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The word « woman, » I can't and never could bear it. It is with this word that men insulted me. It is a word from their language, a corpse filled with their fantasms against us. Us, who ? Women of course, and the word pops up again. And with it they will have « had » us, as they say.
A journal, then, in order to try to understand what happens behind their words, the very words that they impose upon us, sometimes even in our revolt. To know that we are not only caught by their words (« woman, » « love, » « responsibility, » « honesty, » « faithfulness, » « motherly love, » « feminine specificity, » and so on) but that we are had through their (very) material institutions (serfdom-marriage, underpaid work in comparison to theirs, unpaid surplus — work silence imposed upon us, being exploited, and disposed of for them, laws and violence against us, the world). These are realities, not « words. » But they play with words. Should we follow them ? Because, watch out, they know what they are doing in point of fact. It is all done by the age of five : they know the mysteries of the language of scorn (at that age they go directly to the basics, later they will learn the [same but] censored language for better oppressive use : the language of « feminine » values, of the specific-woman-being). At five it is all done since they already materially possess their woman : their mother (waiting for their wife).
For us, the days of playing with their words are over, and now comes the period of analysis so that their words do not subvert our struggle : « They say [ .... ] that each word must be passed through a sieve. » (M. Wittig, Les guerilleres.) And this is the sieve of reality, which their words obfuscate.
Thus the word « woman » : we don't have the right to use it alone any more, we don't have the right to conceive of it alone. The reality « women » is sociological (political), the product of a relation between two groups, and of an oppressive relation. The real group of women is defined by its very position in this relation, just as the group of men is also defined by its position as oppressor. It is not because we are « women » but because we are oppressed in this relation, that we and we alone can pull apart (= analyze and destroy) the mechanisms of oppression. And, like any besieged group, we must among ourselves give priority to the study of the aggressors' tactics : their behavior (their violence, so perfectly calm), their rhetoric (their words, through which they hem us in), the fact that they are starving us, and the fact that they try to destroy our morale. At this point, it is not enough to say that our aggressor refuses to give us the right to life, or that he denies that we exist, and to pretend that, consequently, we are among ourselves going to « recover » our self, our « identity, » an « other » identity as a woman, and so on. What besieged community can afford such an attitude if it does not want to commit suicide within its walls ?
What it's all about is knowing that our social « identity, » our real and concrete definition, is that of besieged persons, and primarily that. We must find out how and by what strategy the aggressor denies us property, free disposition of ourselves, free access to our own food. Presently, historically and sociologically he denies that we exist by asserting that we are woman and by forcing us into what he decided the « female » condition to be.
Before coming back to this point, let us take up again the siege metaphor and let us study its « moments » — this term meaning both an historical evolution of the situation and the various stances that, given where we are now, coexist.
1. First moment : Femininity. Or : « Everything is fine and dandy during a siege. » The besieger is at the ghetto's gates. Food is outside the women's town and the fields have been taken by the aggressor. It is a quiet siege. He has blocked off all exits except the largest gate, which is decorated with flowers (particularly on Mother's Day) and which is connected to his camp by a lowered drawbridge. As long as women accept to follow this route and go out to beg for food (in exchange for what awful work, by the way !) he will hand them out some crumbs. They are still hungry in their dependent state (material aspect of femininity) but the situation seems tolerable; all the more so since the assailant also « provides » them with an « explanation » (the ideology of femininity) : their female constitution (biology) is to be hungry, they are defective and he can fix them (to prove it : the crumbs). Since the women are weakened by serflike work and malnutrition, they tell themselves that he has got to be right, that « that's the way it is. » At most they will send back to their masters the « mean things » that men dump on them : men are this, they are that and that too is « the way it is. » Some women, however, individually refuse femininity and they become mad or are killed.
