What does everyone think of Monique Wittig, a lesbian feminist, and her claims that sex ("male"/"man" or "female"/"woman") is a social construct in her "one is not born a woman"?

submitted by AllInOne from self.GenderCritical

I have found the time to read Monique Wittig's "one is not born a woman". This is a good analysis of her "one is not born a woman"; https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f852/ca4ed6dd452e6c0f909a548079c00d4204e6.pdf

Here are a few pages of the essay I found; https://azinelibrary.org/other/wittig-print.pdf

Wittig envisions a “sexless society”, she said the categories of "male" and "female", "man" and “women” are social constructs that oppress women and are not natural groups. She argues that the idea and classification of women as a natural group is the base of the further oppression women deal with. She said sex is a social construct created to oppress women, that oppression is not caused by sex, but that it's sex that is caused by oppression, that sex ("male"/"man" or "female"/"woman") is made up and created by the oppressors to oppress the oppressed

She said; https://feminisminindia.com/2019/06/18/monique-wittig-material-feminism/

THE EXISTENCE OF SEXES AND THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVES AND MASTERS PROCEED FROM THE SAME BELIEF, THERE ARE NO SLAVES WITHOUT MASTERS AND THERE ARE NO WOMEN WITHOUT MEN.

Monique Wittig makes more of these same arguments in her essay The Category of Sex. In this essay, Wittig refers to natural differences between men and women as the ideology of sexual difference. She said this ideology exists to justify the exploitation of women. She says;

the ideology of sexual difference functions as censorship in our culture by masking, on the ground of nature, the social opposition between men and women. Masculine/feminine, male/female are the categories which serve to conceal the fact that social differences always belong to an economic, political, ideological order. Every system of domination establishes divisions at the material and economic level. Furthermore, the divisions are abstracted and turned into concepts by the masters… for there is no sex. There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses. It is the oppression that creates sex and not the contrary.

According to this analysis of Wittig's "one is not born a woman"; https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f852/ca4ed6dd452e6c0f909a548079c00d4204e6.pdf

For many straight feminists, the most useful concept in explaining the oppression on women is the patriarchy. This concept of patriarchy “implies a universal form of oppression based on biological differences between men and women” (Hollows, 7).

Adopting the Darwinist theory of evolution, they believe that the social relationship between men and women at large is a reflection of the natural division between male and female physiological features in the course of evolutionary development (Wittig, “One Is Not Born a Woman”, 1907). With this belief, they strive to empower women by redefining their biological potentials and emphasizing women’s uniqueness and superiority, such as their capacity to give birth and motherhood. However, this way of thinking once again falls in the trap of tracing the origin of women’s oppression within themselves, failing to be conscious that all these differences, in fact, are political and social formation (Wittig, “One Is Not Born a Woman”, 1910).

In lesbian feminists’ perspectives, “matriarchy and patriarchy are equally oppressive because equally heterosexist”, since they both subscribe to the categories of men and women as being somehow natural or innate and reinforce the binary opposition of woman and man (Wittig, “One Is Not Born a Woman”, 1905).

Therefore, Wittig’s stances differ from those of straight feminists majorly in their consciousness and ultimate goals. For straight feminists, their goal is to wrest the world from the death grip of patriarchy and transform the unequal power relations between men and women. Nevertheless, as a lesbian feminist, Wittig aims further to fight for “a sexless society” (“One Is Not Born a Woman”, 1909).

She seeks for the realization for everyone to exist as purely an individual, by destroying sex categorization and rejecting all theories based on it.

In her opinion, the internal motivation of lesbian feminists’ fighting is not for the victory of the abstract and imagined category of “women”; instead, they fight for themselves as individuals, which cannot be reduced to any class, social relation or other differentiating means.

Wittig argues that “What is woman? Panic, general alarm for an active defense. Frankly, it is a problem that the lesbians do not have because of a change of perspective, and it would be incorrect to say that lesbians are associate, make love, live with women, for ‘woman’ has meaning only in heterosexual systems of thought and heterosexual, economic systems. Lesbians are not women” (32).

