Toward a Feminist Theory of the State

1. Sexuality, Not Just Class, Is a Foundational Social Organizer

Sexuality is to feminism what work is to marxism: that which is most one’s own, yet most taken away.

Parallel Structures. Just as Marxism analyzes society through the lens of work and class, feminism views sexuality as a primary force shaping social relations. Both theories recognize that these forces are socially constructed, yet they also construct social beings.

Sexuality as a Social Process. Sexuality, like work, is not merely a biological drive but a social process that organizes society into two sexes: women and men. This division underlies all social relations, creating the social beings we know as women and men.

• Heterosexuality is its social structure.
• Desire is its internal dynamic.
• Gender and family are its congealed forms.
• Sex roles are its qualities generalized to social persona.
• Reproduction is a consequence.
• Control is its issue.

Power Dynamics. Both Marxism and feminism are theories of power, its social derivations, and its maldistribution. In unequal societies, gender and sexual desire, like value and acquisitiveness, are considered presocial, part of the natural world. Feminism exposes desire as socially relational, internally necessary to unequal social orders but historically contingent.

2. Marxist Analysis Fails to Grasp Women's Subordination

To Marx, women were defined by nature, not by society.

Marx's Limited View. Marx saw differences in the "sexual act" as the original division of labor, treating gender as a natural given rather than a social construct. He viewed women primarily as mothers and housekeepers, not as workers, even when they were waged laborers.

• He saw women's work in the home as "free labor," failing to recognize its value.
• He considered working women a liability to the working class, undermining men's resistance to capitalism.
• He did not inquire why women were bartered in prostitution, seeing it as a specific expression of the general prostitution of the laborer.

Engels' Flawed Explanation. Engels attempted to explain women's subordination through the historical development of the family and private property. However, his analysis presupposed male dominance at the very points it was meant to explain.

• He assumed women preferred monogamy to group marriage, without explaining why.
• He attributed the rise of slavery to the need for more people to tend cattle, rather than to social relations.
• He failed to see that women's status is not solely determined by their relationship to capitalism through men.

Inadequate Materialism. Engels' materialism was static and positivistic, reifying women socially to such an extent that their status might as well have been considered naturally determined. He failed to grasp the dynamic interplay between material conditions and social relations, instead assuming male dominance at each crucial juncture.

3. Feminist Theory Centers Women's Lived Experience

The pursuit of the truth of women’s reality is the process of consciousness; the life situation of consciousness, its determination articulated in the minutiae of everyday existence, is what feminist consciousness seeks to be conscious of.

Women's Perspective. Feminist theory places women's experience and perspective at the center of inquiry into gender. It prioritizes women's point of view, seeking to uncover hidden meanings in ordinary life.

• It explores women's everyday lives, including housework and sexuality.
• It values women's own perceptions of their situation.
• It seeks to understand the impact of male dominance through women's collective experience.

Consciousness Raising. Consciousness raising is a collective approach to critique and change, a technique of analysis, a structure of organization, a method of practice, and a theory of social change.

• It involves the collective speaking of women's experience from the perspective of that experience.
• It uncovers the impact of male dominance, both externally imposed and deeply internalized.
• It reveals the social construction of femininity and its role in women's subordination.

Collective Inquiry. Feminist theory proceeds as if the truth of women's condition is accessible to women's collective inquiry. It seeks to understand the life situation of consciousness, its determination articulated in the minutiae of everyday existence.

4. Liberal Feminism Prioritizes Individual Rights, Radical Feminism, Collective Power

To liberal feminism, gender differentiation defines sexual politics; to radical feminism, gender hierarchy defines sexual politics.

Liberal Feminism. Liberal feminism takes the individual as the proper unit of analysis and measure of the destructiveness of sexism. It views sex inequality as an irrational restriction on individual potential.

• It seeks to eliminate barriers to women's personhood, focusing on access to life chances without regard to sex.
• It emphasizes individual rights and liberties, often within the existing social order.
• It sees sexism as an irrational interference with personal initiative and laissez-faire.

Radical Feminism. Radical feminism focuses on the collective "group called women," viewing sex as a systematic division of social power. It sees sexism as a system of subordination to be overthrown.

• It emphasizes the social construction of gender and the collective experience of women.
• It views male power as systematic and cumulative, enforced to women's detriment.
• It seeks a transformation in the equation of gender with dominance, not just a leveling of differences.

Divergent Approaches. Liberal feminism seeks to level the playing field, while radical feminism seeks to change the game. Liberal feminism focuses on individual freedom, while radical feminism focuses on collective power.

5. The State Is Male: Objectivity as a Tool of Male Dominance

In a very real sense, the project went from marxism to feminism through method to analyze congealed power in its legal form, and state power emerged as male power.

State as Male Power. The state, through law, participates in the sexual politics of male dominance by enforcing its epistemology. State power emerges as male power.

• The state's formal norms, such as objectivity, reflect the male point of view.
• The state's legal system, including its courts, enforces male dominance through law.
• The state's policies often reinforce existing male control over women.

Objectivity as a Male Norm. Objectivity, the norm of the liberal state, is a male construct that legitimates male power. It is a stance that claims to be distant and aperspectival, but it is actually a specific social position.

• It devalues women's experience and perspective.
• It treats the world as a fixed object, ignoring the social construction of reality.
• It reinforces existing power structures by presenting them as natural and inevitable.

Law as Male Power. The state's legal system, including its courts, enforces male dominance through law. Law is not neutral but reflects and reinforces the male point of view.

• It treats women as individuals, ignoring their collective experience of subordination.
• It focuses on individual rights, obscuring the systemic nature of gender inequality.
• It legitimates male power by presenting it as natural and inevitable.