2. Second moment : Feminitude. Or : movement that recognizes women. Or : « Indeed I have been starved by him (first level of consciousness) but I have value. » For instance : « I am light, I can jump and dance. I will fly away, build something, far from him. I am heavy with my own body; my body is beautiful. I myself give value to the self that they have devalued. » But how, « far from him ? » But « I » who ? Critical questions. Uncertain answers. This feminitude which resembles negritude, this demanded difference with the added notion of « better, » this cultural feminism similar to black cultural nationalism, will they enable us to be fed by our hunger ? You will say that it is necessary to gain self-confidence. This is true and it requires that we be together among ourselves. But the « self » is emaciated with a bloated belly, it is the product of the dynamics of starving, of the dynamics of besieging. We cannot be satisfied with turning around on ourselves, with dancing alone in a circle, while they are there hemming us in, obstructing our paths to freedom. To believe that we can find our food in ourselves is to reason in an essentialist (the idea of an auto-nourishing self) or metaphysical (let us wait until manna falls down from the sky) manner. It means playing the game of the other, dwelling on the tactical stratagem of the enemy (hunger, femininity) without seeing his strategy (siege, hemming in), concentrating on the effect without attacking the cause. It means locking ourselves up within a static argument, and pushing reality into a dead end.
Reality is this : the sidewalks and squares of the women's city have been carefully blacktopped by the aggressor and nothing grows in the ghetto that he does not allow to grow (except a few flowers in the cracks of the walls, which could not replace wheat fields anyhow). Even our « feminine » qualities, like our « defects » are the product of the political relation between men and women, the product of a siege relation. At least, if there is one quality — so obligatorily, so harshly acquired during our slavery ! — that we must use, it is in fact courage. Courage to recognize each other and to come together, yes, but in order to end the siege by force.
3. Third moment : Feminism. Or : women's liberation movement. Or : an attack on the social roots of difference. Or : « I will be neither a woman nor a man in the present historical meaning : I shall be some Person in the body of a woman. »
The fact is that food and fields are outside the ghetto. If there is an « elsewhere » where we must go and get our food, it lies there, in the space of reconquered fields, beyond the siege relation. And if there is « another way » through which we must acquire our food, it is indeed through fighting on the battlefield. No ring-around-the-rosy on the town's main square, the one with the steps, as if we had the power to lift up the drawbridge, to lock ourselves up by ourselves. Because at the heart of the matter is the fact that the machinery of the drawbridge, the chains that keep it lowered toward the assailant, are not in our hands but in his hands. The battlefield is the large open door of Femininity, the lowered drawbridge of oppression, the aggressor's campsite. In order to cut through them with force we must gather our forces. Each of us will only be able to be « herself » when all of us will have regained access to the real world. (It is only after this that our imaginaire [« imaginary order »] [4] like that of men, will be transformed.) For the time being we need the type of concrete tactical imagination that proceeds from an analysis of facts.
Does this mean that utopia should be rejected ? Indeed not. Utopias, like cries, are vital to us : they are our words as oppressed persons, our sociological imagination. But utopia proceeds in fact from an analysis, and there are several kinds of utopias, as there are several kinds of analyses to underlie them. Some take into account (and work against) political reality, i.e.., women = a sociologically defined class within (outside, through) a material and historical relation of oppression, but whose oppression is itself ideologically attributed by the ruling group to an alleged biological determination of the oppressed class, limited to this class. Others, and sometimes without even being aware of it, condone (and against us) the theory of the oppressor in its ultimate ideology, i.e.., women = woman.
It seems important to us to succeed now in clarifying the relation between what is political and what is « biological. » We can say at the same time that there is no relation between a physical constitution and a social « condition » and recognize that for the time being, there is just the same, some relation, thus possibly introducing ambiguity and confusion in our analyses. What we must answer is — not the false problem (very in among « scientists ») which consists in measuring the « role » of biological factors and the « role » of social factors in the behavior of sexed individuals — but rather the following questions : (1) In what way is the biological political ? In other words, what is the political function of the biological ? (2) In what way (and why) do social sex classes correspond to biological sex classes ? (3) How does ideology operate materially ? We certainly have parts of the answers to these questions, but the analysis must be continued.