According to this argument, in Wittig’s opinion, woman is a social relation to man defined only in heterosexual system. Since lesbians are not heterosexual, they are not women. Nevertheless, as Jacob Hale points out, the concept “women” has multiple characteristics in the dominant culture, including “absence of a penis, presence of reproductive organs, having a gender identity as a woman” and so on

What does everyone think of Monique Wittig's arguments?

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[–]Realwoman 23 insightful - 1 fun23 insightful - 0 fun24 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Complete BS. Anti scientific nonsense.

Here

https://theelectricagora.com/2020/06/02/on-sex-and-gender-identity-perspectives-from-biology-neuroscience-and-philosophy/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

And here

https://mobile.twitter.com/zaelefty/status/1257430799915286528

A woman is a human female. Sexes exist in all sexually reproducing organisms and definitely in all mammals. Is sex in cats a social construct? Sex is about reproduction. Not all individuals get to reproduce, doesn't mean that they don't have a sex.

[–]AllInOne[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you for the links, they're very useful!

[–]Sun_bear 21 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 0 fun22 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

What a complete load of bullshit. Women are oppressed because we are women. My understanding of oppression is that the oppressed group must have something the oppressor wants - in the case of women that's reproductive labour. If women were not the sex uniquely able to gestate, birth and nurse children, they'd be no oppression.

Now gender on the other hand, that's a social construct. There's nothing inherently masculine or feminine about skirts, maths or the colour pink and yet we gender away and strictly police each other to ensure we adhere to our categories.

[–]MarkTwainiac 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

My understanding of oppression is that the oppressed group must have something the oppressor wants - in the case of women that's reproductive >labour. If women were not the sex uniquely able to gestate, birth and nurse children, they'd be no oppression.

I know this is a common view, but I think it's only part of the picture. Males also oppress women because most males are heterosexual and from about age 11-12 on het males spend a good deal of their lives consumed by strong, compelling sexual desire for females. Het males see females as the vehicles through which they can obtain the greatest of all pleasures - the range of delicious, intoxicating, overwhelming physical sensations that come from sexual contact and closeness, and which culminate in orgasm. Pursuit of that sexual pleasure for its own sake is a major instinctual driving force in all humans past puberty, but is an especially strong driving force in male humans.

Most males when they seek out females for sex are not desiring to impregnate us or to make us bear their children - males are focused on their momentary, short-term sexual pleasure, and on their pleasure alone. Often, in fact more often than not, thoughts of making use of us females for our reproductive capabilities are the furthest things from their minds. Their minds are not filled with thoughts of how to rope us into gestating, birthing and nursing children or figuring out how to make sure our children are theirs as well. Most of the times when men want sex, which is most of the time for a good part of their lives, they do not want to pro-create. Their minds are focused solely on getting their dicks inside us and shooting their wads for all the delicious pleasurable sensations it brings them right now in the moment - not on all or any of the consequences for us female people that could transpire from that action.

IMO, men oppress women because they want girls and women to make their willies and the rest of their bodies feel good - and this is just as important, perhaps more so, than men's desire to be able to claim and have dominion over the children we bear. After all, men who used to have huge hordes of sex slaves kept in harems often had no problem killing off many of the offspring the women they held as sex slaves bore shortly after birth; these men valued the women they enslaved for sex primarily for the pleasure they could provide, not necessarily for their fecundity and "reproductive labor."

Another reason males oppress women is that the biological differences between the sexes makes it easy for them to do so. Nature has endowed males with huge advantages in strength, speed, sturdiness and (usually) size over females - and has equipped girls and women with physical vulnerabilities and disadvantages that males don't have, which make us easy/easier prey, as it were.

Of course, there's no reason that physical power imbalances between different humans must always lead to dominance and subjugation and oppression; most adults' instinctive reaction to babies - and to the weak and frail - is to care for them, not to oppress, abuse or limit and deprive them. So there's nothing written in stone that says males have to exploit their physical advantages over females to oppress us - the desire to oppress must be there first. And the secret to that desire is in the minds and psychology of males. Which takes us back to the issue of male sexual desire and the massive part it plays in boys' and men's lives from the dawn of puberty on.

[–]Realwoman 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think oppression also exists because men are stronger than women and can easily force them to do what men want. Males evolved as stronger in order to compete with other males but somehow in humans males exert physical power over females.

