Abstract
The origin of the word ‘gender’, as opposed to the word ‘sex’, is controversial. For some it dates back to psychosexology (J. Money, R.J. Stoller) and psychoanalysis (S. Freud); for others to social psychology and sociology (theories of ‘doing gender’, gender socialisation and social constructionism); still others date it to feminism. The reconstruction of the origin and use of the term ‘gender’ across different disciplines reveals how, even in the heterogeneity of thematisations, a theoretical common thread emerges: the progressive removal of ‘gender’ from ‘sex’ against the theory of biological determinism which presupposes the identification of sex and gender. This separation is introduced with arguments, for different reasons and purposes. Gender is increasingly being characterised as the category of malleability and variability as opposed to the fixity and immobility of sex. Such progressive separation marks the irrelevance of sex and nature, which is placed at the margins. The estrangement from nature assumes different meanings: that of being the solution to empirical problematicity, but also of liberation from the female condition.
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Notes
- 1.
J. Money,Gendermaps: Social Constructionism, Feminism, and Sexosophical History, Continuum, New York 2002; J. Money, A.A. Ehrhardt, Man & Woman, Boy and Girl. The Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1972; J. Money, P. Tucker, Sexual Signatures. On Being a Man or a Woman, Little, Brown and Company, London-Toronto 1975, p. 86.
- 2.
J. Money, Hermaphroditism, Gender and Precocity in Hyperadreno-corticism: Psychologic Findings, “Bullettin of John Hopkins Hospital”, 1955, 96 (6), pp. 253-264.
- 3.
The word ‘sex’, Money notes, has only five derivative forms in the English language: sexes, sexed, sexual, sexually, sexuality. No other terms can be derived such as sexuous, sexitive, sexible, sexitise etc. (similar to the many derivatives, up to thirty, of the term, sense, such as sensuous, sensitive, sensible, sensitise, but also sensate, sensation, sensor, sentient etc.). Cf. J. Money, Gender: History, Theory and Usage of the Term in Sexology and its Relationship with Nature/Nurture, “Journal of Sexual and Marital Therapy”, 1985, 11, pp. 71–79.
- 4.
Money opened the Gender Identity Clinic in Baltimore.
- 5.
J. Money, A.A. Ehrhardt, Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, cit.
- 6.
J. Money, Gender Role, Gender Identity, Core Gender Identity: Usage and Definition of Terms, “Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis”, 1973, 1 (4), p. 397.
- 7.
Money refers to his having felt the need for the concept and its definition in a seminar in 1949 where George Gardner Harvard presented the case of a hermaphrodite. This was a case, now known as the syndrome of non-sensitivity to androgens in a chromosomally male individual (46, XY) with external female morphology, but genetically male. Money wrote a doctoral thesis on Hermaphroditism: an Inquiry into the Nature of a Human Paradox in 1952.
- 8.
J. Money, A.A. Ehrhardt, Man & Woman, Boy and Girl, cit., p. 18. The author distinguishes gender identity from “profound gender identity” which refers, in the context of psychoanalysis, to self-perception as male or female in the second year of life, before the Oedipus complex (ibid., p. 293).
- 9.
Money indicates it as G-I/R (Gender, Identity and Role).
- 10.
J. Money, Sex Research: New Developments, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York 1965.
- 11.
J. Money, P. Tucker, Sexual Signatures. On Being a Man or a Woman, cit., p. 3. The author speaks of sex as “unalterable fact” and “eternal truth”.
- 12.
This is a popular theory in the sphere of psychology, sociology and anthropology.
- 13.
The sperm has an X or Y chromosome, while the egg has always an X chromosome, and when an X chromosome sperm fertilises an egg, a genetically female XX individual is produced, when the sperm carrying the Y chromosome fertilises the egg a genetically male XY embryo is produced.
- 14.
J. Money, A.A. Ehrhardt, Man & Woman, Boy and Girl, cit., pp. 17–18.
- 15.
