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