morcover from their bodies, their language, but from the fact that they technicization of natural productions. And it is this super-natural mirror the need/desire for exchanges among men. To do this property that comes to constitute the value of the product the commodity obviously cannot exist alone, but there is no Analyzing value in this way, Marx exposes the meta-physical such thing as a commodity, either, so long as there are not at character of social operations least two men to make an exchange. In order for a product-a woman?-to have value, two men, at least, have to invest(in) The commodity is thus a dual entity as soon as its value comes to possess a phenomenal form of its own, distinct from its natural form: that of exchange value. And it never possesse The general equivalent of a commodity no longer functions as a this form if it is considered in isolation. a commodity has this commodity itself. a preeminent mirror, transcending the world phenomenal form added on to its nature only in relation to of merchandise, it guarantees the possibility of universal ex- another commodity lodities. Each commodity may become As among signs, value appears only when a relationship has equivalent to every other from the viewpoint of that sublime been established. It remains the case that the establishment of standard, but the fact that the judgment of their value depends relationships cannot be accomplished by the commodities pon some transcendental element renders them provisionally themselves, but depends upon the operation of two exchangers incapable of being directly exchanged for each other. They are The exchange value of two signs, two commodities, two wom exchanged by means of the general equivalent-as Christians n, is a representation of the nceds/desires of consumer-ex- love each other in God, to borrow a theological metaphor dear to marx hanger subjects: in no way is it the"property"of the signs/ articles/women themselves. At the most the commodities-or That ek-static reference separates them radically from each rather the relationships among them-are the material alibi for other. An abstract and universal value preserves themm from use and he desire for relations among men. To this end, the com- exchange among themselves. They are, as it were, transformed modity is disinvested of its body and reclothed in a form that into value-invested idealities. Their concrete forms, their spe- makes it suitable for exchange among men cific qualities, and all the possibilities of"real"relations with But, in this value-bearing form, the desire for that exchange, chem or among them are reduced to their common character as and the reflection of his own value and that of his fellow man products of man's labor and desire We must emphasize also that the general equivalent, since it is
This Sex which Is Not One no longer a commodity, is no longer useful. The standard as such is them as commodities, have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations arising there- from. [ With commodities] it is a definite social relation between Though a commodity may at first sight appear to be "a very men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation trivial thing, and easily understood, between things”(p.83 phenomen ological niceties"(p. 81). No doubt, so far as it is a value in brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and en- use,there is nothing mysterious about it... But, so soon as [a tering into relation both with one another and the human race ooden table, for example] steps forth as a commodity, it is So it is in the world of commodities with the products of mens hanged into something transcendent. It not only stands with hands"(ibid. ) Hence the fetishism attached to these products its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities of labor as soon as they present themselves as commodities it stands on its head and evolves out of its wooden brain gro Hence women's role as fetish-objects, inasmuch as, in exchanges tesque ideas, far more wonderful thantable-turning'ever was they are the manifestation and the circulation of a power of the (Pp.81-82) Phallus, establishing relationships of men with each other? The mystical character of commodities does not originate, therefore, in their use value. Just as little does it proceed from the nature of the determining factors of value. For, in the first place, however varied the useful kinds of labour, or productive activities, may be, it is a physiological fact, that they are func- Hence the following remarks tions of the human organism"(p. 82), which, for Marx, does to constitute a mystery The material contribution and support of bodies in societal operations pose no problems for him, except as production and expenditure of It represents the equivalent of labor force, of an expenditure of energy, of toil. In order to be measured, these latter must be Where, then, does the enigmatic character of the product of abstracted from all immediately natural qualities, from any con- tbor come from, as soon as this product takes on the form of a crete individual. a process of generalization and of universaliza ommodity? It comes, obviously, from that form itself. Then tion imposes itself in the operation of social exchanges. Hence where does the enigmatic character of women come from?Or even that the reduction of man to a"concept"-that of his labor force- upposed relations among themselves? and the reduction of his product to an"obj from the "form"of the needs/ desires of man, needs/desires material correlative of that concept. that women bring to light although men do not recognize them in that form. That form, those women, are always enveloped The characteristics of"sexual pleasure"corresponding to such a social state are thus the following: its productivity, but one that In any case, the existence of things qua commodities, and is necessarily laborious, even painful; its abstract form; its the value relation between the products of labour which stamps need/desire to crystallize in a transcendental element of wealth 182