J. Money, J.G. Hampson, J.L. Hampson, An Examination of Some Basic Sexual Concepts: the Evidence of Human Hermaphroditism, “Bullettin of John Hopkins Hospital”, 1955, 97, pp. 301–319.
- 16.
J. Money, J.G. Hampson, J.L. Hampson, Hermaphroditism: Recommendations Concerning Assignment of Sex, Change of Sex, and Psychologic Management, “Bullettin of the John Hopkins Hospital”, 1955, 97, pp. 284–300.
- 17.
For Money hermaphroditism is synonymous with intersex: the latter term refers to cases with apparent genetic etiology, but not clearly known (J. Money, A.A. Ehrhardt, Man & Woman, Boy and Girl, cit., p. 20). The author also refers to the analysis of hermaphroditism in S. Freud (Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (1905), English translation Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Basic Books. New York 2000). In the first essay on The Sexual Aberrations, with reference to the sexual object, Freud cites anatomical hermaphroditism as normally present in males and females, where there are “traces” of the genital organ of the opposite sex, without functionality, as the original disposition of bisexuality (referring to the possible explanation of homosexuality as “psychic hermaphroditism”).
- 18.
J. Money, A.A. Ehrhardt, Man & Woman, Boy and Girl, cit., p. 20.
- 19.
Money, through his studies, aims to provide empirical evidence for the thesis of the plasticity of gender. It is well known the case of two male twins, one of whom John, because of an accident during surgery (during circumcision) at 18 months of age remained free of genitals. Money decided to feminize the child (calling her Joan) and proposed to the parents to bring up the child as a girl. It was, in addition, their being twins, a scientifically interesting case, to see how much sexual identity is determined biologically and socially. But Joan continually showed signs of discomfort; at the age of 13, on discovering the truth, Joan decided to reinstate being male, subjecting the body to many surgical operations to eliminate the signs of feminisation. The disturbance of psychic equilibrium led him to commit suicide at the age of 38 years. Money publicized the case as empirical proof of his theory. In truth, it must be said, that the child was brought up as a male until 18 months and feminised only at the age of 1 and a half: therefore the discomfort would seem to confirm not so much the thesis of plasticity of gender, as that of the importance of educational pressure early on as regards sexual identification. Cf. J. Colapinto, As Nature Made Him. The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, Harper Collins, New York 2001.
- 20.
If sex is changed immediately after birth it is called ‘reannouncement’; if after a few months, it is ‘reallocation/reassignment’. Reallocation requires a change in people's behaviour toward the child; reassignment demands a change in the responses from the child.
- 21.
In cases of ambiguity, given the complexity of reconstruction of functional male genitalia, they preferred the female assignment of sex to the subject, bringing the child up in this sense, regardless of consideration of physical indices (or even infertility or sexual satisfaction). The indication given by Money was therefore for early assignment, in order to promote “oriented" education, even with demolitive and reconstructive surgery and ensuing hormonal therapy at puberty.
- 22.
In his view, hermaphroditism is empirical evidence that the stage of post-natal identification/sexual differentiation should be defined within 18 months and is completed at the age of 4 and a half.
- 23.
The male reproductive function; the function of gestation, breastfeeding and menstruating in women (J. Money, P. Tucker, Sexual Signatures. On Being a Man or a Woman, cit., p. 38).
- 24.
Money speaks of “sexless zombies” and “ambisexual acrobats” as unprecedented challenges to the sexual revolution (ibid., p. 8).
- 25.
«It is practically impossible for a person to develop any sense of identity at all without identifying as either a male or a female» (ibid, pp. 87–88).
- 26.
«The third possibility is almost unheard of» (ibid, p. 107).
- 27.
J. Money, A.A. Ehrhardt, Man & Woman, Boy and Girl, cit., p. 32.
- 28.
R. Reiche,Triebschicksal der Gesellschaft. Über den Strukturwandel der Psyche, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 2004. The author points out the oddity that a term such as gender has passed from psychosexology (an observational and behavioral science) to psychoanalysis, as there is usually a certain hostility between the different disciplines (ibid., p. 132).
