Women’s Studies Int. Forum, Vol. 17, Nos. Z/3, pp. 187-201, 1994 Copyright 0 1994 Elsevier Science Ltd Pergamon Printed in the USA. AI1 rights reserved 0277-5395194 $6.00 + .OO

CHANGING WOMEN IN A CHANGING EUROPE Is ‘Difference’ the Future for ?

CHRISTINE DELPHY Philosophie Politique, Economique et Sociale, URMCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Villejuif, 27, rue J.J. Rousseau, 75001 Paris, France Translated by Diana Leonard

Synopsis-There are elements, in different contemporary feminist writings, that indicate a ten- dency to ground women’s rights on their “difference.“This is not new, but what is new is the implicit claim that women should retain all the parental rights over children. This raises the question of the exclusion of half humankind from the care for the young of the species, but also that of the undue power of all adults over all children. This trend toward a new “’ right” is examined in three areas of feminist intellectual production: attitudes toward new reproductive technologies, recon- structions of human evolution, and the tendency to glorify motherhood as “sacred bond.”

Since its re-emergence in western countries in needs to be nominalist in political matters. 1968-1970, the contemporary feminist move- Feminists are those who call themselves femi- ment has of course evolved. But it has not nists. It is not up to me, or anyone else, to been a unitary evolution, which is why it is award or withhold the term as if it were a ti- so hard to write the movement’s history or to tle. The other, more substantial reason why I draw up any sort of balance sheet. There are accept the variety of feminist accounts is the contradictory sets of ideas on almost every continuity which exists between feminism subject, and, depending on the weight you and nonfeminism. give to this or that position, you can define Feminism could be defined as solely some- the general direction (or more modestly, the thing different: as involving a total breaking dominant direction) taken by the movement away from other discourses. But of course it in completely different ways. is not and does not. To define it in this way Although we may appreciate that the would mean cutting back the content of femi- meaning of this confusion will be under- nist discourses considerably, removing their standable only ‘after the event,’ it is nonethe- global character, and leaving them unintelli- less very frustrating-given average life ex- gible. It would be an even bigger error as re- pectancy- to have to tell ourselves that we gards the history of ideas- and history full must wait a century or maybe two before we stop. For no movement of ideas is a pure op- can understand what is happening under our position, a pure denial. All contestation of noses, and that we must resign ourselves to value X relies on value Y. And for people to the fact that history as lived is confused and be able to ‘rely’ on them, these values must illogical. exist. Moreover, faced with upheaval in the field If feminism, like other progressive move- of feminist ideas, with unexpected develop- ments, is to denounce the oppressive charac- ments and priorities, it is difficult to think ter of our society-if it is to be able to de- that these incongruities are due to chance, nounce it-it must rely on progressive values: and that there is not some logic to them. on, for instance, the values of liberty and Because this is a critical essay, it might well equality. But feminism alone did not invent be asked why I accept all the various accounts these values, even though it participated in as being ‘feminist.’ I do so, first, because one the debate around them and contested the

187 188 CHRISTINEDELPHY

dominant definitions of such concepts from but the contemporary emphasis on affilia- the start (e.g., during the Enlightenment). tion/ties of descent does seem new.) These values continue to exist even when so- l It tends to demand special rights over an- cieties remain oppressive. So all contestation other category of human beings: children. in our society rests on contradictions within (At this stage in the evolution of the ideol- it, and reciprocally, though not synony- ogy of women’s specificity, what is new is mously, all societies are contradictory, which that motherhood and its idealisation have is why opposition is possible. become a shield, behind which advances But if feminism is continuous with the val- [disguised] a refusal by women to share the ues of our society, this means that it is contin- ownership of children with men.) uous with all its values, including its nonpro- The maternal demand is thus a demand for gressive values. specificity based on maternity, and, recipro- This article is therefore concerned not cally, motherhood is what specifies women. with ‘the one and only’ form of feminism, nor This reciprocity clearly shows the central with all the various sorts of , but problem posed by all ideologies of differ- rather with one aspect of the configuration ence, whether they apply to women or to which is feminism today. The aspect dealt other groups. Specificity allows a group to with here is not an organised tendency, com- demand exorbitant rights (in the juridical parable to the ‘tendencies’ of militant move- sense, i.e., rights which exceed those they are ments, but rather an intellectual tendency to given by law) - rights which are not accorded be found in varying degrees in sets of ideas to others. But the other side of the coin is that found in various parts of the women’s move- the same specificity requires the group to re- ment, and in varying degrees in individuals. nounce all other rights, for instance, com- It is this last point which most concerns mon treatment. This certainly seems to be me. It is the third reason why we must take happening at the moment. The - account of certain discourses, whether we hood-the ‘maternitude’ or the mothering - call them feminist or not. They are more than which marks out women, is the basis on a tendency to be found isolated in this or that which some feminist tendencies are currently group. They are a general ‘temptation’ which claiming exclusive ownership of children. exists more or less strongly, more or less These individuals and currents unquestion- manifestly, and more or less consciously in ably set great store by this acquisition. But all of us. whether they are aware of it or not, their ap- proach is certainly not objectively compati- MATERNAL DEMANDS ble with other feminist demands based on universalism, and in making this demand This tendency or temptation is not something they are implicitly renouncing full member- which is explicitly formulated as such in spe- ship of the human species. In addition, there cific books and articles. Rather, it is a hy- is the equally important problem that they pothesis about what various texts probably are demanding ownership, not of goods, nor have in common. I think we can find certain of their own bodies, but of other human common elements scattered in writing on dif- beings. ferent subjects and in diverse campaigns and I briefly outline just three examples of the actions, and that together these form a whole very diverse concerns within feminism which which I call the ‘maternal demand.’ This de- show evidence of the maternal demand: mand is defined by three aspects: 1. the concern with new reproductive tech- l It tends to base women’s rights-women’s nologies claims for liberation-on women’s speci- 2. some feminist reconstructions of human ficity (and not on their universality, i.e. not evolution on women being members of the human 3. the sacred bond species). l It tends to base this specificity on women’s I. The concern with new reproductive particular function in reproduction. (This technologies is hardly a new theme in the history-of ideas Many Feminists-American, French, En- about women or in the , glish, Australian, Quebecois, and others are Difference/Motherhood 189 currently studying the new reproductive in reality which gives any substance whatever technologies. With relatively few exceptions, to such prophecies. Macho intellectuals their attitudes toward them range from fairly might want to do it, but there is no evidence negative to apocalyptic. they are actually researching doing it. Above Some disquiet about reproductive technol- all, there is no evidence they have the means ogy is certainly legitimate. Are those who to do it. The goal Corea and others attribute seek to have their eggs removed by laparos- to them when they evoke the spectre of ‘gyno- copy and then re-implanted in their uteruses tide,’ is the elimination of women thanks to able to make a really informed choice? Do artificial wombs. But the snag is that, as yet, they know the risks involved in the operation not a single artificial womb exists. The ma- and its very low success rate? Because re- chine is far off being created, even if men search suggests the answer to such questions wanted it made. The longest anyone has been is ‘No’ (see Laborie, 1988, and Marcus-Steiff, able to keep an embryo in vitro is a few 1986), criticism is clearly justified. days-which is a far cry from the requisite 9 But it could be asked if this is something months. And even if men could produce such specific to surgical interventions to ‘remedy’ a machine, imagine what it would cost-and sterility or whether it does not also apply to even more how much it would cost to pro- many other (if not to the majority of) medical duce millions of them! Can we really imagine interventions. Is not what is at issue just an- the construction of enough such machines to other instance of a more general problem- replace three billion women? the retention of information and abuse of But leaving aside the feasibility of the op- power by the medical profession, practised to eration, to imagine that this is the goal of the the detriment of those who should be their masculine half of humanity is to think (a) clients and who are but their patients-which that men only consider women in so far as is always serious? we serve them, and (b) that women only Another line of criticism asks whether sur- serve men through reproduction. Now, even rogate motherhood won’t lead to poor though the first proposition is unfortunately women being exploited for the benefit of rich true, the second is not. women. Can we accept surrogate mother- To say that men, who do in fact hold hood in principle because it involves selling power and who do only consider women in one’s biological processes? an instrumental way, only ‘use’ women for re- However, if the issue is the exploitation of production is to fall into the trap of men’s poor women’s bodies, then surrogacy is not ideology. the most striking instance. Every day hun- Men do indeed often say ‘women are only dreds of thousands of prostitutes, three- good for having babies.’ But this is a way of quarters of whom are not voluntary but were minimising how useful we are to them (hence captured or sold by their relatives and are from their point of view, how useful we are held in conditions of slavery and torture, sell to humanity, because they see humanity as their bodies -often without any profit to composed only of themselves). It also minim- themselves. There are a few hundred surro- ises the extent to which they (are seen to) ex- gate mothers, and their ‘exploitation’ lasts 9 ploit us, for women are not only ‘good’ for months; it is voluntary, and they receive the reproduction. We also do more than half of money themselves. If feminist critics are re- all human work, and three-quarters of the ally concerned about the exploitation of work we do is unpaid and benefits men. So women’s bodies, how can we explain their be- why should they want to eliminate us? Not ing more scandalised by surrogate mother- only are our eggs free, but our work is also. hood than by prostitution? This leads me to For them to eliminate us would be to kill the think it is not ‘the exploitation of the body’ geese that lay the golden eggs. which is the real cause of their concern. Many women do, however, make this mis- Apocalyptic pictures are also painted of a take of confusing our real usefulness for men conspiracy by men to replace women by arti- with the representation patriarchal culture ficial uteruses (see, e.g., Corea, 1985). The gives it. They confuse the ideology of society few feminists who have criticised such sce- with its reality. Taking the ideology literal- narios have pointed out that there is nothing ly, they believe that the two propositions: 190 CHRISTINEDELPHY

‘women are defined by reproduction,’ and ers. And more is required of would-be adopt- ‘women are confined to reproduction,’ are ers than is asked of ordinary parents. synonymous. But if women are defined by re- We are thus confronted by a paradox. The production, this does not mean that they are discourse and practice relating to those who de facto confined to it. Rather, the function seek to adopt, or to use new reproductive of the definition is to mask the extent of technologies, requires them to reproduce the women’s exploitation. If the ideology, for conditions of ‘natural parenthood.’ understandable reasons, makes us appear as But natural parenthood itself does not just breeders, the patriarchal economic sys- conform to this model. And it is not asked of tem is itself based on a much more important natural parents. As a result only nonnatural extortion of work from women. It is thus parents conform to the model of natural par- contradictory to maintain both that women enthood, whereas the majority of naturally are exploited in all spheres and simultane- procreated children live in (what for the ously that men will do away with women as model are) nonnatural families. Real natural soon as they can find a substitute for their re- parenthood includes all sorts of ties of de- productive role. scent: unilinear, bilinear, by or The fear that women will be physically marriage, ‘natural’ or legitimate; and all sorts eliminated is therefore unfounded, even if of families: one-parent, two-parent, or for the wrong reasons, and in the present cir- multiparent by recomposition after divorce. cumstances (i.e., given the wide-ranging ex- Natural parenthood as a discourse or model ploitation to which women are subjected), is restricted to one type of descent, one type absurd. It is therefore hard to believe this is of family, and above all one type of par- really what preoccupies those who oppose the ents - those reputed nonnatural - that is, it is new reproductive technologies. So what is re- restricted to those who adopt or use