My belief, also my fear, is that within the existing political and legal order, and the possibilities for change afforded some women, is embedded a profound bargain: take what you can, but it will always be at the price of abandoning prostitutes, of gaining your advantage at her expense.
– Margaret A. Baldwin, “Split at the Root: Prostitution and Feminist Discourses of Law Reform”
The lesson that many feminists have drawn from the phenomenon of trans inclusionism is that we must be realist about sex: we must respect that human beings are, naturally and immutably, a sexually dimorphic species.
Implicit (and sometimes explicit) in the insistence that we be realist is a criticism of earlier feminists—such as Shulamith Firestone, Andrea Dworkin, Monique Wittig, Catharine MacKinnon, and Christine Delphy—who, in different ways, questioned the presumed reality of sex.
Firestone advocated the “freeing of women from the tyranny of their reproductive biology by every means available,” including artificial reproduction. Dworkin claimed that humans “are, clearly, a multi-sexed species.” Wittig declared that the “perenniality of the sexes and the perenniality of slaves and masters proceed from the same belief, and as there are no slaves without masters, there are no women without men.” A little more tentative, MacKinnon suggested that “[g]ender might not even code as difference, might not mean distinction epistemologically, were it not for its consequences for social power.” Echoing Wittig, Delphy ventured that “gender precedes sex,” and that “sex itself simply marks a social division . . . it serves to allow social recognition and identification of those who are dominants and those who are dominated.”
These feminists meant well. Their intention was to remove constraints on women—in the form of their biology or preconceptions about their biology—so that women might realise their potential, a potential so much greater than even feminists had dared to imagine. (Mary Wollstonecraft, for example, had accepted that “Nature has given woman a weaker frame than man.”)
But they were wrong, and with disastrous consequences for women—or so sex-realist feminists argue. Contra radical feminists, “men and women will continue to exist, and certain basic facts about us will remain true,” writes fellow Fairer Disputations Featured Author Mary Harrington. Denying this, she argues, has led to the degradation of heterosexual relationships, the phenomenon of transgenderism, the loss of single-sex spaces, and, in general, disempowered and miserable women.
Sex-realist feminism offers an important corrective to sex skepticism. But, ultimately, it too accepts patriarchal terms and thus fails women (paradigmatically, prostitutes).
Escape-Hatch Feminism
I grew up in the world that Harrington describes, in which the prevailing message was that “girls can do whatever boys can do.” Even once I was a teenager and reality had begun to bite—I continued to chase the boys in cross-country, but I could no longer conceive of catching up to them—I could not bring myself to abandon the belief that girls were just as capable as boys were. It’s a hard thing to admit, that your kind is inferior. And I could find no consolation in the “less good at this, but better at that” reframing, since this was everything esteemed (athletics, philosophy, leadership), while that was everything demeaned (in the words of MacKinnon, husband-care, home-care, child-care).
In my early twenties, I discovered second-wave literature—Beauvoir, Millett, Firestone, Dworkin, MacKinnon—and acquired the resources to retain the belief: girls would be able to do whatever boys are able to do, were it not for the deleterious effects of their socialisation into femininity. If it weren’t for the patriarchy, girls too would be boys. They would want what boys do, they would be as capable as boys are, they would behave like boys do, even their bodies would more closely resemble boys’.
Witnessing the phenomenon of trans inclusionism has been sobering. It was one thing to question sexual difference when there was no likelihood of women having to compete against men in sports. It was one thing to insist on a distinction between female people (biological beings) and women (female people’s socially constructed selves) when no male people were seriously gaining recognition as women. It was one thing to worry about how sex-segregated spaces contributed to the reification of sexual difference when those spaces were not under threat. It was one thing to express skepticism about talk of female biology when having a baby was accepted as the preserve of female people. In short, it was one thing to question sexual difference when doing so was of no consequence. Now, it feels like something else altogether.
