Elizabeth Spelman - Inessential Woman, Chapters 2 and 4

Chapter 2 "Who's Who in the Polis"

In this chapter, Spelman examines Aristotle's views about gender. She says that recently people have focused on his descriptions of the biological differences between men and women, but this reading of his work is incomplete. She feels that to understand Aristotle's views on gender, we must also examine his distinctions between freepersons and slaves, particularly, the distinction between women and slaves. She argues that since slaves can be either female or male, Aristotle's separation of women and slaves "raises serious difficulties for any reading of his views an 'woman's nature' based only on the distinction he draws between 'men' and 'women'" (pg. 37). She argues that Aristotle views are more complex than previous readings depict. While he always sees people as gendered, he does not think of them only in those terms. For ex., he says very different things about the nature of free women and the nature of slave women.

Women and slaves, in the well-ordered city-state, are not participants. Instead they are conditions of it. They do not participate in the activities, but without their work the polis could not exist. Both provide services within the household and are needed by the men. However, Aristotle sees the relationship between man and woman and the relationship between man and slave as quite different. He likens the relationship between man and slave to that of soul and body, whereas the relationship between man and woman is more like that between intellect and appetite.

But what about female slaves? It is clear that by "woman" Aristotle means free women. In fact, he does not even identify female slaves as "women". Female slaves, in Aristotle's view, are not women at all. Consequently, the natural differences between men and women that he describes do not apply to male and female slaves. They are simply slaves with no differences between genders.

So there is more going on here than a simple natural biological superiority of male to female. Slave men are clearly not superior to free women, for example. Aristotle does think of women and slaves as human, just not to human. To justify the rule of men over women and slaves, he argues that the constitution of the soul requires it. "Men are to rule women, for in women the deliberative capacity of the rational element is without authority-it is easily overruled by the irrational element. Masters are to rule slaves, for while slaves, in virtue of the rational element in their souls, can hear and obey orders, they really don't have the capacity to deliberate" (pp. 44-45).

So, there are two criteria for determining the nature a person has: 1) whether they are male or female; 2) whether they have the body of a freeman or the body of a slave. In addition, there is one more condition necessary for being a man, a part of the ruling body: 3) whether the rational element of the soul rules the irrational part. From this we get the 4 basic natures of human beings, which are more complex than simple male/female distinctions:

Woman (free female) - female body/deliberative capacity without authority

Slave (female) - female body/no deliberative capacity

Man (male citizen) - male body/ deliberative capacity with authority

Slave (male) - male body/ no deliberative capacity

Spelman argues that Aristotle, like many contemporary feminists, use the terms "woman" and "slave" in a manner that dismisses the existence of slave women. She provides several examples of feminist inquiry into Aristotle's work (Susan Moller Okin, Sarah Pomeroy, Jean Grimshaw, and her own earlier work) that suffer from this problem. "In short, feminist scholars have not taken the place Aristotle assigns females slaves to be theoretically interesting" (pg. 49). Spelman argues that if we can figure out Aristotle's views about female slaves from what he says about "women" and "slaves", then we should also be able to figure out his views about "women" from what he says about slave women. Some (such as Janet Richards and Eva Cantarella) may argue that female slaves were oppressed as result of their slave status, not by virtue of being female. Therefore, it is not an issue for feminist scholars, but for those who study racism or classism. If we want to understand sexism, we should examine those who suffer from sexism, but not racism, classism, etc. Spelman is not convinced by this argument, however. "The situation of slave women makes us see that if not all women are excluded from the polis on account of sexism, then it is not your gender identity alone that subjects you to sexism. If it is true, as Richards and Cantarella propose, that some women are not subjected to sexism, we have to look to factors other than sexism to explain the case of those who are" (pp. 53-54).

The basic distinction Aristotle makes is not between male and female, but between those meant to rule and those meant to be ruled. Masculinity is inseparable from the idea of humanness, but "masculinity" is both a gender and a race concept. Not all males are masculine and one does not have to be feminine in order to not be masculine. "Attention to the treatment of female slaves in Aristotle leads us to see that 'masculine' and 'femininity' are not simply gender concepts since gender is in part a function of 'race' and 'class'" (pg. 55). Gender cannot be isolated from race.

Chapter 4 "Gender in the Context of Race and Class:

Notes on Chodorow's 'Reproduction of Mothering'"

Spelman argues that many feminists assume that gender is independent of race and class (and other variables if human identity) "that whether one is a woman is unaffected by what class or race one is. Feminists have also assumed that sexism is distinctly different from racism and classism, that whether and how one is subject to sexism is unaffected by whether and how one is subject to racism or classism" (pg. 81). She sees Chodorow's work as providing a strong foundation for such arguments. In this chapter, she hopes to show that Chodorow's work is very problematic. She focuses on the social context of mothering to understand the development of gender identity, but she does not address the fact that gender identity is not neatly separable from other aspects of identity like race and class.