some ally at stake for them? form of medical help. I think one indication is given by the con- In sum, parents deemed nonnatural are stantly repeated assertion that women’s role the only ones obliged to follow a supposedly in biological reproduction is more important natural model of parenthood; a model which than men’s. This is not a new assertion, either has nothing to do with what natural parents among feminists or in the history of beliefs actually do. about reproduction, and we shall come Some feminists’ views on what should be across it elsewhere. So why should reproduc- allowed and what should be forbidden when tive technology be a privileged occasion for reproduction is assisted also involve a model reiterating it? based on reference to nature, though theirs is In studying the theme of nature in discus- not the same nature as the nature involved by sions of reproductive technology in French, legislators. In ‘feminist’ nature: Marie-Jo Dhavernas found that to pass new l The only biological tie in reproduction is laws on assisted reproduction, a single, the one between a and a child. The unique form of descent and kinship- the role of the genitor is minimised (read ig- western married couple and legitimate fam- nored). ily- had been erected as the unchangeable l This biological bond between woman and and supposedly natural model (Dhavernas, child is considered to be the basis of kin- 1991a). But not only has this form always ship, that is, of affiliation/descent. been a model, and ideal, which has never cor- But this supposedly natural matrilineal de- responded to reality (i.e., it has never been scent also does not prevail in either norms or the statistical norm), it also is itself in the pro- fact. So it is feminists who, in turn, demand cess of losing even its normative status. of potential nonnatural parents (those seek- Therefore, lifestyles are required of people ing assisted reproduction) that they conform who want to use assisted reproduction - het- to so-called natural requirements-things erosexual and married lifestyles, etc., -to they do not require of natural parents, that which other people do not adhere, and which is, people who do not have recourse to repro- are no longer even asked of them. Much ductive technologies. (See, for example, Van- more is required of those wanting assisted re- delac, among others, in Lesterpt & Doat, production than is asked of would-be adopt- 1989). Difference/Motherhood 191

Perhaps such feminists find the debate on to adhere are concerned, such a question is a reproductive technology provides an occa- contradiction in terms-and should never be sion on which to express their views on what asked. So, despite their use of anthropol- descent should be, just as lawyers and politi- ogical material about real human life-in cians find it the occasion to express theirs. society- these writers in the end attach But in the case of feminists, their views are themselves to a tradition of philosophical expressed indirectly. For whatever form de- thinking, which: scent may take, it is always a social conven- l places the individual chronologically prior tion, but instead of attacking the social con- to society vention, and demanding that, as a social l tries to imagine the emergence, the cre- convention, it could and should be changed, ation, of life in society on the basis of the most feminist critiques of reproductive tech- (biological, psychological, etc.,) ‘needs’ of nology simply assert that descent exists al- these pre-social humans ready - in nature. They therefore postulate a nonsocial human nature. 2. Some feminist reconstructions of human These speculations themselves rest in turn evolution on premises which assume: The same assertion is also found in a com- l that humans pre-exist society pletely different area of research: in feminist l that human beings have a content: they writing on the origins of women’s oppres- have needs and tendencies-in a word, a sion. Most of this draws on ancient history, precise and intrinsic nature anthropology, and prehistory, but not all. For these reasons, or rather because of these Some is philosophical, for example, Mary epistemological errors at the very base of O’Brien’s book The Politics of Reproduction such approaches, I call such accounts ‘femi- (O’Brien, 1981). But as far as I can see, the nist reconstructions,’ because the way they distinction between the two is purely formal, operate relies on the same mythological char- because work which is supposedly based on acter as patriarchal reconstructions. (On pa- recognised scholarship in fact goes far be- triarchal reconstruction and the substitution yond what the state of such scholarship of myth for explication, see Anthropologists’ would allow. Women (Gossez, 1982.) Both share not only Both relatively older work, such as that of the same speculative character but also: Evelyn Reed (197.5), and more recent work, l the same ontological conception of human- like that of Azalee Azad (1985), Martha Moia ity already noted (i.e., the same surrepti- (1984), Susan Cavin (1985) and Suzanne tious abandoning of the anthropological Blaise (1989), interpret knowledge, from fre- premise that human beings and culture are quently disparate scientific universes, in the indissociable: that they are given together light of certain assumptions. But these as- and created one by the other) sumptions are not usually explicit. Some- l some presuppositions or basic beliefs times they are totally implicit, and sometimes about the conditions of existence of the they are produced simply as assertions which first human beings require no proof. But either way, they are the l a hazy definition of this first humanity, same sort of postulates as are used by, for in- which is sometimes seen as a mythical stance, O’Brien. They speculate about the group and sometimes conceived of on the possible conditions of human existence in model of known hunter/gatherers (i.e., nonspecified conditions -either in an ahis- modeled on the existing population with toric absolute condition, or in a primitive hu- the lowest known level of technology) manity whose technological level and cul- Feminist reconstructions differ from their tural forms are not specified. So, what they patriarchal homologues, however, in their in- are really doing is questioning under what terpretation of these on the same premises. conditions human existence would be possi- Both feminist reconstructions and patri- ble prior to the emergence of any social for- archal constructions see the reproductive mation or organisation. role of women as largely dictating their so- But as far as the disciplines (anthropology cial role. Both take for granted particular- and sociology) to which these authors claim ly that: 192 CHRISTINEDELPHY