Trans inclusionism, together with the gender-critical feminist response to it, has forced me to think harder about the question of sexual difference. But it has also made me reflect on the impulse behind my original stance.
How much was I saying that “women are men’s equals” and how much was I saying that “women are men’s equals … since they are not really women”? Was I accepting the implication that women are men’s inferiors? How much did I believe in the potential of my kind, and how much was I ashamed of it? How much did I desire women’s self-realisation, and how much did I desire disassociation with women?
In her recent book Hags, Victoria Smith writes,
My early understanding of feminism was as of an escape hatch. Bide your time while they frogmarch you towards that biology-as-destiny, honour-and-obey, barefoot-and-pregnant cell, pick your moment, and go, go, go. I did not grow up around feminists, but I knew that feminism existed, ready to save me from the fate of the women around me, the not-feminists, with their silences, their housekeeping money, their well, if she would nag him, what did she expect? That would never be me. I would never be a not-man, a mirror, a shadow; I’d be a not-one-of-those-women instead.
I never thought of this as hating women. On the contrary, I loved them, if only in terms of our potential, the creatures we could be, rather than the ones we were and had been. How much, I wonder, did radical feminist skepticism appeal to me because it allowed me to advocate for counterfactual women, without having to identify with actual women?
The Anxious Sex-Skepticism of Post-Structural and Radical Feminists
Feminist skepticism about sex has been understood in philosophical terms, as a metaphysical claim about the nature of sexual difference: namely, that it is constructed, artificial, contingent. It can also be understood in political terms, as disidentification with women. In a world that denigrates all that is female, sex denialism can be quite expedient.
Consider the skepticism of feminist Denise Riley. In her book, ‘Am I That Name?’: Feminism and the Category of ‘Women’ in History, Riley advocates rejection of the category “women,” arguing that it does not name a stable group, that there simply “aren’t any ‘women.’” To ask “am I that name?”—am I a woman?—is an act of disassociation if ever there were one. “Loyalty and identity,” Marilyn Frye has written, “are so closely connected as to be almost just two aspects of one phenomenon.” To be loyal to women is to identify with women—to claim them as one’s people. To be loyal to women is thus to identify with women, which is to identify as a woman. Conversely, to disidentify as a woman—to ask, “am I that name?”—is to disidentify with women, which is to be disloyal to women.
Riley’s skepticism is meaningfully different from radical feminism’s. Radical feminists saw women as, through and through, a product of patriarchy. They therefore believed that women would not endure in the feminist future. Poststructural feminists like Riley deny that women exist at all, even under patriarchy. That is, they claim that the word “women” refers to no coherent group. Judith Butler, for example, writes of
the political problem that feminism encounters in the assumption that the term women denotes a common identity. Rather than a stable signifier that commands the assent of those whom it purports to describe and represent, women, even in the plural, has become a troublesome term, a site of contest, a cause for anxiety.
In spite of this difference, I now cannot help but hear an anxiety about identification with the female in the skepticism of both poststructural and radical feminists.
On the one hand, this is understandable. Insofar as much of the concept of femaleness is a patriarchal myth (the female is masochistic, passive, submissive, stupid, dirty), feminists are right to disidentify with it. On the other hand, in disidentifying, we cede the concept to patriarchy, and we accept the terms of patriarchy: women can enjoy the status of full person on the condition that they are not female. As Smith writes, “We have fallen victim to a patriarchal protection racket, which promised us the right to be considered as something more than walking wombs in exchange for the denial of our existence as a sex class.”
On the sex-realist feminist view, the problem with this bargain is that women are, immutably, female. Freedom granted on the condition that we repudiate our sex is therefore illusory, a privilege that we cannot finally enjoy.
On the radical feminist view, the problem is a different one. This tradition conceives men and women as sex classes—oppressor and oppressed, master and subject. On this view, the freedom that men enjoy is the freedom of masters. As women stand to men as subjects to masters, women can no more enjoy the freedom of men than subjects can the freedom of masters.
