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Since the days when, in the feminist movement, we liked to repeat that the theory of women's oppression « remained to be done, » much has been written in France and in other countries that adds to one or several analyses of this oppression and leads to definite tactical stances.
Early in the movement, two trends in the analysis of women's oppression emerged, one calling itself « revolutionary feminism » (in the United States « radical feminism ») and to which we adhere, the other known as the « class-struggle tendency. » The latter has attempted to find a point of articulation between women's struggle and class struggle, within a Marxist theoretical framework, but has not attempted to expose what seems to us to be not only inherent gaps in Marxist theory but also inconsistencies in the way it « situates » the oppression of women. This groups solution consists in adding various observations about women without ever questioning the principle of the monopoly of the working class that is supposed to contain in its struggle the total subversion of « the » system of oppression — capitalism. To oppose sexist mentality and institutions strictly on ideological grounds, without basing the struggle on a materialistic analysis of the oppression of women, is not enough. One must study the connections between sexist mentality, institutions, laws, and the socio-economic structures that support them. These structures are part of a specific system different from the capitalist system, and we call this system « patriarchy. » The basic analysis of patriarchy (as a system of production that includes a special production relation between the sexes) has already been elaborated with the MLF [2] and we wish to help disseminate and deepen it in this journal. Let us briefly present this analysis.
If wage-earning men and part of the women (45 percent of women are wage earners) are subjected to a common economic exploitation within capitalist relations of production, all women (those who work « double shift » and those who stay at home) are subjected to a common economic exploitation to which men are not subjected (on the contrary, they benefit from this) in production relations that are not capitalistic, namely the unpaid production of domestic services. It is precisely because such work is not remunerated that it finds itself outside of the capitalist system, one of whose characteristics is wage earning. Housewives are not paid in relation to the work they perform. They are, through marriage (and in principle, for life), economically dependent on their husbands who derive material and psychological power from this dependence. This institutionalized dependency of women has its effects on their position in paid labor : « supplementary » income, part-time work, higher rate of unemployment among women, and so forth. It all points to economic subordination, compulsory housework, and confinement to the domestic sphere.
This analysis allows us to define men and women as two groups with opposite interests. This opposition of interests is not limited to the family. The economic inferiority of women in the work force, their exclusion from power positions, including politics, and their restricted access to knowledge must be linked with the division of labor between the sexes, which itself is based on the family as an institution. The overall power of men over women, the psychological devaluation of women (beyond their material exploitation), the sexual and physical violence against women, all result from this power and help to reinforce it.
First we protected ourselves from the orthodox Left, which is on our right because it eliminates sex struggle. Now we must defend ourselves against another Right : a new attack with the good old rhetoric on sex differences but this time uttered by women, which eliminates historical and dialectical materialism in order to give voice to the naked truth of women's eternal bodies.
Everything that is expressed in the women's movement is not always theoretical, but this does not mean that underlying theories do not exist behind the words. It is important to bring to light these implicit theories of which people are not necessarily conscious, particularly when they seem to go against an overtly feminist discourse.
Today there is a trend that through the concept of « women's words » focusses on a search for feminine identity. To repeat « we are this and we are that, and above all not like you » would be a way to tell men : shit on you ! All right. But does such a discourse express a true refusal, a true contesting of masculine ideology and of the system that produces it ?
Some women declare that « language must be shattered, » because language is supposed to be male as it is a conveyor of, among other things, male chauvinism. They claim for themselves « another » language, that, in its new form, would be closer to woman's lived experience, a lived experience in the center of which the Body is frequently placed. Hence the watchwords : « liberate-the-body » and « speak-the-body. » It is legitimate to expose the oppression, the mutilation, the « functionalization » and the « objectivation » [3] of the female body, but it is also dangerous to place the body at the center of a search for female identity. Furthermore, the themes of Otherness and of the Body merge together, because the most visible difference between men and women, and the only one that we know for sure to be permanent (barring mutations) is indeed the difference in body. This difference has been used as a pretext to « justify » full power of one sex over the other.
When a group is in power it propagates the reigning ideology, it imposes categories. The group in power, which always needs to justify its domination, condemns those that it oppresses to being different : he or she cannot be treated equally because… Therefore colonized people were generally « lazy » and « incapable » of producing anything from their land themselves, etc. Such « differences » are not explained by specific historical circumstances because history evolves and can bring about revolutions. For the oppressor, it is safer to speak of natural differences that are invariable by definition. That is the basis of racist and sexist ideologies. And thus a status of inferiority is inextricably bound to a status of difference.
Now, after centuries of men constantly repeating that we were different, here are women screaming, as if they were afraid of not being heard and as if it were an exciting discovery : « We are different ! » Are you going fishing ? No, I am going fishing.
The very theme of difference, whatever the differences are represented to be, is useful to the oppressing group : as long as such a group holds power, any difference established between itself and other groups validates the only difference of importance, namely, having power while others do not. The fact that blacks have « a sense of rhythm » while whites do not is irrelevant and does not change the balance of power. On the contrary, any allegedly natural feature attributed to an oppressed group is used to imprison this group within the boundaries of a Nature which, since the group is oppressed, ideological confusion labels « nature of oppressed person. » In the present content, since oppression is not over, to demand the right to Difference without analyzing its social character is to give back to the enemy an effective weapon.