l the woman who gives birth to a baby will protect their children. Because the adoption necessarily suckle it: that the genitrix and of rules which guarantee the survival of the the nurse will be one and the same person group and prevent it from eliminating itself l that the woman who nurses a child will nec- by cannibal feasts is certainly crucial, it could essarily care for all its other day-to-day thus be claimed that women are the motor of needs: that the nurse will be the child-rearer history as regards both technological devel- l that each of these functions will be per- opment and what might be called ‘civilisa- formed by just one person tion.’ l that all these functions will be preformed But reconstructions of this kind are full of by the same person, who will be called the holes-because we obviously do not and can- mother not know anything about the dawn of hu- But patriarchal reconstructions distinguish manity. Each reconstruction fills these holes descent-the affiliation of the newborn into full of fantasies. The patriarchs have theirs, society via a given individual or individuals and the feminists have symmetrically oppo- (the ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ or ‘family’) - from the site ones. Which should we stress more: the responsibility for upbringing. Feminists, on symmetry or the opposition? the other hand, not only see all the roles as In patriarchal reconstructions, mother- intermingled and as deriving from the act of hood rather than childbirth constitutes a ma- giving birth, but, in addition, see affiliation jor handicap, as Oakley has shown (Oakley, or descent (the attaching of a new member of 1985). Only men could hunt, they claim, and society, of a new baby, to one of the groups hunting was a vitally important activity: in the society) as occurring automatically. A l for the survival of the group when collect- baby is deemed to be affiliated to the woman ing food who brought it into the world. Descent is seen l for the development of civilisation to flow naturally from parturition, with no In what became a classic of feminist anthro- social mediation and no decisions being pology, Slocum took apart the myth of ‘Man made. From their perspective, descent is not the Hunter’ as long ago as 1975. But nonethe- a social fact. It derives from giving birth. In- less, according to the latest ‘scientific’ (read deed, even the mediation implied by the term patriarchal) versions of modern anthropol- ‘derive’ gets suppressed, for they see it as one ogy, it was their hunting together that led of the aspects- hence as an integral part-of men (read ‘men’) to develop cooperation, the the physical act of giving birth. basis of life in society, and to their need to The second point of difference from patri- communicate by signals, hence to their inven- archal reconstructions is that, in feminist re- tion of language. Not only are women here constructions, women, or rather females, are not the motor of culture, they have it all given the ones mainly responsible for the survival to them on a plate, by men: the meat and the of primitive society. This point is firmly tied language. to the first one, because the fact of giving In feminist reconstructions such as those birth in itself carries social responsibility for of Mies, Moia, Azad, and O’Brien, it is the the young, just as it carries the social attach- same but different. Male anthropologists ment of the child to its genitrice. Thus, for having decreed arbitrarily that pregnancy, instance, according to Maria Mies (1986), childbirth, and what follows (or rather what women were concerned with gathering and is presumed to follow) prevent women from later invented agriculture, so as ‘to feed them- doing anything else, and that only the ‘some- selves and their children.’ Note that they were thing else’ is decisive for society and culture, the women’s children-with no questions feminists have decreed equally arbitrarily asked or explanations sought. In these femi- that, on the contrary, because women were nist reconstructions, women’s specific role in responsible for children (and thus far the two reproduction entails responsibility for-or schools are in full accord), women and only ownership of (it is not clear which from the women (and here the two schools part com- possessive) - ‘their’ children, without further pany) were motivated to seek food. Simi- formalities. Or again, women are said to have larly, whereas for the patriarchs women have invented the incest taboo and the prohibition no sense of cooperation or collective respon- on cannibalism (Azad, 1985; Moia, 1984) to sibility whatever, because they believe only Difference/Motherhood 193 hunting nurtures such virtues, feminists de- cause of everything (giving birth, breast feed- cree the opposite. Only the fact of giving ing, and caring for children) which is thought birth gives a sense of responsibility vis a vis to flow from this reproductive role: There- the group. Men are thus thought to be totally fore, the overthrow of mother right, which deprived of this virtue, to the point that if for Bachofen was only an overturning of the they were allowed to, they would stay at conventions of descent, is for these feminists home and eat the group’s children instead of the overturning of a whole social and cultural going out and killing animals. Remarkably, structure of which matrilineality is only one in attributing to human males a natural pro- trait, albeit a fundamental one. This social pensity to alimentary cannibalism (when all organisation is motherly, responsible, and the world agrees that cannibalism is always particularly careful of the immediate and fu- ritual)- which implies not only great lazi- ture survival of the group. This care induces ness but also an incapacity to distinguish the a culture in which the values of peace and co- beasts-which-can-be-eaten from the young of operation predominate, and in which aggres- their own species; in brief in attributing to sion, violence, individualism, and egoism are men a profound and constitutional mental prohibited. debility - feminists have thus finally man- As we have seen, this whole edifice rests on aged to match the patriarchs in their depreci- one assumption: that women feel a responsi- ation of the opposite sex. bility toward future generations, and hence In patriarchal reconstructions, the domi- to the entire group, because of the way their nation of women is not a problem. It is in- experience is shaped by being responsible for scribed in the ontological given of the human ‘their’ children. This assumption itself rests species, renamed as physical or ethnographi- on another, for this feeling of responsibility cal ‘facts.’ is attributed to all women, and denied to all It did not have to happen because it was men, for just one reason: Women give birth always there. It had only to continue. and men do not. Feminists who have postulated an original I won’t dwell on the various reasons put , following such 19th century eth- forward for men’s overthrowing this idyllic nologists as Bachofen and Morgan, have, stage in the history of humanity, and anyway however, needed to explain this domination. very few authors have actually proposed ex- They have assumed (like Bachofen) an over- planations or descriptions of the process be- throw of mother right, in which (like Engels) cause no one knows how, or when, or even if they see the origins of the ‘world historical it happened. For Engels it was men’s need to defeat of the female sex.’ But for them this know their ‘biological’ children which caused overthrow was both the cause of the defeat the overthrow of matrilinear descent. For and also the reason for it. It led to women’s Mary O’Brien, on the other hand, who has a enslavement, but the overturning of mother philosophical version of the psychoanalytic right (of women’s ownership of children) was theory of , it was men’s being also pursued for itself. ‘alienated from their semen’ when they de- The ‘matriarchy’ of Bachofen, Morgan, posited it in a woman which prevented them and Engels was in fact already tainted with from having ‘a sense of their biological conti- because they could not rid them- nuity.’ This was a problem, she asserts, be- selves of the vision of motherhood as a hand- cause having ‘a sense of one’s biological icap. So although matrilineality - mother continuity’ (whatever that may mean) is a pro- right-might mitigate the inferiority of found psychological need among humans. women in their eyes, it did not annul it. Like The message which should be retained other patriarchs, they too attributed the es- from these reconstructions is conveyed in sential parts of production, responsibility for some revealing titles: Usurping Paternity the group, and cultural accomplishments to (Azad, 1985), The Theft of Origins or the the masculine half of humanity. But feminist Murder of the Mother (Blaise, 1989). This reconstructions, as we have seen, have wom- message does not concern the real historical en as the motor of progress, or simply of hu- origins of ‘the defeat of the female sex,’ be- manisation, and not despite but because of cause there is no history and no possibility of their reproductive role and motherhood: be- such a history at stake. The real message is 194

that human society is based in nature on the a. In her analysis of the emergence of con- bond between mother and child. This bond servative and pro-family ‘feminism,’ Judith is the most important social tie. It produces Stacey (1986) notes that its principal advo- culture. This is the social bond-and for an cates - (1984), mark two apparently paradoxical reason: because it is versions, (1981), Jean Elshtain not social, because it precedes society. It is (1981), and Carol McMillan (1982)-draw precisely this pre-social location which is the same inspiration from accentuating ‘the thought to make it the rock on which the life-giving values associated with mother- foundation of culture could be elaborated. hood,’ as was already to be found in Adri- The message of these reconstructions is that enne Rich’s Of Woman Born (1976). The last mother-child descent is not strictly speaking is generally considered a radical feminist clas- affiliation/a line of descent. It is not the affil- sic, which shows that there is an incontestable iation of a new member of society into the so- ideological continuity between staunch femi- ciety via one of its existing members. It is nists and those who, after or before turning rather a biological phenomenon with social their coats, preach a return to the home, a implications. All other sorts of descent are strict division of tasks, and a separation of seen as social-in the sense of artificial and spheres between men and women, that is, nonnatural, hence ‘bad’ and ‘antinatural’- who maintain a classical patriarchal dis- by comparison. It is therefore not difficult to course. conclude, as all these feminist reconstruc- b. In Is the Future Female? (1987), Lynn tions do, that patriarchal civilisation is a ca- Segal notes that authors from this new cur- tastrophe because it is based on nonnatural rent, which is well on the way to becoming descent: on a denial of nature. dominant in contemporary American femi- These reconstructions are therefore simul- nism, pay only lip service to the problematic taneously of , in works with evocative titles, such l a way of basing the ‘badness’ of patriarchal as Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking (Rud- societies on one cause: their antinatural- dick, 1980) and Carol Gilligan’s In a Differ- ness ent Voice (Gilligan, 1982). They may affirm l a way of affirming that the bond between at the start of their work that the values and mother and children surpasses all other attitudes they are going to talk about are his- bonds, in particular all other ties of de- torically constructed, and they deny that they scent, because it (supposedly) originates di- support any form of biological determinism. rectly from a biological process prior to But having said that, they proceed as if the any social intervention values and attitudes in question were shared by all women-by all women irrespective of 3. The sacred bond the society in which they are geographically Such theses are also evident in essays located, by all women who have ever lived which fall into the category of ‘general femi- within the same geographical area whatever nism’ and which stress feminine qualities and the epoch, and by all women who live in the values, for their authors see such qualities same country at the same time whatever their and values as deriving from an experience social background. specific to women: motherhood. It would be We know full well, however, to take just tedious to cite all the books and articles in the most minor factors of variation, genera- this vein, because, although some are very tional changes within the same class, the well known and explicitly defend this point of same century and the same country, that our view, the theme itself can now be found mothers’ experience was very different from throughout much of American feminist liter- our own. And if experience is the source of ature, whatever the specific topic may be. I attitudes and values, then ours cannot be the therefore assume this position- which Iris same as theirs - which we knew anyway, pre- Young calls gynocentric as opposed to hu- cisely from experience. There is therefore no manist feminism (Young, 1985), and which need to go far to find, in the most banal, Eleni Varikas describes as a feminism based most generally shared facts of life, a shining on specificity as opposed to one based on uni- contradiction of the thesis. versality (Varikas, 1987). These authors are therefore calling a col- Difference/Motherhood 195 lection of very specific values, which corre- the same. So a few years ago Margaret Si- spond more or less to those of western house- mons, a philosopher, exegetist of Simone de wives of the last half century, ‘feminine Beauvoir and the editor of the journal Hy- values’; and they are then projecting these patia, devoted a whole article to a defence of values onto all the women of the world across her decision not to have a child (Simons, the centuries. In addition, these values corre- 1984). The article justified her decision to spond only ‘more or less’ to those of western other feminists and explained how and why, housewives, because the authors speak more though she was not a mother, she could of norms than reality. But whether or not the nonetheless be maternal (she could mother values and attitudes they call ‘feminine’ are her friends, her colleagues, etc), which for really those of even a particular generation of her was synonymous with being a good femi- women is less important than the fact that nist . they generalise in such a way that their thesis Thus, on the one hand, we are told that is actually ahistorical. It is therefore contrary this set of values is so good it should inform to the methodology which derives from the all aspects of life and all spheres of activity, problematic they claim to adhere to-which and on