Gayle Rubin - "The Traffic in Women"

In this paper, Rubin addresses the relationships by which women become oppressed. She investigates this question through a critical reading of Freud and Levi-Strauss. Her goal is to develop a definition of the term sex/gender system. A preliminary definition is "the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied" (pg. 159). First, however, she discusses the need for the concept by pointing out the failure of classical Marxism to properly address sexual oppression because it is generally not interested in sex.

Marx

No theory of women's oppression has had the explanatory power Marxist theory has for class oppression. So, many have attempted to apply Marxist analysis to the question of women in various ways. One group of articles try to locate women's oppression in the center of the capitalist dynamic by pointing out the relationship between housework and reproduction of labor.

Capitalism - "a set of social relations in which production takes the form of turning money, things, and people into capital. And capital is a quantity of goods or money which, when exchanged for labor, reproduces and augments itself by extracting unpaid labor, or surplus value, from labor into itself" (pg. 161). So, surplus value is the difference between what the working class produces as a whole and what is reinvested in the workers to maintain them (Wages are determined by what is needed to keep the worker going, not how much they produce).

So women's housework and their work in reproducing the working class plays a key role in the amount of surplus value that capitalists can squeeze out of the working class. (Remember Hartmann discusses this when she refers to theories of women working for capitalists. Like Hartmann, Rubin also finds this explanation insufficient). Rubin seems to acknowledge that women are useful to capitalism in this manner, but she does not think that this usefulness explains women's oppression. She argues that it is at this point that analyses of capitalism fail to explain women's oppression. For one thing, women are oppressed in societies that cannot be described as capitalist. Capitalism simply takes over ideas about gender that existed before it. For ex., capitalism cannot explain why it is women who do domestic work rather than men.

Marx noted that what is needed to reproduce to worker is determined by biological needs, the physical conditions of the environment, and the cultural tradition. It is this tradition that determined that wives who do housework were necessary to the reproduction process and that women fill that role rather than men. This cultural element was inherited, not invented, by capitalism.

Engels

Engels describes sex oppression as something capitalism inherited from earlier social forms. He points out that relations of sexuality should be separated from relations of production. It is from Engels that Rubin seems to developed the idea of a sex/gender system. Engels notes that every society must have both a system for the production of the means of existence (or an economic system) and one for the production of human beings themselves. In Rubin's terms, the second system is the "sex/gender system-a set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention and satisfied in a conventional manner, no matter how bizarre some of those conventions may be" (pg. 165).

Rubin argues that this second aspect of material life in Engel's theory has been ignored for the most part. She argues that we need to understand sex as we see it as a social product (gender identity, desire and fantasy, concepts of childhood) and understand the relations of its production.

Patriarchy and modes of reproduction are other names that have been proposed for the sex/gender system. Rubin finds both unsatisfactory. She argues that modes of reproduction links the sexual system to reproduction and the economic system to production which reduces the usefulness of both terms because production and reproduction occur in both areas. The sex/gender system also involves more than simply relations of procreation. She also argues that the term patriarchy was used to distinguish between forces maintaining sexism from other social forces, but it obscures other important distinctions. Its use is like using capitalism to describe all modes of production when its usefulness is that which distinguishes between modes of production. Rubin argues that "it is important- even in the face of a depressing history- to maintain a distinction between the human capacity and necessity to create a sexual world, and the empirically oppressive ways in which sexual worlds have been organized. Patriarchy subsumes both meanings into the same term" (pg. 168). Sex/gender system is a neutral term that refers to only the first meaning (the creation of a sexual world). In other words, patriarchy is a form of the sex/gender system. Other forms are possible. There are other gender-stratified systems which are not well-defined by the term patriarchy. Patriarchy is a specific form of male dominance (Old Testament-type).

Rubin wants to pick up on Engel's work that locates women's oppression within the mode of production. In order to do so, she focuses on the second aspect of material life that he describes and that she terms the sex/gender system. She approaches this problem by analyzing kinship systems which she argues are empirical forms of sex/gender systems.

Kinship

A kinship system is "a system of categories and statuses which often contradict actual genetic relationships" (pg. 169). In pre-state society, kinship is the basis of social interaction. It organizes economic, political, sexual, and ceremonial activity. It determines each person's relationship to each other and their duties, responsibilities, and privileges. Levi-Strauss's work on kinship structures, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, follows up Engel's theory well. L-S conceives of kinship as "an imposition of cultural organization upon the facts of biological procreation" (pp.170-171). He sees the kinship system as based on the exchange of women between men, thereby implicitly creating a theory of sex oppression.

