TOWARD A FEMINIST THEORY OF THE STATE Catharine a. Mackinnon Harvard University Press Gambridge, Massachusetts London, England
I FEMINISM AND MARXISM
1 The Problem of Marxism and Feminism Marxism and feminism are one and that one is Marxism Bridges, The Unhappy Marriage exuality is to feminism what work is to marxism: that U which is most one's own, yet most taken away. Marxist theory argues that society is fundamentally constructed of the relations people form as they do and make things needed to survive humanly Work is the social process of shaping and transforming the material and social worlds, creating people as social beings as they create value It is that activity by which people become who they are. Class is its structure, production its consequence, capital a congealed form, and control its issue Implicit in feminist theory is a parallel argument: the molding, direction, and expression of sexuality organizes society into two sexes women and men. This division underlies the totality of social lations. Sexuality is the social pr of gender are created, organized, expressed, and directed creating the social beings we know as women and men, as their relations create society. As work is to marxism, sexuality to feminism is socially ructed yet constructing, universal as activity yet. historically jointly comprised of matter and mind. As the organized iation of the work of some for the benefit of others defines a class, workers, the organized expropriation of the sexuality of some for the use of others defines the sex, woman. Heterosexuality is its social
4 Feminism and Marxism structure, desire its internal dynamic, gender and family its congealed extent their forms and behaviors resemble one another, could gender forms, sex roles its qualities generalized to social persona, reproduction be their c onmonaliry? Is there a relattionship between the wealth of t ronseu'ncC, andI control its issue wealthy men and the poverty of pHor women, is tiere a rlaritnis Marxism and teminism provide accounts of the way social arrange between the power of some classes over others and the power of all men ments of parterned and e disparity can be internally rational over all women? Is there a relationship between the face that the few and systematic yet unjust. Both are theories of power, its social deri ve ruled the many and the fact that those few have been met vations and its maldistribution. Both are theories of social inequality Instead of confronting these questions, marxists and feminists have In unequal societies, gender and with it sexual desire and kinship sually either dismissed or, in the more active form of the same thing property ownership, are considered presocial, part of the natural world subsumed each other. Marxists have criticized feminism as bourgeois in theory and in practice, meaning that feminism works in the interest of the ruling class. They argue that to analyze society in terms of sex creation, feminism exposes desire as socially relational, internally nec ignores the primacy of class and glosses over class divisions among essary to unequal social orders but historically contingent women,dividing the proletariat. Feminist demands, it is claimed The specificity of marxism and feminism is not incidental. To be could be fully satisfied within capitalism, so their pursuit undermines deprived of- centroL over work relations in marxism, over sexual and deflects the effort for basic change. Efforts to eliminate barriers to lations in feminism, defines each theory's conception of lack of power omens personhood-arguments for access to life chances without se. They do not mean to exist side by side, pluralistically, to er regard to sex-are seen as liberal and individualistic. Whatever women have in common is considered to be based in nature, not in terests of two discrete groups are not obscured, or the contributions of two sets of variables are not ignored. They exist to argue, respec not seem to support this analysis, womens conditions are seen as tively, that the relations in which many work and few gain, in which common or shared, and analyses that claim they are, are called some dominate and others are subordinated in which some fuck and totalizing and ahistorical. When cross-cultural analyses of womens others get fucked and everybody knows what those words mean, are ial conditions do support this analysis, women's status is seen as a e prime moment of politics universal, or analyses based on it are considered to lack cultural What if the claims of each theory are taken equally seriously, each The womens movement's focus upon attitudes, beliefs on its own terms? Can two social processes be basic at once? Can two and emotions as powerful components of social reality is criticized groups be subordinated in conflicting ways, or do they merely formally idealist; the composition of the womens movement, pur- crosscut? Can two theories, each of which purports to account for the portedly of middle-class educated women, is advanced as an explana same, thing-power as such-be reconciled? Confronted on eq terms, these theories at minimum pose fundamental questions for each Feminists charge that marxism is male defined in theory and in other. Is male dominance a creation of capitalism, or is capitalism one xpression of male dominance? What does it mean for class analysis if practice, meaning that it moves within the worldview and in the interest of men. Feminists argue that analyzing society exclusively in a social group is defined and exploited through means that seem class terms ignores the distinctive social experiences of the sexes largely independent of the organizati obscuring womens unity. Marxist demands, it is claimed, could be o it? What does it mean for a sex-based analysis if (and in part have been) satisfied without altering womens inequality capitalism might not be materially altered if it were fully sex to men. Feminists have often found that working-class movements and ntegrated or even controlled by women? Supposing that the structure d interests served by the socialist state and the capitalist state differ the left undervalue womens work and concerns, neglect the role of feelings and beliefs in a focus on institutional and material in class terms, are they equally predicated upon sex inequality? To the denigrate women in practice and in everyday life, and in general f