the other we are told that the best way is at least social if not sociological. So, what- of expressing these life-giving values is to be ever their protestations, they do in fact have really literally and carnally a mother, other- a naturalistic problem. wise you risk being suspected of not really c. As Lynn Segal (1987) also remarks, loving peace, cooperation, and altruism. The these writers also make modern motherhood obligation to be a mother thus remains the into not only a supposedly universal experi- most important thing in life for women, but ence, but also an entirely positive one for this time in feminist guise. both women and children. This is pretty Gaining universal rights in the name of the astounding. How can anyone idealise moth- specific values thought to be carried by one erhood in a movement in which half the ac- group is not new. Eleni Varikas has shown, tivists are in therapy because they are moth- for instance, how at the turn of the century ers, while the other half are in therapy Greek feminists constantly oscillated be- because they have been children (not to men- tween universalist and particularist types of tion those who suffer from both experiences, argument, sometimes within a single sentence because that would lead to a total of 150%)? (Varikas, 1987). So today American femi- nists fight for freedom of choice (to have an WOMEN’S LIBERATION OR THE abortion) in the name of the same ‘nurtur- CORPORATISM OF MOTHERS AND ante’ as other women use to oppose it. But we THE APPROPRIATION OF cannot simply dismiss both of them, as Faye CHILDREN? Ginsburg tends to do (1990), or just underline the contradictions of ‘using the notion of sex- This new current tends to see only positive ual difference. . . . .in the fight to overcome behaviour and values in motherhood, which its limitations (p. 57). If the same line of ar- involves stupefying misinterpretation of the gument - nurturance - can be used both for facts. But what this does, and this is perhaps and against liberty, then obviously the line it- its purpose, is to idealise motherhood as a set self is bad, or at least it is not as good an argu- of values, behaviour, and attitudes, to make ment as one which did not allow such. . . . us identify totally. latitude. ‘Specificity’ may enable some partic- a. The interests of women with those of ular demands to be met, but it is inevitably mothers limited by its frame of reference-before, b. The interests of children with those of during, and after. And it is not a question of mothers an historical ‘contradiction’ or a dialectical a. The identity of women is thus once moment, hence something we can get be- again completely cut back to, and circum- yond. The line of argument about ‘sexual dif- scribed by, motherhood. But who needed ference’ does not have within itself the poten- feminists to do that? Obviously it works bet- tial of being overtaken. This potential has to ter when they say it than when it is articulated be found, and therefore to be sought outside in patriarchal discourse, even if the content is of sexual difference. 196 CHRISTINE DELPHY

b. Barrie Thorne asks ‘Where are the chil- thus at a stroke removing from them all the dren?’ in our analyses (Thorne, 1987), and I protections of the law and family court. agree with her that most feminist theoreti- People think children are given special pro- cians ‘have taken the adult’s point of view,’ tection because a special set of legislation ex- following traditional theoreticians like Marx ists (gathered under the term ‘child protec- and Parsons. In the ‘new’ ideology of mother- tion’) exercised by equally specialised institu- hood -which is in fact the 1980s feminist ver- tions (such as family courts). But all these do sion of 18th century ideologies, which were is mitigate children’s complete absence of reworked in the 19th century, and which saw rights when the consequences of their legal the light of day again in 1910, 1920, 1940, inexistence become too visible and too visibly 1950, and every leap year since - mothers are scandalous. These minor corrections do not, seen not in terms of what they have in com- however, by themselves erase-nor are they mon with fathers, that is, in terms of their be- intended to erase-the consequences of chil- ing adults in relation to children, but solely in dren’s exclusion from both national and in- opposition to and in terms of their differ- ternational conventions which affirm (even if ences from fathers, from men. they do not always succeed in effectively pro- Mothers are everything men are not and tecting) what are called human rights (or, vice versa. Men are competitive, women are rather, they are called ‘human rights’ virtu- cooperative; men are violent, women are pa- ally everywhere except in France, where they cific; men are incestuous, women are not - are called les droits de I’homme: the rights of or hardly at all; men are egoistic, women are man!). But in France alone, perhaps precisely altruistic. This suggests many good reasons because it is ‘the country of the rights of Man’ why women should be preferred in relation to (read ‘men’) as chauvinist propaganda con- the custody of children. Not only are they stantly asserts, 5,000 children are thought to better parents, but they are also the only ref- die each year due to parental ill-treatment: uge against bad parents, against fathers. bluntly, to be killed by their parents. Children’s dependence is, however, taken The very terms in which women them- for granted. It is also taken for granted that selves have been oppressed by the law should children have at best, or at worst, two par- make us reflect on this other power relation- ents; and that only a parent can defend a ship. Up until 1939 the French Civil Code as- child against its other parent if he is bad. Peo- similated women to minors; and they are mi- ple don’t ask why children are dependent on nors for life in the new Algerian Family Code adults, and on just two adults; or why they (as in all ‘personal ordinances’ and other are so fragile and so exposed to violence. codes relating to the family produced by the Abuses of parental power are caused by/at- ‘Shariah,’ see the articles by Marie-AimCe tributed to the character of the parents, and HClie-Lucas, 1991, and the Algerian Associa- it has been shown that women are good and tion for Equality of Men and Women before men are wicked, to men’s bad nature. Some the Law, 1991). Thus, the legal metaphor, would say, to men’s quasi-biological vio- like the most powerful popular metaphor, to lence. express a status of subjection is ‘to be treated People forget, or pretend to forget, that like a child.’ The child is, in law and dis- there can be an abuse of power only when course, the model, the reference for a situa- power already exists . . . and that changing tion of subjugation. the protector does not change the situation of Some women, however, while protesting non-power, which underlies the need for pro- against this status for themselves, have de- tection. creed simultaneously both that it is unjust for People forget, or pretend to forget, that them and that it is just for children. It is un- the power of parents over children is not nat- just for them precisely ‘because they are not ural - that nothing is natural in human soci- children!’ In the same way men who protest ety. It is society which gives this power to par- against rape in prison do so ‘because they are ents, and which maintains it by a whole series not women.’ The French revolutionaries in of positive and negative institutions-the pri- 1789 found absolutism intolerable when ap- mary negative institution being withdrawing plied to those ‘who were not women.’ children from the category of citizens and Liberation for each category would seem Difference/Motherhood 197 to proceed by extraction: by their proving is everywhere: ‘Children belong to women.’ that they are not amongst those individuals Phyllis Chesler’s book, on the ‘Baby M’ whom it is legitimate to enslave. So in fact the case in which a surrogate mother opposed revolt of a group or an individual against an adoptive parents with whom she had made a act -against a rape, or the absence of civil contract, was indeed entitled Sacred Bond rights -is a revolt against assimilation (by (Chesler, 1988). rape) to an inferior category. When one of Maybe we will end up with full ownership the heroes of the film Exodus was forced to of children, but I don’t think this will help reveal the worst indignities that the Nazis had children. It won’t be much of an improve- inflicted on him, he collapsed sobbing ‘they ment for them, even if the new owner proves treated me like a woman!’ A demand to be better than the old one. Nor do I think it will treated differently implies that the treatment help to liberate women. It may constitute a is just and right for the category from which short-term increase in power for some one wishes precisely to be distinguished. The women within the gender system as it exists; proposition ‘don’t treat me like that because but it will be at the price of renouncing the I am not a child/don’t rape me because I am perspective of one day obliterating this divid- not a woman,’ only makes sense with the im- ing line: of renouncing the objective of hav- plicit subtext, ‘but if I were a child/woman, ing the gender system disappear. the treatment/rape would be legitimate.’ Of course this conclusion needs to be qual- Suppose children were no longer children, ified somewhat in a couple of ways. First, I just as women finally are not women? Sup- have only used written material and have not pose it were recognised that they are not con- studied either the real situation not the con- demned by nature to be deprived of rights in crete actions of women or feminists (see society, but rather condemned by society it- later). Also, I have projected into the future self? a tendency I have glimpsed. This is ‘pushing A feminist project which does not ques- things to their logical conclusion,’ and obvi- tion all forms of subjection, including those ously in reality nothing is ‘pushed to its logi- which seem natural (because after all we are cal conclusion’ because reality is contradic- well placed to know that our subjection was tory. In addition, as I said at the start, this also, and still is, considered to be natural) be- ‘demand’ does not exist as such. It is not for- comes a corporatist project, and it no longer mulated by any group or individual with the deserves to be called a liberation project. And coherence I have lent it, and it is a tendency, I do not want to witness the transformation or temptation, which, although it exists in of our liberation project into an attempt to varying degrees in each movement and each defend the immediate interests of Some individual, does precisely exist in varying de- women. I fear even more women’s interests grees. It is combatted by other elements and being identified with acquiring the entire set other aspects of the present feminist configu- of rights of parents: with wresting from men ration. what remains of their parental authority. If The women’s movement has always been all battles against men were feminist, then contradictory, and this is not going to change, this too would be a feminist struggle; just as so there is no reason to think that this tendency if all struggles against the Germans were anti- was or will become dominant. There is cer- Nazi, then transferring the Cameroons from tainly no reason to think it will become the German domination to French domination only feminist position on this question. was an anti-Nazi (and valuable) act. However, the reason I looked through the But I cannot accept such sophisms, and I various texts for indications of this position view with deep disquiet the feminist move- was because in the last few years my attention ment transforming itself into a fight for the had been drawn to it by nontheorised atti- ownership of children. There are many (too tudes among many of my feminist friends: by many) signs which indicate we are taking this their ‘spontaneous’ reactions which all went path. Whether it is a question of action one way. To them it seemed to be ‘obvious’ around the new reproductive technologies, or that when a couple separated it was a victory the new feminist myths of origin, or the ideal- forfeminism if the woman got custody of the isation of motherhood, the same leitmotif children, and a defeat if her husband got it. 198 CHRISTINEDELPHY

After a while I started to ask myself why; and This article seeks to shed light on an ideol- then I asked other people. But all I got was a ogy which I have called the ‘maternal de- look of astonishment . . . that I could even mand,’ and it opens up two directions for fur- ask the question! ther research. Various ‘feminist’ political actions seem 1. To understand how this ideology ap- also to be inspired by the same implicit senti- peared, or reappeared, it needs to be related ment: that it is both ‘good’ (for women) and to various other contemporary phenomena: ‘the right’ of women to own children - for ex- a. To change in the composition of ‘house- ample, the boat to Algiers. On the surface, holds’ and hence in women’s living condi- this was a protest against judgements deliv- tions. We know that in the whole of the west- ered by French tribunals not being respected. ern world, the number of marriages is But beneath that there was a clash between a decreasing whereas the number of adults liv- culture with patrilinear rights-as ours was at ing alone is increasing. Many of these house- the beginning of the century, with custody al- holds consist of women raising children on ways given to the father-and contemporary their own. A small number of them are ‘vol- French culture, where custody is usually untarily single mothers,’ and a large number sought by and granted to the mother. Deeper of them are divorced women. Single women still, it was an occasion to express outrage with children will compose the absolute ma- that the ‘sacred bond’ should be set on trial jority of persons living in poverty in the USA by Algerian legislation. This outrageous act in the year 2000. was much easier to condemn because it origi- b. To the development of family laws and nated in a culture even more mysogynistic in particular those concerning descent and than our own. So there were ‘good’ reasons, the control of children. In France, father feminist reasons, to denounce it. There was, power, which had been eroded for a long however, a confusion in that the denuncia- time, was definitively abolished by the law of tion of the status of women in Algeria was 1970 and replaced by ‘shared parental au- amalgamated with a demand for an eminent thority.’ In addition, the law of 1972 changed right of women to children. the principles governing descent from top to Similarly, in France, associations of fa- bottom. It replaced the Roman principle, thers claiming custody of their children get which overtly recognised the social character attacked by feminists, on the surface because of descent at least in the case of men (cf., the of their misogynistic remarks, but underlying famous adage %ter is est quod nuptiae this, because of their claim to be given equal demon&rant’ [The father is the husband] consideration with women as custodians of with a quest for ‘scientific’ descent). children. (According to Odile Dhavernas, Although a psychoanalyst, Delaisi de they are effectively treated equally in France; Parseval deplores this evaluation because, personal communication, 1989). ‘New fa- she says, it tends to conceal that ‘descent ob- thers’ are treated with derision-perhaps viously has a purely legal including social and with reason in some cases. But does their juridical, definition in our society,’ and that clumsiness and/or their pretension deserve so ‘the family is a non-biological concept.’ She much sarcasm, when elsewhere traditional adds, ‘Curiously no one seems interested in fathers themselves are decried for their indif- this aspect, as it is ‘somehow’ more gratifying ference? To discredit men’s efforts before to tell oneself stories about blood ties-a tie they have really even begun must surely which is pure fantasy!’ (Delaisi de Parseval & reveal an underlying disquiet which has noth- Janaud, 1983, p. 232). ing to do with the way they change the nap- What I call ‘the maternal demand’ is part pies. Here again, it seems that behind judge- of the same tendency as these legislative ments which are perfectly valid today (‘All changes, though it goes further than they do. they do is play with them’; or ‘If they do get However, the objectives of the lawmakers custody they just get their sister/mother/ and politicians and those of mothers diverge. cousin/new wife to look after them,’ etc.,) Western society has always believed de- that is, behind the questioning of men’s ac- scent through the mother to be more ‘biologi- tual competence, lurks a radical contesting of cal’ than descent through the father. (The old their right to look after children. folk adage that ‘maternity is revealed by the Difference/Motherhood 199 senses while paternity can only be guessed’ the ‘maternal demand?’ Is it the motor of this was taken up by Freud in Moses and Mono- evolution, or is it the rationalisation of a situ- theism in 1939). This belief has not been ation which is prejudicial to women and shaken by the work of anthropologists (see which they do not know how to modify? Ni- especially that of Nicole Claude Mathieu, cole Gabriel has shown clearly that the arro- 1977), despite their having shown that mater- gance with which some women treat ‘selfish nal descent is as social as paternal. Society women’ (i.e., women without children) - for has abandoned recognition of its own role, instance, in the Mother’s Manifesto which which is after all inscribed in law, in favour appeared in Germany in 1986 -is directly due of ‘the biological.’ So not only has maternal to the material exclusion women suffer in all descent retained its ‘biological’ character, it countries (Gabriel, 1991). This is even more has also become the very model for descent. evident in a country without creches and with Although the legislature will henceforth en- no school meals, things whose absence is di- deavour to base the role of fathers ‘in biol- rectly translated into a relatively low rate of ogy,’ some are opposed to what they call ‘the women working full-time. (For a comparison biologicalisation of fatherhood,’ however, in of the employment rates of women in various order to keep women’s advantages (Vande- European countries, see Bar&e-Maurisson lac, Descarries, & Gagnon, 1990, p. 258). & Marchand, 1990.) c. To another aspect of the changes in the 2. No one seems to question why the ‘prob- structure of households, that is, the increase lem of children’ and their ‘custody’ should be in the divorce rate. A couple marrying today considered only as a choice between two al- has one chance in three of divorcing in the ternatives; why it should involve rivalry and next 10 years. This means that the problem of a conflict, where what one gains, the other child custody has ceased to be exceptional loses. This seems to everyone to be a regretta- and becomes a commonly occurring event in ble but unavoidable fact. That this ‘fact’ is the lives of couples. This problem is posed in tied to the status of children as private prop- terms of alternatives and of rivalry between erty - and that this status is no more avoid- the two parents: Custody of the children has able than any other social status-does not become the stake for which thousands of men seem to occur to them. and women fight each other each year. No For this reason alone we should study the woman with children-and the majority of legal framework which maintains children in women who marry or live with a man at some the status as ‘minors.’ Such a study will have time during their life have at least one child - to involve an analysis of the ideology shared can therefore be indifferent to the principles by all adults, women as well as men, accord- regulating a conflict which grows daily more ing to which the existing situation is ‘legiti- probable. mate’ and good- because the opposition Most women want custody of the chil- ‘majority-minority’ is a ‘natural’ dichotomy dren: In France (Dhavernas, 1991b), 90% of in our culture. This is demonstrated in rela- women ask for it against 20% of men. The tion to the status of minors by the innovation figures show that it is imperative to see one- of the ‘specificity’ of the physical (and,hence self get the children. However, we know (see psychological) constitution of children. Weitzman, 1985) that in the United States, a But this was (and is) the same argument as year after divorce, the standard of living of was invoked in relation to women. And is it women will have declined by 70%, whereas any more valid when applied to children than the standard of living of their ex-husbands women? In addition, what physical ‘specifici- will have increased by 40%. Does this mean ties’ can constitute a valid reason for depriv- that the custody of children is so important ing individuals of their rights? Finally, in to women that they are prepared to accept a what ways is the constitution of a child more major drop in their standard of living? Or ‘specific’ than that of a woman; that of a that knowing their standard of living will fall, woman more ‘specific’ than that of a man; they hope not to lose everything and to have and your constitution more ‘specific’ than the children as compensation? mine? The very posing of the question should Given all these facts, which themselves re- make apparent both the reply and the ways quire interpretation, how should we interpret in which an opposition between ‘equality’ and 200 CHRISTINE DELPHY

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