In this book, L-S attempts to determine the structural principles of kinship, which provide a logic to the numerous rules or marriage and taboos in the world's societies. Two elements are particularly relevant to women: the "gift" and the incest taboo; together formulate his concept of the exchange of women. He develops Mauss' concept of the gift exchange. Mauss pointed out "the extent to which giving, receiving, and reciprocating gifts dominate social intercourse" (pg. 171) in primitive society. Since in the typical gift, neither party gains, Mauss suggests that the purpose of gift exchange is to strengthen or create the social link between the two parties. They held society together. L-S adds to Mauss by noting that the most basic form of gift exchange is marriage and women are the gifts. The incest taboo should be recognized as a way to ensure that these precious exchanges occur between rather than within families and groups. The gift exchange of women is more important because the relationship established is more than reciprocity, it is kinship. "The taboo on incest results in a wide network of relations, a set of people whose connections with one another are a kinship structure. All other levels, amounts, and directions of exchange-including hostile ones-are ordered by this structure" (pp. 173-174).

Rubin goes on to argue that it is men who benefit from the product of these exchanges of women - social organization. Women are simply that which is exchanged, they are not part of the relationship. She argues that the exchange of women is a powerful concept. It leads us to look to the traffic in women, rather than the traffic in things, as the source of women's oppression. It is also problematic. L-S argues that the traffic in women is the origin of culture. So, without the exchange of women, there would be no culture. If his argument is accepted, then the feminist task becomes the extermination of culture and replace it with some other phenomena. Obviously, this is a questionable implication. Therefore, Rubin argues against L-S on this point. She does not see the exchange of women as a definition of culture or a system in itself. It is simply part of the social relations of sex and gender. Kinship systems do more than exchange women, they are systems of relationships. A kinship system based on the exchange of women is one in which women do not have full rights in themselves, men have certain rights over them. "If Levi-Strauss is correct in seeing the exchange of women as a fundamental principle of kinship, the subordination of women can be seen as a product of the relationships by which sex and gender are organized and produced" (pg. 177).

Deeper into the Labyrinth

L-S goes on to analyze the sexual division of labor. He defines it as "a device to institute a reciprocal state of dependency between the sexes" (pg. 178). It is a taboo against men and women being the same, therefore it creates gender by dividing the sexes into two mutually exclusive categories. The kinship system is about marriage and marriage presupposes gender, a socially imposed division of the sexes. For instance, although men and women are different on average, there is quite a bit of overlap in variation. So, the idea that men and women are significantly different, must come from somewhere other than nature. It is the suppression of natural similarities, not a natural distinction.

Individuals are engendered in order to guarantee marriage (which is the basis of the kinship system). So gender not only refers to identification with one sex, but also directs sexual desire to the opposite sex. The sexual division of labor involves both gender and heterosexuality. Therefore the oppression of homosexuals is a product of the same system that oppresses women. Here, Rubin gives examples of the great variety and complexities that exists in actual sexual systems: institutionalized homosexuality, institutionalized transvesticism, and more. However, the key is that in all these systems, "the rules of gender division and obligatory heterosexuality are present even in their transformations" (pg. 182).

Rubin argues that L-S's insights suggest that women are more constrained by the kinship system than men. A system based on an exchange of women means that preferred female sexuality would be a passive rather than active one because the girl who is exchanged will have little say about who she has sex with. In addition, homosexuality in women will be suppressed to a greater extent than it is in men as long as men have rights in women that they do not have in themselves.

To summarize, L-S provides some basic generalities about the organization of human sexuality. These are: incest taboo, obligatory heterosexuality, and an asymmetric division of the sexes.

Psychoanalysis and its Discontents

Anthropology can describe kinship systems, but it can not explain the ways children are engraved with socially determined ideas of sex and gender. Psychoanalysis is a theory about the reproduction of kinship. "Psychoanalysis provides a description of the mechanisms by which the sexes are divided and deformed, of how bisexual, androgynous infants are transformed into boys and girls" (pg. 185).

The Oedipus Hex

Freud had reservations about making conclusions about women based on data collected from men. The pre-oedipal phase allowed Freud and others to create a theory of femininity. In the pre-Oedipal phase, boys and girls are psychically indistinguishable, or bisexual with the mother as the primary object of desire. So, the pre-oedipal female challenged the idea of innate heterosexuality. The feminine development could not be simply a biological reflex. Many have argued that Freud was not a biological determinist. Rubin focuses on one such scholar, Jacques Lacan and reinterprets classical psychoanalysis from his perspective.

Kinship, Lacan, and the Phallus

Lacan describes psychoanalysis as "the study of the traces left in the psyches of individuals as a result of their conscription into system of kinship" (pg. 188). It describes the transformation of biological sexuality as they are enculturated into the kinship system. The oedipus complex occurs when a child is confronted by the sexual rules imbedded in the terms for her/his family and relatives. It begins when the child sees the system and her/his place in it. It ends when she/he accepts that place.