She gives a description of Chodorow's work: that our development of a gender identity is a process mediated by our mothers (and mothering itself is a mediated activity) and the gender differences produce and are reproduced by the sexual division of labor. The most significant difference between men and women is the degree to which they feel connected with others. She takes sexism to be independent of racism and sexism, but also as the model for them and the cause of them.

Spelman finds Chodorow's focus on the social context of mothering compelling, but questions why she focuses only on the element of male dominance. She argues that most societies include many other forms of dominance, which Chodorow ignores. Does only male dominance mediate mothering? Spelman does not think so. "In a racist society such as the United States, is the ideological content of masculinity the idea that any man is superior to any woman?" (pp. 88-89).

In the next section, Spelman addresses the relation between sexism and other forms of oppression that Chodorow (and Sandra Harding) recognize (that sexism is the basis of all other oppression). Spelman simplifies their view into two statements: all women see themselves to all women; and men of one race (whites) see themselves as superior to men of another race (like blacks). But Spelman finds this account full of problems: 1) "Rather than being supported by sexism, racism seems to work against it-for if sexism insists on differences between men and women, racism requires that the similarity between men and women of the same race be emphasized" (pp. 91-92); 2) this use of this relationship to explain how the engendering of infants leads to adult investment in maintaining race and class domination, that everyone wants to dominate it is simply an historical accident that men dominate women and whites dominate blacks; 3) it does not seriously examine the racism and classism of women. If sexism is the basis of all other oppression, it is very unlikely that women would be involved in those other forms of oppression, but we know that they are.

Based on Chodorow's ideas, Spelman suggests several ways to examine the connections between issues of race and class with issues of gender:

1. Does race or class identity affect gender identity?

2. Does a child's identity include a sense of race or class (either conscious or unconscious)?

3. "What are the hierarchies in the world into which children are born and socialized? Is sexual privilege or domination affected by the race and class of the men and women in question?"(pg. 94)

4. How is sexism related to other forms of oppression? Is it the foundation or cause of racism and classism or is it more closely intertwined with them?

The problem that comes up from this is: how can gender identity be intertwined with other aspects of identity if people can be conscious of their gender identity and not the other aspects? Chodorow argues that gender identity is formed very early in life and way before people are conscious of their race or class. Spelman disagrees with this though. She argues that "if what children learn in acquiring gender identity is rich enough to explain how they are psychically ready to assume their place in a hierarchical world, how can it not include an understanding of gender identity appropriate for one's race, class, ethnic group?" (pg. 97). Race and class differences are just as important as gender differences when it comes to knowing one's place in the world. Looking at biographical and autobiographical works of women of different races and classes, we say a much more complicated picture than Chodorow portrays. The world is hierarchical and differentiated as Chodorow argues, but in more ways than simply gender.

Once we recognize the (full) social context of gender, Spelman argues, we have to question what it means to say that women possess a single gender. If our sense of womanhood is inseparable from our sense of race or class, how can we talk about women as a single group? She argues that what we see are the many different ways of sorting people: there are different dimensions (race, gender, etc) that cut across one another and any individual can be included in any number of divisions, but no individual falls only into one. So, "all women are women, but there is no being who is only a woman" (pg. 102). We can't assume that the meaning of "woman" is the same everywhere for everyone.

The main point is that gender must always be viewed within the context of other factors of identity, such as race and class. This means that we cannot assume that making a factor, such as race or class, a constant by studying only white men and women cancels out its effect. "Far from freeing us from the context of race and class, keeping them constant means they are constantly there" (pg. 104). They can be a factor even in relations between people of the same race or class. Similarity is just as crucial as difference.

Going back to Chodorow, Spelman makes one more point about how Chodorow portrays the differences between men and women. She disagrees with the depiction of women as relational and emotional in the private sphere and men as detached and disconnected in the public sphere. She points out that the public sphere clearly involves people in relation to one another and that denying connection and affectivity, but denying these characteristics does not mean they are absent. Men have pulled one over on us if we believe that they are without emotion; they have been able to describe their emotional states as the absence of emotion and women's as the presence, when in fact there are just different sets of emotions" (pg. 109). Spelman criticizes this depiction along with the claim that gender is separate from other elements of identity and says that together they give women an unwarranted sense of shared identity and shared community that history does not support.

Finally, Spelman encourages us to be skeptical of any account of gender relations that does not consider race and class. And, we should look at gender identity in relation to these other aspects of identity: not instead of them or in addition to them.