1. Money, Sex and Power Theme 2: The Politics of Sex
Citizenship and its exclusions: the sexual contract
Week 5

2. Lecture outline 1. The social contract
2. Pateman and the sexual contract
3. How can women/feminists challenge these exclusions?

3. The social contract
Pateman – feminist critique of social contract theory
She argues that the social contract incorporates a sexual contract which excludes women from the political arena
Idea of social contract is metaphor for understanding government
Hobbes (1651), Locke (1690), Rousseau(1762): government should be for and by the people

4. Social Contract
Different theories reflect desire to base legitimacy of government on choice of people governed
Emerged from increasing importance in 17th and 18th centuries of contracts in commercial transactions
Social environment of increasing individualism, secularisation, legalism

5. Critics of social contract theory
Governments based on coercion not consent (Hume, Bentham, Paine)
Run for the benefit of those governing rather than those governed
Most governments established by force
Claims of women to be recognised as citizens date back to the 18th century – they were not included in the social contract nor were they regarded as citizens

6. Pateman: the sexual contract
The social contract and liberal political theory generates
Liberal politics and the political freedom of (male) individuals
The sexual subordination of women to men in marriage
Social contract creates division between state and civil society
Requires sexual contract to maintain patriarchalism

7. Separation of state and civil society
Separation of political power from paternal power
‘masculine right over women is declared non-political’ (Pateman, 1988:90)
Original contract wasn’t only a social contract establishing freedom, was also a sexual contract perpetuating domination
Established men’s political right over women through conjugal right

8. Public vs private
Contract theorists created division between public sphere of civil freedom and private sphere of family
Pateman argues that women not party to the original contract, they’re the subject of the contract
Civil society referred to as the ‘private’ sphere in opposition to ‘public’ sphere of state
Family, where women are subordinated, is forgotten

9. Pateman
Exclusion of family and domestic arena not accidental – structural and systematic
Denial of political significance of sexual and marital dominance suggests patriarchy of no relevance to public domain
What social and political forces confined women to family and allowed men freedom of movement between private and public?

10. Important concepts 1. Possessive individualism
2. Contract, equality and subordination
Free ‘men’ are individuals who own property rights in their own persons and can enter into contracts.
Only men have rationality, independence and ownership of property in their own persons.
Women naturally inferior to men and lack ability to engage in rational, independent thought.
They’re not born free (as men are). Do not have ownership of property in their own person. Cannot be possessive individuals.

11. Marriage contract
If women lack capacities to make contracts how can they enter the marriage contract?
Male sex right based on coercion
Women do not have same civil status as men
In 19th century married women were the property of their husbands
Husband and wife one person and that person was the husband
Today rape in marriage outlawed in UK but not in some states in US

12. Sexual difference
‘the construction of sexual difference as political difference is central to civil society’ (Pateman, 1998:16).

13. Contract, equality and subordination
Contract can’t be understood as voluntary agreement between free and equal individuals
E.g. employers and employees unequal in terms of economic constraints, women and men unequal in terms of family constraints
Social contract creates political right in form of domination and subordination

14. Political fiction
Contracts claim to regulate voluntary and free exchange of services between individuals who own property in their own persons and capabilities
Exchangers are free individuals
‘We cannot contract out our services and capacities, while leaving ourselves free’ (Diana Coole, 1990)

15. Challenging exclusions
The personal is political - slogan
Sexual contract not confined to private sphere
It is about:
Institutionalising heterosexuality
Defining women as embodied sexual beings
How men claim rights of access and control over women’s bodies

16. Judith Squires Integrationist approach Transformational approach
Displacement or politicisation approach

17. Integrationist approach
Aims to include women in current political forms
Women recognised as independent, autonomous, rational, possessive individuals
Gender neutral politics
Women and femininity identified as problem

18. Transformationist approach
Change politics so it’s more woman friendly
Reconfigure political arena
Emphasises gender difference, recognises it, takes account of difference
Men and masculinity are the problem
Pateman adopts this approach – also Nancy Fraser

19. Displacement/ politicisation
Attempts to deconstruct gender
Way gender is constructed is the problem
Reorganise public/ private division in less patriarchal ways

20. Conclusions
Political theory is highly gendered, political practice resistant to women’s inclusion
Women’s exclusion from politics and political theory is both gendered and political – requires explanation
Sexual contract provides basis for the social contract, excludes women from full political and sexual citizenship