To advocate a « woman's language » and a means of expression that would be specifically feminine seems to us equally illusory. First, the so-called explored language extolled by some women writers seems to be linked, if not in its content at least by its style, to a trend propagated by literary schools governed by male masters. This language is therefore as academic and as « masculine » as other languages. Secondly, it is at times said that woman's language is closer to the body, to sexual pleasure, to direct sensations, and so on, which means that the body could express itself directly without social meditation and that, moreover, this closeness to the body and to nature would be subversive. In our opinion, there is no such thing as a direct relation to the body. To advocate a direct relation to the body is therefore not subversive because it is equivalent to denying the reality and the strength of social mediations, the very same ones that oppress us in our bodies. At most, one would advocate a different socialization of the body, but without searching for a true and eternal nature, for this search takes us away from the most effective struggle against the socio-historical contexts in which human beings are and will always be trapped. If there is one natural characteristic of human beings, it is that human beings are by nature social beings.
One could summarize how some women proceed in their quest for identity through the opposition between Witch-Woman and Cartesian-Man. There are several reasons given for using the witch as a positive image of woman. Among them the subversive activities of witches throughout their history, as well as alleged characteristics of witches that some women see as liberation symbols :
-- « direct » contact with nature, with their body and the body of others;
-- practices, ideas, and a language that are presented as positive models for a specifically feminine culture, as opposed to an oppressive masculine culture;
-- on top of everything, a halo of mystery and secrecy that evokes the notion of a private territory or kingdom where women are queens. Witches were subversive because of their alliance with the devil, their medical practices, and their sexual activities, imagined or real, especially during the Sabbath « orgies. » Alliance with the devil was certainly for women, as for the poor, a form of revenge against the Church, but it was not a means of fighting the Church : to believe in the devil or to pretend to do so is to side with the Church in its God-Devil dogma. And to equate Woman with the Forces of Evil, even in a victorious fashion, is also to give in to church ideology.
Witches as healers, poisoners, aborters, and midwives knew about plants and the body not by osmosis but because they had studied them practically. If witches used plants effectively it is because they classified them and experimented with them, and that is a « scientific » approach. It is not a better practice because one calls it scientific, but it means that witches used their brains in the same way as men, who later monopolized medicine.
Witches did dance in the moors and they hid there too. The wilderness was for the most destitute women the only place of survival that society allowed them. The witch, queen of the forest, is like the domesticated wife who is queen of the home. Queen of one domain because excluded from others. Mystery, night, forest, it all resembles the clandestineness of pariahs and heretics. The underground where one may indeed fight is nonetheless not equivalent to freedom.
And what about the sexuality of witches ? Michelet points out one interesting facet of the Sabbath, namely contraception : they said that « women never came back pregnant. » It appears that there often were simulations or spectacular representations of sexual acts as well as practices « against nature » (because they did not lead to conception, of course !). We are dealing here with very rationally regulated sexual outlets. Procreation was controlled, but can one speak of sexual liberation for women ? Michelet describes women who during the Sabbath « bow down, » « offer themselves, » « let themselves be devoured by the crowd, » and so forth. If witches had certain powers, because of which they were feared and respected in the lower classes, they nonetheless apparently remained sexual objects. To conclude : beware of those Thrones for « Woman » that turn her into an altar (« on her back, a devil was conducting a service »).
As for the « other » language of witches advocated by some women — a language of the body, singsong, visceral cries, etc. — (silence even, which supposedly can be heard, what was the point of asking for your turn to speak then ?), this language of the body, this cry-language, is that enough to fight oppression ? If one should not hesitate to cry out one's guts against the words that leave you out in the cold, there is no good reason to reject as « masculine and oppressive » a certain form of conceptual discourse and thus give men the exclusive control over discourse. Oppression must be named and analyzed (its mechanisms exposed) if we want to fight it. Men give us too willingly the exclusive use of visceral cries and intuition; there again the segregation between masculine and feminine has been effective. We are only playing the oppressor's game if we deprive ourselves of knowledge and conceptual tools because he has used them before us. It would be like, for instance, rejecting work on pretext that it is « alienating, » circumscribed within the « competitive male » world, when the exclusion of women from the labor force (that is to say, denying them economic independence) is a much greater « alienation » at the very center of our oppression.
When we claim that we are different, and outsiders in the world of men, we are only parroting them :
Nature-Woman : consecration of Culture-Man.
Devil-Woman : consecration of God-Man.
Mystery-Woman : abyss to be filled by the reigning ideology.
Womb-Woman : self-service for stereotypes.
Sphinx-Woman : smile because you can say nothing. Woman is supposed to possess a huge secret, probably that of our origins, just because gestation occurs in her body : consequently she may remain illiterate, she already knows too much ! But she does not know what she knows (do her ovaries know ?), it cannot be formulated… She is said to be beyond formulation, knowledge, science : in order to keep her away from these skills.