[–]vitunrotta 10 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Methinks the lady doth protest too much... Yeah yeah, that may sound sexist but in reality, what was she even trying to say?! Also that quote about lesbians. Oh my god. What horseshit (and that is an insult to horseshit, mind you - I'm sorry, horseshit!). Philosophize all you want but you can't talk facts away. TRAs will be quoting her ad eternum though, because peddling that kind of nonsense is exactly what they love.

Sidenote: in my opinion it would be important to note WHEN and WHERE she grew up and understand the historical and cultural realities that probably made her want to "explain the woman away." France is a terribly misogynist country still to this day, hate to say - can't imagine what it was half a century ago. Not that TRAs ever much cared about factual debates (or understanding biology, even). Sigh.

[–]LilianH 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If someone can't tell the difference between sex and gender then they shouldn't be writing books.

[–]jkfinn 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses. It is the oppression that creates sex and not the contrary.

She’s not arguing from science or biology but from philosophy. She calls the differences “social distances” but she has either too much of a psychological or spiritual view of the body which makes it less bound to reality and limits. She often makes no distinction between gender and sex, because she doesn’t really put the actual body first. So her “sex” can be “oppressed” but this for her, doesn’t start with an embodied sex but the abstracted sex.

[–]DogeWalker 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

This is an important point... why should anyone believe that Wittig is even talking about genetics, human biology, or even science? She’s an academic philosopher, not constrained by silly things like reality.

[–]DogeWalker 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Wittig spends a lot of time in that essay talking about "the myth of woman." I think it's easy to read different meanings into her words, not unlike the famous Simone de Beauvoir quote that Wittig references in her essay. If people interpret de Beauvoir as saying women are literally constructed... then that's up to them.

For instance, I found this part of the essay more in-depth and illuminating. (emphasis mine)

Thus it is our historical task, and only ours, to “define what we call oppression in materialist terms, to make it evident that women are a class, which is to say that the category “woman” as well as the category “man” are political and economic categories not eternal ones. Our fight aims to suppress men as a class, not through a genocidal, but a political struggle. Once the class “men” disappears, “women” as a class will disappear as well, for there are no slaves without masters. Our first task, it seems, is to always thoroughly dissociate “women” (the class within which we fight) and “woman,” the myth. For “woman” does not exist for us: it is only an imaginary formation, while “women” is the product of a social relationship. We felt this strongly when everywhere we refused to be called a “woman’s liberation movement.”

Furthermore, we have to destroy the myth inside and outside ourselves. “Woman” is not each one of us, but the political and ideological formation which negates “women” (the product of a relation of exploitation). “Woman” is there to confuse us, to hide the reality “women.” In order to be aware of being a class and to become a class we first have to kill the myth of “woman” including its most seductive aspects (I think about Virginia Woolf when she said the first task of a woman writer is to kill “the angel in the house”).

Philosophizing doesn't really interest me, but I know enough about it to recognize that anything that sounds like a just-so soundbite ("Monique Wittig says women don't exist!!!!") probably has a lot more depth if studied closer.

[–]AllInOne[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Every analysis of Monique Wittig I have read concludes that she says "sex is imaginary and is a social construct", I don't know if there's much depth in this, for example, this;

Once the class “men” disappears, “women” as a class will disappear as well ... For “woman” does not exist for us: it is only an imaginary formation, while “women” is the product of a social relationship.

What could this mean besides "woman as a category is imaginary and doesn't exist"?

Wittig in her essay The Category of Sex also refers to natural differences between men and women as the ideology of sexual difference. She said sex doesn't actually exist and this ideology exists to justify the exploitation of women. She says;

the ideology of sexual difference functions as censorship in our culture by masking, on the ground of nature, the social opposition between men and women. Masculine/feminine, male/female are the categories which serve to conceal the fact that social differences always belong to an economic, political, ideological order. Every system of domination establishes divisions at the material and economic level. Furthermore, the divisions are abstracted and turned into concepts by the masters… for there is no sex. There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses. It is the oppression that creates sex and not the contrary.