Mary Harrington illustrates this beautifully. Every day, she writes, her mother cooked dinner and set the table. And every day, after they had eaten dinner, her father would get up and leave. This seemed to Harrington “a clear statement of status: ‘I’m exempt from these petty chores.’” Soon enough, her brothers began to follow her father’s example, leaving her mother to clear the table. Harrington was torn: she considered herself the equal of her brothers, but to express this, to join them in leaving the table, meant forsaking her mother—who she understood was also her future self. Harrington’s father can leave the table only because her mother must remain to clear it. His exemption from chores depends upon her obligation to do them. His freedom, that is to say, depends upon her subjection.
On the sex-realist feminist view, it is because women are female that they cannot enjoy the freedom that men enjoy. On the radical feminist view, it is because women are subjects.
Do Sex Realists Accept Patriarchy’s Terms of Engagement?
If feminist skepticism about sex can been understood in political terms, so too can feminist realism. Feminists who assert that, contra Riley, “women” names a coherent group—female people—stare down the denigration of the female and refuse to accept the patriarchal offer of freedom on the condition that we repudiate our sex. They assert, audaciously, that “a woman is an adult human female” and as such is entitled to respect. They demand freedom for women in all their femaleness, not despite it.
Yet I worry that, like feminist skeptics, feminist realists too accept patriarchal terms. Louise Perry, for example, argues that it is in the evolutionary interest of men to be promiscuous, and even to rape: “rape . . . has evolved for a startlingly obvious reason… it is one method by which males can reproduce.” For Perry, the question is therefore not, “How can we all be free?’” but rather “How can we best promote the wellbeing of both men and women, given that these two groups have different sets of interests, which are sometimes in tension?”
As a solution to the problem of male promiscuity, Perry proposes monogamous marriage. In conjunction with a cultural prohibition on premarital sex, the institution of monogamous marriage “discourages short-termism in male sexual behaviour, protects the economic interests of mothers, and creates a stable environment for the raising of children.” Another feminist realist, Mary Harrington, agrees that it is “good husbands and fathers” that women need, for these men provide women with the support and stability required to care for their children.
Perry and Harrington are responding to the sexual status quo: casual sex. This is the outcome of the sexual revolution, which abolished the taboo on premarital sex, ostensibly freeing men and women from repressive conventions. Perry and Harrington argue that, in fact, the sexual revolution rewrote the terms of the sexual contract entirely in men’s favour. It allowed men to have sex without having to give women commitment in return. Both Perry and Harrington think that the solution is a return to marriage, in the sense of an enduring relationship to which sex is confined.
My question for Perry and Harrington is this: why do they think women can escape a degrading form of sexual relationship (casual sex) only by trading it for another form of sexual relationship (monogamous marriage)? Why are women’s options limited to casual sex (i.e., giving men sex in exchange for nothing) and marriage (i.e., giving men sex is exchange for commitment)? Why, in short, is sex something that women are forced to give one way or another?
The logic seems to me to be this: commitment from men is in women’s interest but not necessarily in men’s. Therefore, women must offer men something appealing in return for commitment. What men most want is sex. Therefore, women must offer men sex in return for commitment. But why would men accept women’s offer of sex in return for commitment? Why, that is, when they have the option of no-strings-attached sex? Perry and Harrington realise that they would not, which is why they encourage women to refuse to have casual sex. But can all women refuse? On the evolutionary biology understanding of rape, would men not then simply rape women? Perhaps not, if the state sufficiently discourages them from doing so. But to do that, the state would have to take rape extremely seriously, much more seriously than it now does. Perry purports to be pragmatic, yet it seems to me that, on her own view of male sexuality, men would agree to commitment only in the ideal conditions of a state that takes rape seriously.