Pleasure-Woman : avatar of body-woman, sex-woman, greedy sex, frigid sex, anything-you-like sex. The special relation to nature and the particular capacities for sexual pleasure attributed to women remind us of the language used about « Negroes » or even workers (in May 1968 this graffiti : « Workers screw better ») — in short, the rhetoric of the prevailing ideology on the oppressed. During one century men confine us to frigidity or « purity » in order to better use our bodies. During the next century we are condemned to « total » pleasure in order to make us believe that in « nature's » ghetto we enjoy a form of liberty denied to those who are supposedly alienated in society but who in fact have means of control over us.
In everything that is supposed to characterize women, oppression is always present. We are willing to sacrifice ourselves ? No, we « have been » sacrificed. Maternal instincts ? No, but the obligation for women to fulfill a certain role. We are close to nature ? No, but we are prohibited from using the tools necessary for social mastery, for the knowledge of our own bodies and for creation. As far as creation is concerned we are left, through an ambiguous play on words, with the « creation » of babies, on condition that it be involuntary, regulated, and « inspired » by other minds than ours.
We must reclaim for ourselves all human potentials, including those unduly established as masculine, that is to say, those monopolized by men in order to enslave us more thoroughly. For instance rational discourse : it's up to us to change its content. For instance violence : it's up to us to choose its forms and its goals. But violence is necessary against the violence of oppression. We want to be able to choose, we want to move out of the equation women = oppressed.
More than women, we are individuals. Up to now, only the masculine is allowed to be neuter (nonsexual definition) and general. We want access to the neuter, the general. Sex is not our destiny. A man, Sacha Guitry, said : « I would gladly agree that women are superior if it would discourage them from becoming equals. » This represents the Doormat-Pedestal tactics, or the tactics of « kicking upstairs » to some honorary position someone who must be gotten rid of. What « they » want is simple : we should not step on their turf, we should help them reach their goals by staying in our place. Equality is a threat to men : the threat that their privileges will disappear.
Women whose deliberate feminist approach is to demand for themselves before anything else (and perhaps exclusively) their Difference, are working against the notion of equality : What ? demand equality with the oppressor ?
But equality-with-the-oppressor is a contradiction in its own terms. If there is equality between two persons, there is no longer oppressor nor oppressed. In the dictionary, the definition for the word « equal » is : « Having the same quantity, size, nature or value, cf. identical, same, equivalent. » We have here two notions, that of resemblance and that of same value. The fact that women want to be considered as having as much value as men cannot be criticized. But must women consequently resemble men ? If to be equal to men means by definition that men should stop oppressing us, and if at the same time we demand equality for all human beings, i.e., demand that men cease being oppressors, what difference can we claim for ourselves and according to what criteria ? In the struggle for an egalitarian society, the only difference that we acknowledge is that of our political choices. What do we assert when, at a rally, we imitate the shape of a vulva with our hands instead of raising closed fists ? The specificity of our struggle against a specific oppression. We assert that for us women, the main front is the fight for the destruction of the patriarchal system and of phallocracy. From our position as oppressed persons, we do not demand a « feminine » society but a society where men and women would share the same values, those being necessarily anti-phallocratic and anti-hierarchical.
In our struggle, we demand that our history be acknowledged in History : history of our oppression, history of our revolts, history of our cultural and technical contributions, and so on. But one must not forget that our specific contributions have existed and exist because of a division of labor based on sex and hierarchy. If we invented agriculture, pottery, plant science, tapestry, or the art of quilting, we must have these things recognized as general economic and/or cultural contributions, but we don't have to limit ourselves to them. For what we offer and must bring (both on the territory men have left us, but by subversively forcing them to move into it, and on grounds that we must now conquer for ourselves : for example music, mathematics, architecture, as well as political and economic decision making) is finally a global change in society, the sharing of tasks, equal access to the means of production and to cultural tools.
We acknowledge a biological difference between men and women, but in and of itself this difference does not imply an oppressive relation between the sexes. The battle of the sexes is not biological. We acknowledge a difference between men and women in social hierarchy; we acknowledge psychological differences that express both the oppression of one sex by the other and the exclusion of both sexes from the potentials attributed to the other. These are the differences that we want to abolish. [E.L.]
[2] « The "Mouvement de Libération des Femmes" [Women's liberation movement], commonly referred to as the MLF, is not an organisation. It is the name invented by the French press during the summer of 1970 to identify the diverse radical women's groups that had been visible in Paris, Lyon, and Toulouse since the fall of 1968. The original groups were composed of women students who had participated in the May revolution and who were dismayed to discover that the vast majority of their male comrades were as deeply phallocratic as the bourgeois enemy. » from Introduction III to New French Feminisms ed. and intro. by Elaine Marks and Isabelle de Courtivron [Amherst : University of Massachusetts, 1980], p. 30.
[3] The tendency to « nominalize » is characteristic of contemporary theoretical discourse in France and corresponds to the preoccupation with process. - Translators note.
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