[–]DogeWalker 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Every analysis of Monique Wittig I have read concludes that she says...

Well, then every analysis about Wittig is in agreement. What's wrong with focusing on the source material, Wittig's actual writing?

Once the class “men” disappears, “women” as a class will disappear as well ... For “woman” does not exist for us: it is only an imaginary formation, while “women” is the product of a social relationship.

What could this possibly mean besides "woman as a category is imaginary and doesn't exist"?

How are you getting that from those lines? I think the part you elided was crucial to that section. Here is that part in context, emphasis mine:

Once the class “men” disappears, “women” as a class will disappear as well, for there are no slaves without masters. Our first task, it seems, is to always thoroughly dissociate “women” (the class within which we fight) and “woman,” the myth. For “woman” does not exist for us:

It's clear to me that she is talking about the categorization of "women" from two different angles: mere existence as humans who happen to be female, and what she calls the myth of woman.

Why does she say, "Once the class 'men' disappears, 'women' as a class will disappear as well"?

Is it because she envisions a future that is a literal gray jumpsuit dystopia, where all humans are literally, completely, physically identical?

Or, is she talking about the current state of the world, where the simple "mere existence" sex categories are all tangled up with social norms and stereotypes?

To me, that line is about the way women are only defined as "other," or defined as not-men. She's saying that, if we could get beyond that entanglement, then those social meanings would fall away or disappear.

ETA: I see the added part about The Category of Sex now. What do you make of this part specifically? Again, emphasis added by me.

Furthermore, the divisions are abstracted and turned into concepts by the masters… for there is no sex. There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses. It is the oppression that creates sex and not the contrary.

Edit 2: typo fix.

[–]AllInOne[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I see the added part about The Category of Sex now. What do you make of this part specifically? Again, emphasis added by me.

I understand your interpretation actually, about what I make of "there is no sex, there is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses", I think the way the sentence is structured leads to confusion. Either she means there are no sex roles (that the roles men and women are expected to have are socially constructed), while not denying sex (male or female) exists itself, or she means sex (male or female) does not exist, and that oppression creates sex instead of oppression being something that is caused by the sexes.

I think if she really meant stereotypes or roles by the word sex, she should have said "there is no such thing as sex roles" as in stereotypes associated with male or female are social constructs instead of saying "there is no sex" followed after saying the categories of "male or female" are created for political and economic reasons which all lead to most readers being confused interpreting her to mean "sex as in male or female does not exist"

[–]DogeWalker 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Either she means there are no sex roles (that the roles men and women are expected to have are socially constructed), while not denying sex (male or female) exists itself,

or she means sex (male or female) does not exist, and that oppression creates sex instead of oppression being something that is caused by the sexes.

I take it you believe she meant the latter one, right? Can you expand on that, because what you wrote isn't clear to me. If she meant sex does not exist, then how does it follow that oppression creates sex? You said, "oppression creates sex instead of oppression being something that is caused by the sexes." How does that work, can you explain? Or is the first interpretation the one you think is more viable?

... she should have said...

From what I understand, English is not Wittig's first language, although she clearly knows it well enough to produce some of her works in English. In fact, it's not clear to me which of her writings were originally in French vs. English. Do you agree that the language barrier could be a reason she happened to choose the phrasing she did? I think we have to meet in the middle with authorial intent all the time.

Unless there is more evidence about what she meant, I don't see any good reason to go with the simplistic interpretation of "human sex does not exist," ... because I don't see support for that interpretation when I read the actual text she wrote.

Her thesis certainly seems more complex than "human sex does not exist." If it was that simple, why does she keep writing about women at all?

[–]AllInOne[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree with you, it seems since English is not Wittig's first language she chose the word sex instead of sex roles or stereotypes which has led to confusion and didn't get the essays proofread for clarity. What I meant is if we take the second interpretation (which is the one I see being used in the analysis and summaries of Wuttig's essays), it will lead to the conclusion that the entirety of Wittig's arguments fall apart. As you pointed out, if she meant sex does not exist, she can not talk about oppression of women because what is a "woman"? If she can not talk about sex, she herself can not talk about being a woman let alone being a lesbian, and so her essays would be complete nonsense. But if we look at the first interpretation, which is she forgot to say sex roles instead of sex and actually meant sex roles are a social construct while understanding sex itself exists, then her essays are not nonsense and actually make sense in some parts.

