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