- 29.
R.J. Stoller, Sex and Gender. On the Development of Masculinity and Femininity, The Hogarth Press, London 1968; Id., A Contribution to the Study of Gender Identity, “International Journal of Psycho-Analysis”, 1964, 45, pp. 220-226; Id., Presentation of Gender, Yale University Press, New Haven (Conn.) 1985. In 1958 Stoller constituted a research group “Gender Identity Research Project” to study intersexuality and transexualism.
- 30.
R.J. Stoller, Sex and Gender. On the Development of Masculinity and Femininity, cit., p. viii.
- 31.
«Gender is a term that has psychological or cultural rather than biological connotations» (ibid, p. 9).
- 32.
Some believe that Stoller introduced the category of gender not Money (cf. A. Edwards, The Sex/Gender Distinction: has it Outlived its Usefulness?, “Australian Feminist Studies”, 1989, 10, pp. 1–12).
- 33.
R.J. Stoller, Sex and Gender. On the Development of Masculinity and Femininity, cit., p. xiii.
- 34.
Stoller recalls that Freud identified sexuality not as a matter of inheritance or of a biochemical nature or dependent on organic factors, but dependent on childhood experiences.
- 35.
Ibid, pp. viii-ix.
- 36.
Ibid, p. 9.
- 37.
Ibid, p. 10.
- 38.
Such as the Oedipus complex, castration anxiety, penis envy, theme highlighted in this area by Freud.
- 39.
Ibid, p. 72.
- 40.
Precisely after the tactile and oral phase and before the anal and genital phase, and positioned in the so-called phallic phase.
- 41.
Ibid, p. 72.
- 42.
Ibid, p. 73.
- 43.
Ibid, p. xiii.
- 44.
In his work Stoller examines various cases of intersex, transsexualism and transvestism. Repeatedly emphasising that his theory is a postulate, which is more an intuition than a certainty.
- 45.
Ibid, p. 74.
- 46.
Ibid, p. 262.
- 47.
Stoller explicitly excludes the treatment of the homosexual issue (he speaks of it only to the extent that homosexuality affects gender identity, understood as sexual identification as regards the self). He includes, however, the treatment of transvestites.
- 48.
This is not the place for a critical reconstruction of Freud’s thought. The restricted aim is to identify the elements of his theories relevant to the debate on sex/gender, reiterated in subsequent reflections.
- 49.
S. Freud,Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, cit.
- 50.
Parts of the male sexual apparatus also appear in the women’s bodies, though in an ‘atrophied state’, and vice versa (S. Freud, Femininity, in Id., Vorlesungen zur Einführung in der Psychoanalyse (1915-17), English translation, New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analyisis, W.W. Norton and Company, New York 1990).
- 51.
Ibid.
- 52.
Freud acknowledges that the female-child's first inclination is for the father and the male-child’s first inclination is for the mother (cf. Traumdeutung, 1899, English translation, The Interpretation of Dreams, Basic Books, New York 2010). In successive theorisation he keeps the symmetry between males and females in the Oedipus complex, maintaining that in the girl it is configured in a similar way with the necessary variations. The affectionate attachment of the father, the need to eliminate the mother as superfluous and to occupy her place, is flirtation that already puts in place the means of future womanhood (cf. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analyisis, cit., lecture 21).
- 53.
Oedipus, in the Sophoclean tragedy, kills his father Laius and marries his mother Gioacasta.
- 54.
He highlights the difference between males and females saying that for the male child the Oedipus complex ends with the threat of castration; for the little girl the castration complex conducts her towards the Oedipus complex.
- 55.
Electra, in Greek mythology, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, helps her brother in the project of killing the mother. The mother, with her lover Aegisthus killed Agamemnon. Electra, discovering the crime, pushed her brother Orestes, after saving him, to avenge his father by killing his mother and lover.
- 56.