6 Feminism and Marxism The Problew of Marxism and Feminism 7 to distinguish themselves from any other ideology or group dominated y male interests, where justice for women is concerned. Marxists and is both demeaning ro all women and works to the detriment feminists ti h accuse the uther nf socking wiat in cach une'sterms is of the excluded underclass. their"women inclucled rciorm-altcracions that appease and assuage and improve in accorn This kinl ol reasoning has been tonhnedl neither wn the issue of che moclation to structures of incquality--whcre, again in cach onc's vote nor to the nineteenth century, Mill's logic is embedded in the terms, a fundamental transformation is required. At irs most extreme cortical structure of liberalism that underlies much contemporary the mutual perception is not only that the other's analysis is wrong feminist theory and justifies much of the marxist critique. His view but that its success would be a defeat that women should be allowed to engage in politics was an expression Neither set of allegations is groundless. In the feminist view, sex of Mills concern that the state not restrict individuals, self- in analysis and in reality, does divide classes, a fact marxists have been government, their freedom to develop talents for their own growth, more inclined to deny or ignore than to explain or change. Marxists and their ability to contribute to society for the good of humanity. As imilarly, have seen parts of the women's movement function as a an empirical rationalist, he resisted attributing to biology what could pecial interest group to advance the class -privileged: educated and be explained as social conditioning. As a kind of utilitarian, he found professional women. At the same time, to consider this group most sex-based inequalities inaccurate or dubious, inefficient, and coextensive with"the women,'s movement"precludes questioning the therefore unjust. That women should have the liberty, as individual to achieve the limits of self-development without arbitrary interference social processes that give disproportionate visibility to the moverment's t broadly based segment. Accepting a middle-class definition of extended to women Mills meritocratic goal of the self-made man the women's movement has distorted perception of its actual compo- condemning(what has since come to be termed)sexism as an irrational sition and made invisible the diverse ways in which many women- interference with personal initiative and laissez-faire notably Black women and working-class women-have long moved The hospitality of such an analysis to marxist concerns is prob- against gendered determinants. But advocates of women's interests lematic. Mill's argument could be extended to cover class as one more have not always been class conscious; some have exploited class-based arbitrary, socially conditioned factor that produces inefficient devel arguments for advantage, even when the interests of women, working opment of talent and unjust distribution of resources among individ. class women, were thereby obscured uals. But although this extrapolation might be in a sense materiali In 1866, for example, in an act often thought to inaugurate the first it would not be a class analysis. Mill himself does not even allow for wave of feminism, John Stuart Mill petitioned the English Parliament laissez-faire and unregulated personal initiating. lth is exactly what for women,'s suffrage with the following partial justifcation: "Under whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to al concept of rights which this theory requires on a juridical level suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting (especially but not only in the economic sphere), a concept that yomen under the same. The majority of women of any class are not produces the tension in liberalism between liberty for each and ikely to differ in political opinion from the majority of men in the equality among all, pervades liberal feminism, substantiating the criticism that feminism is for the privileged few same class. Perhaps Mill meant that, to the extent class determines opinion, sex is irrelevant. In this sense, the argument narrowly fits the The marxist criticism that feminism focuses upon feelings and purpose of eliminating gender as a restriction on the vote. Mill attitudes is also based on something real: the importance to feminism personally supported universal suffrage. And, as it happened, working- women s own perceptions of their situation. The practice of con class men got the vote before women of any class. But this argument lousness raising, not only or even primarily as a concrete event but can also justify limiting the extension of the franchise to women who more as a collective approach to critique and change, has been a tech- belong to"men of the same class that already exercises it-in which nique of analysis, structure of organization, method of practice,and theory of social change of the women's movement. In consciousness-