The incomplete materialism of French materialist feminism Alison Stone According to one important and influential line of lacking in exotic difference’.3 The French materialist feminist interrogation of the category of sex, we only feminists were perceived to be ‘relatively similar’ believe that there are two biological sexes because in two particular ways. First, like many English- our thought and perception are constrained by the speaking socialist feminists of the 1970s, their account two-gender social system under which we currently of women’s subordination focused on the exploitation live.1 The French materialist feminists – Christine of women’s labour within the home. Delphy, Monique Wittig, Colette Guillaumin and Second, and more relevantly here, the French mate- Nicole-Claude Mathieu, among others – are among rialist feminists made use of the concept of gender, the earliest and best-known exponents of this line. a concept that was also central to anglophone femi- In this article I will take issue with their position on nism of the 1970s and 1980s. The French materialists sex, by way of an initial reconstruction of the history insisted that women’s subordination was caused by of the English-speaking feminist reception of French social arrangements and not biology, and, being social, materialist feminism. I will use this reconstruction could be removed. Thus it appeared that the French to bring out two key elements of French materialist materialists adhered to the same sex/gender distinc- feminism: (1) its proposal that gender can and should tion that English-speaking feminists did, with both be abolished; (2) its – related – denial that sex division groups (apparently) holding that there are biological is a biological reality. I will then suggest that this sex differences between males and females but that latter denial damages the claim of French materialist these do not cause the gender division between men feminism to be materialist, and that – contrary to the and women, which is social in origin. French materialists’ claims – it is possible to affirm the Actually, though, the fact that the French material- biological reality of sex division and still pursue the ists used the concept of gender obscured the fact that abolition of gender. This is possible, I will suggest, if they understood their conception of gender to differ we adopt a cluster-based understanding of sex; some from – and to radicalize – the prevailing anglophone strengths and potential limitations of this cluster-based conception. Delphy claims that most feminists who use understanding will be considered in conclusion. the concept of gender accept that because there are two sexes, there must be two genders, which means that The specificity of French materialist these feminists can only aim to redefine the genders feminism non-hierarchically but not to abolish gender altogether.4 Critics of the category ‘French feminist thought’ that In contrast, Delphy maintains that the gender division emerged in the 1980s have observed that it is an is necessarily hierarchical so that feminists must aim eminently Anglo-American construction, in which the to abolish gender, and hence need to show that this so-called ‘holy trinity’ of Irigaray, Kristeva and Cixous division is entirely independent of, not necessitated by, rank as the canonical figures.2 Among those excluded biology (otherwise, we may assume, the division could from this construction are the French materialist femi- not be abolished any more than biology can). nists. Toril Moi has suggested that, ironically, ‘these Because Delphy (and other French materialists) [materialist] feminists have become less frequently reconceive gender division as completely independent translated and less well-known [than Irigaray et al.] of sex difference, they rename this reconceived divi- precisely because of their relative similarity [to Anglo- sion, largely avoiding calling it a ‘gender’ (genre) divi- phone feminism]: they have … been perceived as sion. Nicole-Claude Mathieu renames gender ‘social 20 Radical Philosophy 145 (September/October 2007) sex’ (sexe social), while Delphy (in earlier work) gender is that it is overlaid onto a pre-existing sex, so renames the genders ‘sex-classes’ (classes de sexe).5 that talk of ‘gender’ carries with it uncritical belief This seems puzzling, since their talk of ‘social sex’ in biological sex.8 Nonetheless, since Mathieu talks and ‘sex-class’ might lead us to suppose that Mathieu of ‘social sex’ so as to stress that the man/woman and Delphy are discussing sex and not gender. This division is completely social, her ‘social sex’ is still supposition would be mistaken. To see this, let us actually a reconception of, not an alternative to, the focus on Delphy’s concept of ‘sex-class’, which belongs concept of gender. within her broader account of women’s subordination The French materialists, then, sought to radicalize as presented in Close to Home (1984). For Delphy, anglophone conceptions of