The “Ancient Solution” to Excess Male Desire
There is, however, an alternative to rape, one that Perry acknowledges. The “ancient solution” to the problem of male promiscuity, she writes, “was for the majority of women to have sex only within marriage . . . while a minority of poor women were tasked with absorbing all that excess male sexual desire.” This minority is, of course, prostituted women. The “ancient solution” reveals the tacit condition on which men accept women’s offer of sex in return for commitment: the existence of a class of women with whom men can have no-strings-attached sex. Marriage can therefore be a solution for some women only at other—prostituted—women’s expense.
Contemporary feminists, with their defence of prostitution, have accepted this deal: commitment for some women at the price of prostitution for others. Worse, they have re-described their betrayal of prostituted women as solidarity. “Sex work,” they claim, is a freely chosen form of work, one that is both subversive and empowering.
Perry is not like those feminists; she sees what prostituted women suffer and she condemns the practice. “Emotionally, if not legally,” she writes, “it is difficult to distinguish prostitution from rape.” This perceptive observation reveals the essence of the patriarchal bargain: commitment for some women at the price of prostitution for others is at bottom protection from rape for some women at the price of rape for others. But Perry does not say what will replace prostitution to “absorb[] all that excess male sexual desire.”
She also fails to see the dependence of marriage on prostitution in the following sense. Historically, she observes, to be marriageable, men had to have a steady job and a house, the stable and supportive environment in which women could raise children. Then, marriage required men to “tame” themselves, thereby protecting women. Perry neglects what marriageability required in women: chastity. “Chaste” is relative: it is the antithesis of “unchaste.” To be marriageable, women had to not be something—namely, a whore. So long as this remains true, so long as the marriageable women are the ones who are not whores, some women can be marriageable only with reference to other—prostituted—women, who cannot be.
Chaste or unchaste, women are fit only for marriage or prostitution. The promise of marriage begins to appear the assurance of a fate other than prostitution. Smith is right: patriarchy is a “protection racket.” Men create the danger—prostitution—from which they offer women protection—marriage. Feminist realists have been fooled by men. They have accepted that this danger is inevitable. Consequently, they have accepted men’s offer of protection.
In doing so, they have failed all women, for neither married nor prostituted women enjoy sovereignty over their sexed bodies. Married women enjoy commitment and all that that entails (financial support, stability, relief from the sexual demands of one man after another, protection from the threat of rape by other men) at the price of sexual accessibility to one man. Prostituted women suffer sexual accessibility to all men. If Perry objects to my claim that married women are sexually accessible, then she must explain what, if not sexual accessibility, women offer men in return for commitment.
Facing Reality
Ultimately, feminist skeptics and feminist realists alike have accepted patriarchal terms: unlike the male human being, the female human being is not inviolable. She is not owed the unconditional respect that is owed to him. Accepting this, feminist skeptics disavow women’s female bodies. Feminist realists acknowledge women’s female bodies, but they give up on unconditional respect, settling instead for protection.
On one level, the skeptics have sacrificed certain women: those who have not repudiated their sex, paradigmatically mothers. But the realists too are guilty of sacrificing women: those in prostitution. On another level, both have failed all women. It is not that the skeptics have achieved unconditional respect for some women but not others; it is that they have achieved only the illusion of respect. A respect granted to women provided that they repudiate their sex is respect conditional on a lie. By the same token, it is not that the realists have achieved protection for some women but not others; it is that they have achieved only the illusion of protection. Protection granted to some women, provided that they are not whores, is also conditional on a lie.
The lie, in both cases, is that women are not members of a sex class, are not sexually accessible to men. They are. As such, they are not entitled to respect or to protection. When men grant certain women respect or protection, they indulge them. They can—and they do—revoke this respect or protection.
The realists are right: feminists must confront reality. The reality is this: until feminists reject patriarchal terms, until they demand for women unconditional respect as female people, women will remain at men’s disposal. So long as they remain at men’s disposal, the most that they can hope for is that men will show them mercy. Men will show them mercy and offer them reprieve from their sexual duty only while there are other women to fulfil that duty.
Until feminists reject patriarchal terms, the most that women can hope for is other women’s suffering.
