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Sex in Question: French Materialist Feminism

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Sex in Question: French Materialist Feminism Sex in Question Feminist Perspectives on The Past and Present Advisory Editorial Board Lisa Adkins, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK Harriet Bradley, University of Bristol, UK Avtar Brah, University of London, UK Barbara Caine, University of Sydney, Australia Mary Evans, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK Gabriele Griffin, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Jalna Hanmer, University of Bradford, UK Maggie Humm, University of East London, UK Sue Lees, University of North London, UK Diana Leonard, University of London, UK Terry Lovell, University of Warwick, UK Maureen McNeil, University of Birmingham, UK Ann Phoenix, University of London, UK Caroline Ramazanoglu, University of London, UK Sue Scott, University of Stirling, UK Penny Summerfield, University of Lancaster, UK Martha Vicinus, University of Michigan, USA Christine Zmroczek, Roehampton Institute of Higher Education, UK Sex in Question: French materialist feminism Edited by Diana Leonard and Lisa Adkins UK Taylor & Francis Ltd, 1 Gunpowder Square, London, EC4A 3DE USA Taylor & Francis Inc., 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007 First published 1996 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © of collection, Diana Leonard and Lisa Adkins, 1996 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the Publisher. A Catalogue Record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-203-64625-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-67815-X (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0 7484 0293 4 ISBN 0 7484 0294 2 (pbk) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are available on request Cover design by Amanda Barragry Contents Acknowledgments vi Chapter 1 Reconstructing French Feminism: Commodification, 1 Materialism and Sex Lisa Adkins and Diana Leonard Chapter 2 The Category of Sex 25 Monique Wittig Chapter 3 Rethinking Sex and Gender 31 Christine Delphy Chapter 4 Sexual, Sexed and Sex-Class Identities: Three Ways of 43 Conceptualising the Relationship Between Sex and Gender Nicole-Claude Mathieu Chapter 5 The Practice of Power and Belief in Nature 73 Colette Guillaumin Chapter 6 Natural Fertility, Forced Reproduction 111 Paola Tabet Chapter 7 Our Costs and Their Benefits 183 Monique Plaza References 195 Notes on Contributors 215 Index 217 Acknowledgments Publication history of the articles included in this volume: 1978 ‘Fratique du pouvoir et idée de Nature’ (‘The Practice of Power and Belief in Nature’) by Colette Guillaumin was first published in Questions féministes, no 2, pp. 5–30 and no 3, pp. 5–28 in February and May 1978. A translation in English (by Linda Murgatroyd) was in Feminist Issues in Winter 1981, pp. 3–28 and Summer 1981, pp. 87–108. It was originally in two parts—‘(I) L’appropriation des femmes’ (Part I: The appropriation of Women) and ‘(11) Le discours de la Nature’ (Part II: The Naturalist Discourse) —but here we include a new combined version, abridged by the author. The full version appears in her collection Racism, Sexism, Power and Ideology (London: Routledge), 1995. ‘Nos dommages et leurs intérêts’ (‘Our Costs and Their Benefits’) by Monique Plaza was originally published in Questions féministes, no 3, in 1978, and a translation was provided in Feminist Issues, vol 1, no 3, Summer 1981, pp. 25–35 (‘Our Damages and Their Compensation. Rape: The Will Not to Know of Michel Foucault’). The version here is a new translation by Diana Leonard. 1982 ‘The Category of Sex’ by Monique Wittig was first published in Feminist Issues in 1982 (but dated as written in 1976), vol. 2, no. 2, Fall, pp. 63–68, and later included in her collection The Straight Mind and Other Essays (Boston: Beacon Press and Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf) in 1992. 1985 ‘Fertilité naturelle, reproduction forcée’ (‘Natural Fertility, Forced Reproduction’) by Paola Tabet was first published in N.C.Mathieu (Ed.) L’Arraisonnement des femmes: essais en anthropologie des sexes, Paris: Editions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (in the ‘Cahiers de l’Homme’ series), 1985, pp. 61–146. This is the first English translation, by Diana Leonard. 1989 ‘Identité sexuelle/sexuée/de sexe?’ (‘Sexual, Sexed and Sex-Class Identities’) by Nicole-Claude Mathieu was included in Anne-Marie Daune-Richard, Marie- Claude Hurtig and Marie-France Pichevin (Eds) Categorisation de sexe et Constructions scientifiques (Aix-en-Provence: Universite de Provence), 1989, pp. 109–147 and in N.-C.Mathieu’s collection L’Anatomie politique: catégorisations vii et idéologies du sexe, Paris, Côté-femmes, 1991. This is the first English publication (translated by Diana Leonard). 1991 An earlier version (of ‘Rethinking Sex and Gender’), Tenser le genre: Quels problemes?’ by Christine Delphy appeared in Marie-Claude Hurtig, Michele Kail and Hélène Rouch (Eds) Sexe et genre: de la hiérarchie entre les sexes (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), 1991. The present version was translated (by Diana Leonard) and appeared first in Women’s Studies International Forum, vol 16, no 1, 1993, pp. 1–9. We are grateful to Questions féministes, Feminist Issues, Women’s Studies International Forum, Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Universite de Provence, Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and to Linda Murgatroyd for permission to reprint these works. viii Chapter 1 Reconstructing French Feminism: Commodification, Materialism and Sex Lisa Adkins and Diana Leonard Sex in Question is a collection of articles by French feminists who were members of the group that established the journal Questions féministes with Simone de Beauvoir. These papers are, however, quite unlike the phenomenon that the English-speaking world has come to know as ‘French feminism’ because they are written from a shared materialist feminist perspective.1 We have chosen one article by each of five key members of the group and a sixth by an Italian feminist who is close to the group. This selection, from an obviously very substantial range of books and articles, relates particularly to issues that have received a great deal of attention recently in North America and Europe: the construction and inter-relationship of gender, sex and sexuality. We hope that this book will therefore give its readers an indication—albeit only an indication— of what the rigorous and powerful Questions féministes analysis has to contribute to English language theoretical debates. In particular, it shows that there are feminists who have been saying for 20 years what is often seen as a major insight of the last five years in anglophone circles: that not just gender but also sex is a social, not a Natural, division; and that both gender and sex can only be understood in relation to heterosexuality. Of the original Questions féministes editorial group,2 the work of some individuals is already known and has been key to a number of anglophone feminist debates. But several are, unfortunately, almost unknown in Britain, North America (except for Quebec) and Australasia. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (published in 1949 and translated into English in 1953), together with her novels and volumes of autobiography, and the example of her own life and political work, have been an important inspiration for feminists throughout the world, especially since the rebirth of the women’s movement in the early 1970s.3 Monique Wittig’s novels, plays and political statements on heterosexuality and the category ‘woman’, and in particular her wellknown and controversial statement that ‘lesbians are not women’,4 have been of great significance in debates around women’s creative writing, heterosexuality and gender, and the relationships of sexual identity, language, subjectivity and consciousness.5 More recently her ideas have again been widely drawn upon in women’s studies and in lesbian and gay studies for arguments about the relationships between sex and gender, and performativity, gender and heterosexuality.6 Christine Delphy’s work on domestic 2LISA ADKINS AND DIANA LEONARD labour and on materialist feminism found particular currency in Britain during the mid-1980s, when the infamous ‘domestic labour debate’, and, more importantly, the relationship between marxism and feminism, marked the heartland of feminist theory.7 However, the works of NicoleClaude Mathieu, Monique Plaza and Paola Tabet are much less well known, and Colette Guillaumin is known mainly for her work on racism and rightwing ideologies, rather than for her work on sex and difference.8 In addition, despite the fame of particular individuals, the writers in and around Questions féministes (QF) are rarely recognised in the anglophone feminist literature as constituting a feminist ‘tendency’. On the contrary, their work is almost never discussed in conjunction, and each is treated as an atomised writer, dissociated from any particular feminist position. So the connections between their ideas are seldom—if ever—acknowledged, and they are usually not considered in textbooks that purport to introduce feminist ideas and to compare ‘radical feminism’ with ‘liberal’ and ‘socialist’ feminisms. These women have, however, for 20 years been contributing actively to a common project of developing a distinctive form of feminist analysis, despite a major split over lesbian separatism during the early 1980s, which was followed by a court case and two members of the original group establishing Nouvelles questions féministes (NQF).9 This split did not, however, involve a disagreement around the central QF concern with the political/power relationship between men and women, the appropriation of women’s labour and bodies, and how women’s consciousness is grounded in their situation. The founder members continue in many respects ‘to think alike’ (something of fundamental importance in France) and most communicate interpersonally and cross-reference each other’s work.
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