A. The biological as an ideology which rationalizes the political. We know that the political class of men (defined in the relation of oppression) defines us as a biological class in order to justify by nature its power as oppressor. They use « sex difference, » but only in one direction. Unlike what their loudspeakers lead us to believe, there are in their heads no real differences between the sexes : if this were the case, it would presuppose that they acknowledge the existence of two sexed groups. But they conceive of themselves as purely social, purely general beings, not as a « biological group of men. » Group of men, yes. But in their mind they possess a quality, but we alone would have a « particular » physical constitution (mostly defined by motherhood). We use the term « masculinity » ourselves in answer to « femininity » in a sociological analysis. But for them « femininity » (a given in the biological mode) is opposed to « virility » (which is an act in the psychological, social, and human modes, as they explain it to themselves [and to us] with such pangs and complacency !). We therefore see a social group which decrees, acts, thinks, and organizes its power on the other social group by defining the other as the only biologically determined group.
B. Ideology as materially effective in reality. It is indeed on the basis of our physical appearance that they constantly act out their power. (For example, take a job opening with a certain remuneration calculated without reference to the sex of the person who can perform it, i.e., calculated for a man. The remuneration will drop 30 percent if an obviously female applicant answers the job offer.) To put it briefly, our social class of « women, » a product of the political, has indeed the material contours of our biological category because of the effects of ideology...
C. The logical reversal of the political over the biological. Starting from our raised consciousness about their politics and from our political analysis (which shows that none of the two sex categories exists and that therefore none can be conceived of outside of its relation to the other) we recognize that, as a consequence of their having chosen the biological to define us politically, their own political class coincides also with their physical contours. Thus, when we physically exclude men from our groups, we express at the same time the fact that we have understood their politics and that we consider males, indeed, as a political group. We have totally politicized anatomy. Men had used politically only ours (when they ideologically defined us but not themselves as the sex). The fact that they are excluded for « anatomical reasons » is the logical backlash of their politics, where one sees the turning of the political against the ideological.
If it is on the basis of our women's anatomies that we have been compelled to come together politically, we also did it in order not to forget that this biological category is political, created by the social relation of oppression and the very ideology of the oppressor. So that we may not forget, so that we may have the courage to recognize that if we join our forces of anatomical women, it is to destroy ourselves as sociological women and at the same time to destroy men as sociological men.
We must abolish sex social classes, and in order to do so we must not let ourselves be haunted by the insidious question of identity, of values « specific » to each sex, not be engulfed in the unique valorization of our sex « culture. » We must not forget that « specific » means, primarily, « uniquely pertaining to a species. » For us there is only one human species, and that excludes all forms of discrimination, of hierarchy (sex, race, class).
For us, the analysis must first of all be the analysis of the power relation that transforms women into women. Forms of thinking or of practice which would focus on women as women run the risk of unwittingly repeating the terms of the oppressor, of closing our category upon itself. By so doing, we would « drop » all the women who do not have the material chance to act as if the aggressor did not exist — those who don't have the possibility of falling into the woman-as-woman value trap. If we accepted these terms, we would turn against ourselves, against our sex social group, by forging an « identity » that hides material exploitation and oppression, this daily relation that creates our class. Because the most womanly women, those who most fully correspond to the present « identity » of our class, are in fact the women with the lowest salaries and those whose husbands won't let them go on strike, the women without any salary at all, the raped women, the battered women, the women abandoned with small children.
It is not a question of reconquering ourselves, as women, it is a question of conquering our freedom. It's not only our feminitude that we must promote. If we must gain in strength, if we must speak and write, if we must act, it is in order to transform now the social, economic, and political relations that lead to the hierarchical classification into so-called « sex » groups of persons who are identically human, identically socializable… In order to destroy it, we must analyze the system of social sexes. We must end the siege by force… or else slowly continue to die. [N.-C.M.]
[4] In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the imaginary order is the order of perception, hallucination and their derivatives as opposed to the symbolic order which is the order of discursive and symbolic action. - Translators note.
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