> I'd say that women's rights activists in rich nations have succeeded
> in raising the status of women in marriage dramatically since the late
> nineteenth century, but, in many parts of the world where neither
> capitalism nor socialism modernized the relation of sexes a great
> deal, marriage appears to be still a patriarchal institution
> encumbered by residual feudal customs:
There's no way to prove it, but I suspect what really improved women's lot was whatever economic independence they could win for themselves through working as independent producers.
It has really been only seventy years since marriage has not been a form of legalized prostitution, and a large part of the reason has to do with the fact that women are able to support themselves and lately, have access to birth control. Take away birth control (which includes abortion) and it all goes down the tubes.
Enough writers, philosophers, psychologists, theologians have remarked the fact of marriage as legalized prostitution that it should not be chalked up to feminist rant. I think we have all read Kelly long enough to realize that she is the farthest thing from a self-hating, brow-beaten, unconscious wimp. So when she tells us that this was a component of her relationships with men, we ought to believe her. Grace's experience supports that, and I think in general that when women attempt to describe their actual experiences, they ought not to be dismissed out of hand.
"I don't want to talk about that right now." "What are you talking about?" "I don't know what you mean."
All women have heard the above litany since day one. You can all stop now.
My own situation is different from Kelley and Grace, but it is haunted by the same problems. I have never had coerced sex with a man except once when I was raped. One reason why I haven't is that I made it a point to support myself all my life and to have enough money not to have to go along with anything I didn't want. It was a point of pride that if I had sex with a man it was because I wanted sex and I wanted him....not because I had to pay for dinner or for the roof over my head. This, I think, has actually made my relationship with men difficult and has led me to prostitute other parts of myself -- my intellect, my ability to write, in fact, most of my life to keeping this insane system going.
One could say, that capitalism is a system that gives you a choice over what you're going to prostitute. In that sense, it is a step forward (for women) from traditional societies which is explicit in the demand that they prostitute their bodies and raise their children to repeat the formula.
We live in a "society" that has no concept or practice of healthy interdependence/reciprocity and therefore we all try to navigate between the Scylla of watchful/conditional relationships and the Charybdis of fragmented individuality.
Capitalist social relations do not only play out on the factory floor, they also play out at home, in the bedroom -- in our most intimate thoughts and in what we take to be our freest flights of fancy. If Marx could say "Money is the pimp between man and the object of his desire," it is because he could ask his readers to infer and recognize that there might be a better path between man and the object of his desire than money.
I have never and do not now advocate the punishment of prostitutes, pimps, pornographers, sex workers etc. but if we are only allowed to discuss prostitution (of any kind) as a value-neutral activity, then I do not see any basis for a critique of capitalism.
We have this discussion on LBO once a year. I hope this time, we can take it a step further.
Joanna