From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Sexual liberation and male chauvinism Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:11:22 -0600 (CST) Charles writes: << [SNIP] A long term historical reversal or irony is that, after millenia of fighting back against male chauvinism , and winning closer equality with men, including erosion of the double standard, women seem to be the upholders of monogamy.>> Charles reminds me that I have never investigated the history of the term "male chauvinism," but it is, I think, ahistorical to read either the term or what it names back into the past. *National* chauvinism is of relatively late development, and when (up well into the 18th century) various inequalities were not so much "justified" but simply taken for granted, there was no need or material basis for the psychological states the expression names (whether applied to gender, race, class, nationality, or what have you). "Scientific sexism" (like scientific racism) is a modern invention (late 18th century to the present). Stephanie Coontz on the history of the family, Gould on "The Mismeasure of Man," Laqueur on the history of body and gender, are key texts here. <<Perhaps, monogamy is no longer essentially male chauvinist, but I believe it is, because of its historical roots. Co-ownership of each other compounds the older ownership of the woman.>> ?????? <<[SNIP] It is a mistake to try to develop theories and programs of heterosexual liberation without first and foremost basing the approach on acknowledgement that MALE CHAUVINISM is the root origin of sexual repression.>> This sets the world on its head. Male chauvinism is the *result* of certain relatively modern changes in the the structure and material base of male supremacy. The key text here, I think, is Barbara Fields, "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America," NLR 181 (May/June 1990). To make the *idea* (chauvinism) the *origin* of the social actuality (modern male supremacy) is profoundly ahistorical. (I don't know much about the internal political dynamic of NLR, but even if Mark is correct about it, in order to maintain the illusion of marxism it had to print *some* pretty good stuff.) Making attitudes the *cause* of the social relations they emerge from, justify, and rationalize is both idealist and ahistorical. <<Sexual objectification of women and misogynist sexuality must be obliterated and demolished before there can be any progress in heterosexual liberation. All around male chauvinism , especially in childcare and pregancy support ,must be destroyed as a PREcondition to that liberation.>> This is a mare's nest of confusion, correct perception, and plain wrongheadedness. Such confusion always stems from ahistorical understanding of social relations. I won't try to unpack it here. Carrol --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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