[–]Sebell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

First, you have to find out how the author defines words like gender and sex - for instance, I've read a work where "sex" was the word that meant "sex roles" - the roles men and women play in society are socially defined.

ETA: Just read a summary of her work - she's using "sex" to mean "sex roles" - the categories people are placed into and expected to behave by.

[–]AllInOne[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Ah I see, if she means sex roles by sex, why does she say in The Category of Sex that;

male/female are the categories which serve to conceal the fact that social differences always belong to an economic, political, ideological order

And why don't authors just write sex roles instead of sex? Adding "roles" after sex really stops readers from being confused. When she said in her The Category of Sex that "there is no sex, it is the oppression that creates sex and not the contrary", I think it's expected most people reading get confused thinking she says sex doesn't exist and it's oppression that creates sex, if she said "there is no such thing as sex roles, for it's the oppression that creates sex roles ...", it would be so much more clear

[–]Sebell 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Look at Margaret Mead - she was an anthropologist, and feminist anthropology had a HUGE impact on feminism in the 60's and 70's. You have to remember that people felt that "women were biologically inferior" - so there was a real need to show that the "system" of male and female was oppressive, it wasn't just "women are born inferior to men" and "women are feminine because biology forces them to be that way". Anthropologists started showing that different cultures have different "roles" for men and women and it's not universal, and if it's not universal from society to society - it's hard to say it's biology.

It's clear to us today, but it was hard to say back then - it was controversial.

Monique Wittig wrote books in 1964 and 69. "Sex" and "Gender" were both interchangeable words at that time - the concept of there being a "class" of women, or women being a "role" was still new. So that's what she's arguing against: Women are not born to be docile and submissive.

Much later - you have transfeminist Julia Serrano come in the picture. She argues that "females" do not face oppression, "feminine" people do. Women are defined by being "feminine", and "feminine" people are oppressed. Thus - butch women are less oppressed than feminine men. "Woman" should be defined by "femininity" and man by "masculinity" and those that are neither don't need to be either.

There isn't anything wrong with that as a personal explanation of oneself and a search for meaning in one's own life - but it crosses into the political, and the need to define "woman" and women's rights as belonging to "feminine" people, not "females".

It's a regressive point of view that circles back to say that "Women are feminine because they can't help but being born feminine". That's the exact point of view Monique Wittig is fighting against.

[–]Anna_Nym 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I am rusty on my feminist history, but from what I remember, the French feminist writers in particular tried to write with a lot of word play and rhetorical flourish. I think it's as simple as that "sex roles" is a clumsy phrase. I suspect that it never occurred to her that people may think she was arguing biological sex literally didn't exist because it was such a ridiculous concept (and still is).

[–]DogeWalker 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I just realized this is in the GC saidit and not s/GCdebatesQT ... I think questions like these are much better suited to the debate sub.

[–]AllInOne[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think you're right, I asked this question here but will be sure to ask questions like these in GCdebatesQT saidit later on, the GCdebatesQT saidit is very quiet and I don't get much answers in there for now, I'm hoping it gets more traction like the GCdebatesQT subreddit we had before

[–]lestratege 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

FYI the English version of Beauvoir's quote "One is not born a woman, but becomes one" is a mistranslation of the original French. If that English version was the correct one, the French version would have been "On ne naît pas une femme, on en devient une". But this is not what the original quote was. It was "On ne naît pas femme, on le devient" which litterally means "One is not born woman, one becomes it." She was not referring to "woman" as a person of flesh, but "woman" as a concept used as the other by men. Beauvoir interestingly notes, in 1949...:

"Many American women particularly are prepared to think that there is no longer any place for woman as such; if a backward individual still takes herself for a woman, her friends advise her to be psychoanalysed and thus get rid of this obsession. (...) To decline to accept such notions as the eternal feminine, the black soul, the Jewish character, is not to deny that Jews, Negroes, women exist today – this denial does not represent a liberation for those concerned, but rather a flight from reality."

A flight from reality...