Until the phallic period the girl child thinks she has the same genitalia as her brother, then she develops penis envy accusing her mother of this state of castration. She turns to the father figure as a symbol of strength: the desire for a penis is transformed into the desire to give him a baby as a substitute for the missing genital organ. The child knows that she will not be able to satisfy the father and transfers the affection to other men hoping to satisfy the desire of becoming a mother.
- 57.
There is no intention to enter into the complex debate on the question of psychoanalysis. In a line of interpretation of Freud there emerges a distinction between male and female as regards identification. The male child aligns with the father in likeness; girls, because of the similarity with the mother, find it more difficult to leave the state of indifferentiation, they are less willing to separate as they are less afraid of becoming women, despite reaching a weaker sense of self in identification. The process is not absolute or complete; there are situations of tension, confusion and ambiguity. Some feminists criticise Freud, arguing that his perspective leads to a vision of male dominance in psychological and social terms, weakening feminine identity and they criticse the lack of symmetry between male and female in the Oedipus complex.
- 58.
Theory supported by sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, which believe that gender is mechanically inferred from sex.
- 59.
This theory is also supported by empirical studies, based on neurological, hormonal, developmental or anthropological-cultural grounds.
- 60.
It is a theory related to the past, specifically to philosophical metaphysical theories. Cf. D.L. Anselmi, A.L. Law, Questions of Gender. Perspectives and Paradoxes, McGraw-Hill, New York 1998.
- 61.
H.M. Lips, Sex and Gender: an Introduction, Mayfield, Mountain View (CA) 2001; R. Alsop, A. Fitzsimons, K. Lennon, Theorizing Gender, Polity, Cambridge 2005.
- 62.
The theory of symbolic interactionism interprets social interaction as symbolic interaction, social reality as a product of a discursive interaction between individuals and gender as a representation that is produced by the interaction (gender displays).
- 63.
A.A. Shields, Functionalism, Darwinism, and the Psychology of Women: a Study in Social Myth, “American Psychologist”, 1975, 30, pp. 739–754.
- 64.
D.M. Buss, Psychological Sex Differences: Origins through Sexual Selection, “American Psychologist”, 1995, 50, pp. 164–168.
- 65.
S.L. Bem, Gender Schema Theory: a Cognitive Account of Sex-Typing, “Psychological Review”, 1981, 88, pp. 354–364; Id., The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality, Yale University Press, New Haven (CT) 1993; A.E. Bell, R.J. Sternberg (eds.), The Psychology of Gender, Guilford Press, New York 1993.
- 66.
According to these theories, the apparent failure of sex reassignment in cases of anomalies, depend on an incomplete or inadequate socialisation program.
- 67.
C. West, D.H. Zimmerman, Doing Gender, “Gender & Society”, 1987, 1, pp. 125-151; S. Fenstermaker, C. West (eds.), Doing Gender, Doing Difference: Inequality, Power, and Institutional Change, Routledge, New York 2002.
- 68.
A.H. Eagly, Sex Differences in Social Behavior: a Social Role Interpretation, Erlbaum, Hillsdale (N.J.) 1987; A.H. Eagly, W. Wood, The Origins of Sex Differences in Human Behaviour: Evolved Dispositions versus Social Roles, “American Psychologist”, 1999, 54, pp. 408–423.
- 69.
K. Deaux, L.L. Lewis, Assessment of Gender Stereotypes: Methodology and Components, “Psychological Documents”, 1983, 13, p. 25.
- 70.
S. Jackson, Theorizing Gender and Sexuality, in S. Jackson, J. Jones (eds.), Contemporary Feminist Theories, New York University Press, New York 1998, pp. 134–137.
- 71.
V. Burr, An Introduction to Social Constructionism, Routledge, London-New York 1995; S. Jackson, S. Scott,Theorizing Sexuality, Open University Press, New York 2010. Burr defines gender as the social significance assumed by sexual differences. In his opinion, the term refers to the constellation of traits and behaviour that end up being associated with males and females respectively and therefore they are expected within a particular society. In other words, it is a term that refers to the concepts of masculinity and femininity and their differences, whether real or alleged. In this sense, sex, a natural element, becomes the anchor on which to create a cultural category, gender.
