File spoon-archives/marxism-feminism.archive/marxism-feminism_1997/marxism-feminism.9705, message 59


Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 15:46:34 -0600 (MDT)
From: Martha Gimenez <gimenez-AT-csf.Colorado.EDU>
Subject: Re: M-FEM: "baby envy" or anxieties of paternity



On Tue, 20 May 1997, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> Hugh wrote:
> >Perhaps some of the responses indicate that female "penis envy" is ever so
> >slowly being replaced by a male "baby envy", however?
> 
> This sounds like an interesting topic. I believe that behind patriarchal
> efforts to control female sexuality and reproductive power, there are a lot
> of anxieties associated with paternity.

While the idea of "baby envy" is interesting, I leave it to the
psychologists in the list.  But the notion of "patriarchal efforts... 
power" is one that I am not comfortable with.  In my view, both male and
female sexuality are subjects to forms of social control which, while they
might give men more power nevertheless do not exempt their sexuality from
a variety of determinations.  This argument rests on the assumption that
what we perceive as effects of patriarchal or male control,  might be
better understood as the cumulative effects of economic, social,
political, ideological determinations that place men and women in
different locations with different opportunities, powers, etc.  This
argument, in turn, rests upon a sociological premise:  i.e., that men,
like women, are social creatures and that we cannot explain
institutionalized patterns of control over sexuality and reproduction
purely on the basis of male intentionality or male psychology.  On the
other hand, in specific cases, such as the example of welfare mentioned
below, an explanation based on "patriarchal" intentions could be
appropriate.  I am making here a distinction between the existence of
macro level controls over sexuality and reproduction, which are
irreducible to microfoundations, and specific instances which are
reducible to microfoundations; i.e., to explanations based upon traits or
attitudes or beliefs or other properties of individuals.

> One of the weapons used against
> poor mothers on public assistance in the process of welfare "reform" in the
> United States is a provision to cut off welfare unless the mother names and
> helps the authorities to track down the father. Beyond the government's
> desire to reprivatize patriarchy, by asking the poor father to take
> "personal responsibility" for providing for the mother and children, in
> order to reverse a (very) partial socialization of reproduction, I think
> that there is an unspoken desire to reinstate paternity as the only means
> of legitimating a line of descent. Hence the revival of talks of
> "illegitimacy" in the U.S.

The idea of public vs private patriarchy is interesting but glosses over
the question of the changing conditionf of possibility for
family formation.  The focus on patriarchy keeps us centered around a man
vs women framing of the issues and this is something the government
reinforces with the rhetoric about male's "responsibility" while leaving
out of the analysis of the situation the material conditions that make 
family formation and family estability for a vast and growing segment of
The main issue, the issue of the conditions for social reproduction and
the erosion of those conditions for a large proportion of the population,
disappears under the concerns about male responsibility (by the state) and
about patriarchy, public and private (by feminists).  
> 
> I think paternity has been always anxiety-producing and "baby envy" (or
> "womb envy") must have existed even before the times of Freud. Cuckolding
> has been a constant theme in many countries' literary traditions, and I
> think it can be read as an index of male fear of not being able to claim a
> clear ownership of children.

I don't know whether it has been a matter of "baby envy" or a concern,
among the wealthy, for legitimate heirs.  In the 1810 code of Napoleon
there is an article that states that, from the standpoint of the law, it
is assumed that husbands are the fathers of the children their wives bring
to the world.  Engels, if I remember it correctly, cites it in his book on
The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State.

In solidarity,

Martha


   

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