6. Rape Law Reflects Male, Not Female, Experience of Sex

Monogamous marriage comes on the scene as the subjugation of one sex by the other, it announces a struggle between the sexes unknown throughout the whole previous pre-historic period.

Male-Defined Rape. Rape law, like sexuality itself, is defined from the male point of view. It centers on penetration, a male-defined loss, and assumes that women's consent is a real choice under conditions of inequality.

• It defines rape as intercourse with force and without consent, but fails to recognize that force is often inherent in the social meaning of sex.
• It focuses on the man's perception of the woman's will, rather than on the woman's experience of violation.
• It divides women into categories of presumed consent based on their relationship to men.

Consent as a Male Construct. The concept of consent in rape law is a male construct that fails to recognize the social realities of women's lives.

• It assumes that women have equal power to consent or refuse sex.
• It ignores the social pressures and conditioning that shape women's sexual choices.
• It fails to recognize that women's consent is often coerced or given under duress.

Rape as a Social Act. Rape is not just a crime but a social act that reflects and reinforces male dominance. It is a form of terrorism and torture within a systemic context of group subjection.

• It is a means of controlling women's sexuality and enforcing their subordination.
• It is a way of maintaining male power and privilege.
• It is a social practice that is often condoned or ignored by the state.

7. Abortion Rights Are a Sex Equality Issue, Not Just Privacy

The supremacy of the man in marriage is the simple consequence of his economic supremacy, and with the abolition of the latter will disappear of itself.

Reproduction and Sexuality. The abortion debate has centered on separating control over sexuality from control over reproduction, and both from gender. However, women's experience shows that sexuality and reproduction are inseparable from each other and from gender.

• Women often become pregnant while having sexual intercourse with men, often without intending to conceive.
• Women's control over their bodies is often limited by social pressures and male dominance.
• The abortion debate is not just about individual choice but about the social and political power of men over women.

Abortion as a Sex Equality Issue. The right to abortion is not just a matter of privacy but a matter of sex equality. It is a necessary condition for women to have control over their bodies and their lives.

• It is a means of challenging male control over women's reproductive capacity.
• It is a way of asserting women's right to self-determination.
• It is a necessary step toward achieving social and economic equality for women.

The State and Reproduction. The state's role in the abortion debate reveals its complicity in maintaining male dominance.

• The state's refusal to fund abortions for poor women reinforces their economic dependence on men.
• The state's focus on the fetus as a separate entity obscures the reality of women's lives.
• The state's emphasis on individual choice ignores the social context of gender inequality.

8. Pornography Is a Practice of Male Supremacy, Not Just Ideas

The buying and selling of women for sexual use [is] only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer.

Pornography as a Social Practice. Pornography is not just a form of expression but a practice of male supremacy. It is a means of constructing and reinforcing gender inequality.

• It is a form of forced sex, a practice of sexual politics, and an institution of gender inequality.
• It is a technologically sophisticated traffic in women, selling women to men as and for sex.
• It is a way of defining women as objects for male sexual use.

Pornography and Male Sexuality. Pornography constructs male sexuality as the enjoyment of power and control over women. It eroticizes dominance and submission, making violence and degradation sexually appealing.

• It centers on the male gaze, objectifying women and reducing them to sexual things.
• It normalizes and legitimates male sexual aggression.
• It reinforces the idea that women exist for male sexual pleasure.

Obscenity Law and Pornography. Obscenity law, which purports to regulate pornography, actually reinforces male dominance by focusing on morality rather than power.

• It treats pornography as a matter of ideas, not as a practice of sexual violence.
• It fails to recognize the harm that pornography does to women.
• It protects pornography as a form of free speech, while ignoring the ways it silences women.

9. Sex Equality Law Reinforces Inequality Through Sameness/Difference

To say that feminism is “post-marxist” does not mean that feminism leaves class behind. It means that feminism worthy of the name absorbs and moves beyond marxist methodology, leaving theories that do not in the liberal dustbin.

Sameness/Difference Framework. Sex equality law is based on a framework of sameness and difference, which reinforces gender inequality.

• It requires women to be the same as men to claim equal treatment.
• It allows for differential treatment based on "real differences," often reinforcing stereotypes.
• It fails to recognize that gender is a social hierarchy, not just a difference.

The Male Standard. The sameness/difference approach uses maleness as the standard for equality.

• It measures women's equality by their proximity to the male standard.
• It treats women's differences from men as deviations from the norm.
• It fails to recognize that men's differences from women are equally socially constructed.

Reinforcing Inequality. By focusing on sameness and difference, sex equality law reinforces existing power structures.

• It fails to address the systemic nature of gender inequality.
• It treats women as individuals, ignoring their collective experience of subordination.
• It legitimates male dominance by presenting it as natural and inevitable.

10. Feminist Jurisprudence Demands a New Relation Between Life and Law

To look for the place of gender in everything is not to reduce everything to gender.

Beyond Liberalism and Marxism. Feminist jurisprudence moves beyond the limitations of both liberalism and Marxism. It seeks to create a new relation between life and law, one that is based on women's experience of subordination.

• It rejects the liberal view of the state as a neutral arbiter.
• It moves beyond the marxist view of the state as a mere reflection of class relations.
• It recognizes that the state is male, and that law is a tool of male dominance.

A New Epistemology. Feminist jurisprudence is based on a new epistemology that centers women's lived experience.

• It rejects the objectivist stance of traditional legal theory.
• It recognizes that knowledge is socially constructed and that power shapes the way we know.
• It values women's perspective as a source of truth and justice.

A New Politics. Feminist jurisprudence seeks to transform the legal system to serve the interests of women.

• It challenges the existing power structures that perpetuate gender inequality.
• It seeks to create a legal system that is based on equality and justice for all.
• It recognizes that law is not neutral but a site of political struggle.

Last updated: January 29, 2025