- 72.
The perspective seems to recall G. Berkeley’s esse est percipi.
- 73.
Cultural differences are used to support this perspective. J. Archer, B. Lloyd, Sex and Gender, Cambridge University Press, New York 1985.
- 74.
H.S. Bohan, Regarding Gender: Essentialism, Constructionism, and Feminist Psychology, in M. M. Gergen, S. N. Davis (eds.), Toward a New Psychology of Gender, Routledge, New York 1997.
- 75.
J. Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender, Yale University Press, New Haven (CT) 1994.
- 76.
J. Scott, Some Reflections on Gender and Politics, in M.M. Ferree, J.Lorber, B.B. Bess (eds.), Revisioning Gender, Sage-Thousand Oaks, CA London 1999.
- 77.
D. Fuss, Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature and Difference, Routledge, New York–London 1989, p. 9 and p. 18.
- 78.
S. Jackson, S. Scott, Sexual Skirmishes and Feminist Factions: Twenty-five Years of Debate on Women and Sexuality, in S. Jackson, S. Scott (eds.), Feminism and Sexuality: a Reader, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1996, p. 11.
- 79.
R.W. Connell, Gender, Polity Press, Cambridge 2002.
- 80.
A. Oakley, Sex, Gender and Society, Martin Robertson, Oxford 1972.
- 81.
Cf. G. Rubin, The Traffic in Women: Notes on the “Political Economy” of Sex, in E. Lewin (ed.), Feminist Anthropology. A Reader, Blackwell, Oxford 2006, p. 87 and ff. A subsequent re-elaboration of the theory in G. Rubin, Sexual Traffic (interview with Judith Butler), “Differences: a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies”, 1994, 6, 2/3, pp. 62–99. Cf. J.W. Scott, Gender: a Useful Category of Historical Analysis, “The American Historical Review”, 1986, 91, 5, pp. 1053–1075.
- 82.
G. Rubin, Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality, in C.S. Vance (ed.), Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, Routledge & Kegan Paul, New York 1984, p. 277.
- 83.
The author distinguishes between a Freudian biological interpretation and Lacan’s unbiological/simbolic interpretation.
- 84.
«Gender is not only an identification with one sex: it also entails that sexual desire be directed toward the other sex», G. Rubin, The Traffic in Women, cit., p. 95.
- 85.
«Sex/gender system (…) is a neutral term which refers to the domain and indicates that oppression is not inevitable in that domain, but is the product of the specific social relations which organize it» (G. Rubin, The Traffic in Women, cit., p. 91). The author criticises the excesses of anti-machoist feminism.
- 86.
S. Jackson, Theorizing Gender and Sexuality, in S. Jackson, J. Jones (eds.), Contemporary Feminist Theories, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1998, pp. 131-146, in particular see p. 134.
- 87.
Among which, those who have physical anomalies are cited: the ‘Berdache’ among the indigenous peoples of North and South America (but also in Oceania, Siberia, Asia and Africa) or individuals with ‘two spirits’, male and female, thought of as having supernatural powers; the ‘hijras’ in India a special caste recognised as neither male nor female; the ‘Khanith’ in Islamic culture; the ‘turnim man’ in New Guinea and ‘guevodoces’ in the Dominican Republic. In Thailand ‘pheet’ refers to a category of individuals with multiple gender. Among those that do not correspond to traditional social roles; the ‘acault’ in Burma (socially recognised as a male but they live as females); ‘faa fa’fini’ (Samoa), ‘fakaleiti’ (Tonga) and ‘mahu’ (Hawaii and Tahiti), men with feminine identity and behavior; ‘shamans’ of mixed sex, with non-masculine men and non-feminine women.
- 88.