Lacan makes a distinction between the phallus and the penis. The argument is that the penis could not possibly play the role that it is given in classical psychoanalysis. The phallus is a set of meanings given to the penis, not the organ itself. The presence or absence of the phallus determines the difference between man and woman. It also carries a meaning of male dominance (which penis envy may be seen as a recognition of). Since men are exchangers of women, the phallus also means the difference between the giver and the gift. Finally, it is the embodiment of the male status and dominance which is passed through women and conferred on men.

Oedipus Revisited

Normally, boys reject their mothers for fear of castration by their fathers. He exchanges his mother for the phallus and later can exchange the phallus for his own woman. He simply has to wait his turn.

It is more complex for girls. She loves her mother, but comes to the realization that women can only be properly loved by someone with a phallus. Since she does not have one, she has no right to her mother or any other woman. She has nothing to exchange for a woman. She does not conclude that having a penis (male) is naturally superior to not having one (female). Rather, it is the social relationships, the kinship system that defines the hierarchy. Her recognition of her "castration" causes her to redefine her relationships. She learns that the only way to get a phallus is as a gift from a man (through intercourse or a child). She can never control it or give it away. By turning to her father in the hopes of being given a phallus, she represses the active part of her libido, thereby assuming the passive nature necessary of women in a system that exchanges women. She can resolve the Oedipal complex in three ways: by becoming asexual, homosexual, or "normal" (accepting the social contract). Regardless of the path taken, becoming a woman is a painful and humiliation experience.

Freud's theory of femininity has been highly criticized by feminists. It is seen as a rationalization of female subordination. However, Rubin argues that it provides an excellent understanding of "how phallic culture domesticates women, and the effects in women of their domestication" (pg. 197). She sees both Freud and L-S as descriptions of the deep structures of sex oppression that we must recognize if we hope to change them.

Women Unite to Off the Oedipal Residue of our Culture

Rubin argues that the feminist movement must reorganize the system of sex and gender in a way that will make the oedipal experience less destructive, particularly for girls. The kinship system must be revolutionized. The organization of sex and gender that we have inherited no longer has the functions that it had in earlier times. The kinship system has been stripped of its political, economic, educational, and organizational functions and been left with only the sex/gender function. "Cultural evolution provides us with the opportunity to seize control of the means of sexuality, reproduction, and socialization, and to make conscious decisions to liberate human sexual life from the archaic relationships which deform it" (pp. 199-200). Rubin argues that psychoanalysis and structural anthropology are the most powerful ideologies of sexism that exist. L-S and Freud do not question the painful roles for women that they describe. The do not address the implications of their own theories, for ex. describing lesbianism as a problem rather than a reasonable resistance to a bad situation. It is at these points that the implications are ignored and replaced with concepts that keep the implications under wraps (mysterious chemical substances, joy in pain, biology). These substitutions replace critical assessment.

Rubin discusses L-S and Freud for several reasons: 1) although they do not address questions of sexism that their theories bring up, they make the questions which must be asked by feminists quite obvious; 2) their work enables us to separate sex and gender from the mode of production. It suggests a women's movement that is analogous to the Marxist working-class movement which has the potential to change and liberate society. The sex/gender system must be reorganized through political action. We must aim for the elimination of a social system that creates sexism and gender, not for the elimination of men; an elimination of obligatory sexualities and sex roles and a society in which a person's sexual anatomy is irrelevant to who they, what they do, and to whom they make love.

The Political Economy of Sex

Rubin proposes the next step on the agenda is to conduct a Marxian analysis of sex/gender systems. She argues that there is an economics and politics to sex/gender systems that the concept of exchange of women obscures. Rubin proposes an analysis of sexual exchange similar to Marx's Capital which analyzes the evolution of money and commodities. She points out that there are other questions to ask about a marriage system besides whether women are exchanged or not. Such questions involve the political economy of sex. Kinship and marriage are always tied to economic and political arrangements and we must investigate these connections. We must recognize the interdependence of sexuality, politics, and economics. "A full-bodied analysis of women in a single society, or throughout history, must take everything into account: the evolution of commodity forms in women, systems of land tenure, political arrangements, subsistence technology, etc. Equally important, economic and political analyses are incomplete if they do not consider women, marriage, and sexuality" (pp. 209-210).

Key Words:

- sex/gender systems (vs. Patriarchy)

- Marx

- Engels

- Levi-Strauss

-Freud

- kinship systems

- exchange of women

- political economy of sex