gender by emphasizing this subordination rests on men’s appropriation of gender’s total independence of sex. However, so far women’s economic, sexual and reproductive labour the French materialist standpoint still seems to resem- within the home.6 This relation of exploitation divides ble that of anglophone feminism in that both groups human beings into two genders. One is made feminine appear to accept that there are two biological sexes. (féminin) or masculine (masculin) – produced as a For instance, Delphy remarks that it is almost always woman (femme) or a man (homme) – by one’s position females who are exploited in the family, and who are as victim or beneficiary of this exploitative relation. made into women through undergoing this exploita- If being a woman is being a victim of exploitation, tion.9 This remark seems to presuppose that females how do women differ from other exploited groups (and males) exist biologically. such as proletarians? Delphy’s answer is (1) that the Elsewhere, though – more prominently in her later exploitative relation that produces women has a distinc- work, particularly the article ‘Rethinking Sex and tive form: it (a) occurs in the family and (b) involves Gender’ (1993) – Delphy denies the biological reality those exploited having to labour for their upkeep of sex. She and other French materialists argue that we rather than for a wage; (2) that the labour that is only believe that there are biological sex differences, being exploited here includes sexual and reproductive and only perceive human beings as members of two labour (in accordance with the traditional, unwritten different sexes, because society’s gender division con- marriage ‘contract’ whereby wives are obliged to have strains and limits our thought.10 Whenever any social sex with and bear children for their husbands). So division into two classes or categories of human beings the economic–gender hierarchy is simultaneously a has been instituted, we begin to assume that certain of sexual hierarchy in which those who are exploited are people’s biological features make them into members sexually objectified. This is one reason why Delphy of these two classes, and to perceive those features speaks of ‘sex-classes’. A second reason why she uses in that light. Because in this case the two classes are this term is to indicate that what it is to be a woman sexual subjects and objects, we find salient those of (or a man) is to belong to a particular exploited (or people’s biological features which are relevant to sex exploiting) class, within an exploitative relation that and reproduction (the internal and external genitals, is a social reality and not a consequence of biology. sex hormones, etc.), and we perceive these features Thus, by renaming gender ‘sex-class’, Delphy intends as dividing people into two biological sexes. In short, to highlight how gender, as a fundamentally economic gender (or ‘sex-class’) determines sex, or to be precise division, is entirely independent of sex (whereas, she determines our belief in and perceptions of sex, which thinks, speaking of ‘gender’ would disguise this inde- for the French materialists is all that there is to sex. pendence, given the normal view that because there The French materialists are not denying that some are two sexes there must be two genders).7 people have, among other properties, breasts, vaginas, Other French materialists share the same under- wombs, and so on, while others have penises, testicles, lying commitment to a concept of gender. Mathieu and so on. Rather, the French materialists are claim- speaks of ‘social sex’ in preference to ‘gender’ for ing that society and not nature makes these features two main reasons: (1) to stress that this division pri- salient, and that society and not nature causes us marily oppresses women (i.e. those who are ‘the sex’, to define those with breasts and vaginas (etc.) as whose sex is marked); and (2), most importantly, to members of one sex, those with penises and testicles stress that the division into two categories (men and (etc.) as members of another. All this illuminates a women) is a social division, and one that gives rise third reason why Delphy and Mathieu use terms such to the mistaken perception that these categories are as ‘sex-class’ and ‘social sex’: they do so because, in grounded in nature – that is, to the belief in two sexes. their view, gender-class membership determines what In contrast, Mathieu claims, the usual conception of sex one is perceived to be and so, effectively, what 21 sex one is. (Moreover, this means that Delphy’s claim in material exploitation. Thus, for Delphy, ‘materialist’ that it is almost always females who are exploited feminism holds that the material exploitation of women and thereby made into women in the domestic mode by men is primary and that ideas about men’s and of production, while males almost always exploit and women’s ‘natures’ or proper roles, and the belief that become men, must be qualified.