G. Herdt, Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, Basic Books, New York 1994.
- 89.
For a reconstruction of the feminist debate within the context of the sex/gender opposition see A. Stone, An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy, Polity, Cambridge-Malden (MA) 2007.
- 90.
Some authors explicitly deny that feminism has originally developed the category of gender as opposed to sex (cf. D. Thompson, The Sex/Gender Distinction: a Reconsideration, “Australian Feminist Studies”, 1989, 10, p. 23). Moreover, it is an infrequently used category with this meaning in feminism. Some, however, believe that the category was coined by Anglophone feminism (cf. W.C. Harrison, J. Hood-Williams, Beyond Sex and Gender, Sage, London 2002, p. 25).
- 91.
With reference to the vast quantity of literature one is restricted to mention only: R. Tong, Feminist Thought: a More Comprehensive Introduction, Allen and Uniwin, Sidney 1998; C. Beasley, What is Feminism? An Introduction to Feminist Theory, Sage, London 1999.
- 92.
A. Stone, An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy, cit., p. 3; S. Pocha, Feminism and Gender, in S. Gamble (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism, Routledge, London 2001, pp. 55–65.
- 93.
The paths outlined do not follow a strictly historical reconstruction, instead, they identify conceptual itineraries.
- 94.
C.H. Sommers, Who Stole Feminism?, Simon & Schuster, New York 1997.
- 95.
Within the context of gender there are theories dealing with the political aspect (the realisation of equality and individual self-determination), the historical-social aspect (justification of the end of the role of the female in Western societies) and the philosophical aspect (the relationship between human beings and nature).
- 96.
This is the nucleus of feminist thought identified by V. Bryson, Feminist Political Theory: an Introduction, Macmillan, Basingstoke 1992, p. 192.
- 97.
M. Libertin, The Politics of Women’s Studies and Men’s Studies, “Hypatia”, 1987, 2, pp. 143–152.
- 98.
This is the path taken in Anglo-American literature, but not however by Italian and French feminism.
- 99.
M. Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), A Vindication of the Rights of Womenand a Vindication of the Rights of Men, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009.
- 100.
O. De Gouge, Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (1791).
- 101.
A. Stone, An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy, cit., p. 11.
- 102.
It must be remembered that the author is addressing middle-class educated women in her opinion closer to the natural state, not aristocratic women engaged in pleasing men or women of the working classes, whose social elevation is prevented by oppression.
- 103.
The word appears only in 1895, but the movement goes back to a few decades earlier.
- 104.
The ‘first wave’ of feminism refers to a period between the end of 1700s, half of the 1800s until the period between the world wars (1848-1918). The chronological distinction is problematic, since in the early decades of the twentieth century reflections began to glide from emancipation to pacifism, the problems of sexuality, the value of female experience
- 105.
J.S. Mill, H. Taylor, Essays on Sexual Equality, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1970.
- 106.
Also worth mentioning is the declaration of the rights of women proposed by E.C. Stanton (1815-1902) that moves from the truth, believed to be self-evident “that all men and women are created equal” and therefore have the inalienable right to equality.
- 107.
If liberal feminism developed mainly in England and in the U.S. (given the greater weight of political liberalism compared to Europe), after the second world war in European countries, with the development of welfare state systems, it was the socialist feminists, or the left in general, that conveyed the revindications of women
- 108.
This is the thesis advanced by male thinkers (F. Engels, A. Bebel) and female thinkers (A. Kollontaj, K. Zetkin), even anarchic thinkers (E. Goldman).
- 109.
F. Engels, Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats (1884), English translation, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Penguin Classics, London 2010.
- 110.
The most important methods used for this purpose were the institutional struggle, law and organised mass action for equal opportunities. Feminism has also taken on different characteristics depending on the social, legal and political system in which it has spread.
- 111.
S. De Beauvoir, Le deuxième sexe, Gallimard, Paris 1949.
- 112.
Transcendence not in the spiritual but in the materialistic sense: transcendent in the sense that it differs from the animal, but not because it is part of the spirituality of essence.
