å Sunday, February 12th, 2017

Carole Pateman describes that its is a masculine attribute for civil freedom and it depends on patriarchal right (pg.2). It is my interpretation that she means because the contract is written by men, women weren’t considered as an individual to add into it. Pateman claims that women naturally have no freedom nor are born free. My guess is that women are incorporated into a civil society, but only by their husbands. Pateman discusses how women are included in the sexual and marriage contract but not the civil society contract. It seems that if woman are only identifiable by their husbands. So in a way they are in civil society just indirectly, more as a subordinate than an individual.

Pateman states that no one can at the same time be a citizen and human property. So where do women lie? There lies some sort of exploitation here. In the text it states that workers and wives can be exploited because they are both are subordinates under the employment and marriage contract. It’s as though women are constituted as property and not an individual. The text states that even sons are given rights in a civil society due to their birth right into the patriarchy.

Pateman discussed that women aren’t left out in the state of nature because it would defeat the purpose of the sexual contract. She claims that there is a ”private sphere” within the context of the civil society that is separate from civil society. Woman are included in the private sphere and men are included in the civil sphere. The sexual contract that women are included in exists in the state of nature and has nothing to do with civil society. Men are allowed to pass back and forth through the sphere and this is due to the law of the sex-right through the patriarchal civil society.

Pateman further discusses how in the book ”History of Sexuality” by Michel Foucault in the seventeen century men had taken charge of women’s lives and bodies through a new discipline and mechanism of subordination. The difference between sexual and political difference is a key component to civil society. Men governing women’s lives and bodies seems to be the proper order of nature. She argues that since men are the natural overseers of women, patriarchy is seen as a private matter that can only be conquered if the public policies and laws treated women as equals to men.

In the sexual contract by Carole Pateman she explains how some theorist left out some information in the sexual contract. The theorist that written the contract wrote it to only benefit themselves. It benefited people of patriarchy men and fathers. I feel that women were not incorporated into the civil socostly as equal individuals. Men had power over women. Under the sexual contract women were subjects to men. Men could have access to their bodies anytime they please. Also under the contract men had policital rights over women. Women were subordinated to me and did not have any rights within the contract. The marriage contract only allowed women to come together with men to give birth. Both parents could not have rights over the child so they were given to the mother. The child would only obey the mother.

Different theorist had their own views of the social and sexual contract. One believed that women should be excluded from the original contract because it is made from man. Another theorist thought that women should be seen as an individual and men shouldn’t have rights over them. Marriages were seen as businesses and husbands and wives were business partners. The wife had to adapt herself to her husband , but the husband did not have power over her. If the wife obey her husband then in return he will protect her. In the nature state a women status as being seen as an individual was completely cut out.

Other theorist believed that women were not born free or equal individuals but seen as property and subjects to men. The equality between men and women disappeared. Who ever owned property had to protect it and if protected than that individual can do whatever they want to the property. They can sell it, rent it or even trade it to whom ever they want to.

Women were not incorporated in the civil society as equal individuals but incorporated as subjects, property, and subordinates. They were incorporated to make the men feel powerful and have rights over someone who wasn’t strong as them. These theorist wrote these contracts so that it would give themselves power and other men power as well. It wouldn’t look right if men had power over other men because they were seen as equals and they were born free. So it would make sense to have power over someone who wasn’t on the same level as men. This incorporation gave men power over someone who wasn’t born free but born weak.

To my understanding the meaning of civil society is a patriarchy society which is seen through the lens of male superiority. The woman is subordinate to men as stated by Pateman, “Civil freedom is a masculine attribute and depends upon patriarchal right” (2). A women’s only right or should I say incorporation in the civil sphere would be to serve her husband. To fulfill her ‘wifely’ duties, in signing a marriage contract she is binding herself to a man as his property. She has no say as she is subjected by contract to her husband. Women are not seen as individuals and are not “civilly free”. Pateman states, “What it means to be an ’individual’, a maker of contracts and civilly free, is revealed by the subjection of women within the private sphere” (11).

This contradicts the idea of individual (referring to equality), if women are believed to be subordinate to men, why is a contract needed if it is already ‘understood’ that they are not viewed as individuals? In a sphere that is not civil, a woman would indeed need a contract because she would be an equal individual with the same rights as a man. According to The Sexual Contract, “Nor does Locke, for example, explain why the marriage contract is necessary when women are declared to be naturally subject to men, There are other ways in which a union between a man and his natural subordinate could be established, but, instead Locke holds that it is brought into being through contract, which is an agreement between two equals” (54). In a sphere that is not civil a woman would be free, it would have already be known and recognized that she too is equal and entitled to the innate rights that men hold. When I think about how far women have come in fighting inequality I can’t help but feel somber about how hard we fought and still are fighting for equal rights. Woman would have the choice to go into contract with another person or choose not to. There wouldn’t have to be laws and contracts stating that women are equal to men because it would be natural.  I used to think that it is natural for a person to be kind and loving that we are taught to hate but I’m not so sure anymore… Why do we need declarations stating our rights, why do we contacts and laws if we are all equal amongst one another?ual