- 113.
According to the author, Man is “the Subject, the Absolute”: women seem the only negative “she is the other”.
- 114.
De Beauvoir believes that the word ‘female’ sounds unpleasant (or even an insult) because it places women in nature and imprisons them to sex. While ‘male’ is said with pride.
- 115.
This phrase becomes the reference point of gender theorisation (cf. S. Tarrant, When Sex became Gender, Routledge, London 2006).
- 116.
B. Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Norton, New York 1971.
- 117.
J. Mitchell , Women: the Longest Revolution, New Left Review, Boston 1966; Id., Psychoanalysis and Feminism, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1990; Id., Woman’s Estate, Vintage Books, New York 1973.
- 118.
The author analyses the compatibility between capitalism and patriarchy as systems of exploitation. The impoverishment of women is a result of the primary division of labor according to sex and the consideration of women in the maternal and domestic sphere (exploitation of women as sex objects, mothers, and educators).
- 119.
Radical feminism, rightly termed, developed between 1967 and 1975. It is a movement founded by P. Allen and S. Firestone, called ‘new social movement’ or even ‘post-socialism’.
- 120.
While in the past, women accepted men as allies (think of Mill and Engels), in the manifesto of new feminism, 1969 (Redstocking Group, New York), men are excluded from feminist theorising.
- 121.
In this sense a critique of psychoanalytical theories emerges, including the theory of sexuality that would imply the inferiority of women as an immutable destiny.
- 122.
Mostly made up of small groups of women, mainly but not exclusively, middle class, white and heterosexual.
- 123.
K. Millett, Sexual Politics, University of Illinois Press, Urbana-Chicago 1969.
- 124.
The author refers to cases of intersex to show the splitting of sex/gender.
- 125.
S. Firestone,The Dialectic of Sex. The Case for Feminist Revolution, William Morrow and Company, New York 1970.
- 126.
Lesbian feminism believes that marriage is institutionalisation of the normativity of heterosexuality.
- 127.
M. Daly, Gyn/Ecology. The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, The Women’s Press Ltd., London 1979. The author focuses on the links between the patriarchal system and Judeo-Christian religious tradition, believing that it has legitimised even in the divine plan (divine free will) the supremacy of man over woman, and proposes the establishment of a feminist religion. The author theorises a society of women in which lesbianism is prevalent.
- 128.
The movement radical lesbians was born in 1970.
- 129.
There are many female authors who contribute to moderate lesbian theories (‘vanilla’ or ‘rose water’ oriented) and extremist lesbian theories (‘butch-femme’ or ‘tomboy-girl’ oriented).
- 130.
A. Rich, Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, Norton, New York 1976; Id., Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, “Signs”, 1980, 5, pp. 631–660.
- 131.
G. Greer, The Female Eunuch, McGibbon & Kee, London 1970; Id., The Whole Woman Alfred a Knopf, Westminister (Maryland) 1999; Id., The Boy, Thames & Hudson, London 2003; Id., Sex and Destiny: the Politics of Human Fertility, Harper and Row, New York 1984.
- 132.
H. Marcuse discovers in repressed female sexuality (female eros) the engine of change to overcome the patriarchal social structure. Within the context of the Marxist and Freudian perspective, Marcuse envisages the lines along which to build a non-repressive society that does not subjugate Eros but affirms the pleasure principle instead of the reality principle. Cf. H. Marcuse, Eros und Kultur (1957).
- 133.
W. Reich, Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf, (1963).
- 134.
In the light of dialectical methodology, the author interprets the following stages: the thesis is formed by spontaneous sexuality, the antithesis of social repression, the synthesis of the negation of negation, therefore the transgression of prohibition, form rebellion to limits.
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Palazzani, L. (2012). From ‘Sex’ to ‘Gender’: Origins and Paths of Theorisation. In: Gender in Philosophy and Law. SpringerBriefs in Law. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4991-7_1
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