å Monday, February 13th, 2017

According to Carole Pateman in her book “The Sexual Contract” men dominated women and had the right to treat them as someone of less value. During a marriage, rape was considered part of a right that the husband had it (Pg.7). In the original contract, it was established that men had rights over women, they could dominate them because they were their subordinates. I believe this has been happening all the time, even today in some countries women are considered not equal.

Women were not part of the original contract (pg, 6) but were part in the contract of marriage. I assume women have been incorporated in a different way than men in a “civil society”, this was at the moment of the contract of their marriage and also at the moment of having a child.  In the natural condition, all men were considered “born free” and they were equal as any other men, contrary to this women were not considered “born free”  this means they did not have freedom and equality (pg, 6).

Pateman also explains that women didn’t have this freedom because they were considered subordinate, this means women should obey their husband all the time. According to Pateman, she mentions that in the social contract freedom becomes obedience and in exchange, protection was provided (Pg, 7), I believe women were feeling that protection when they accepted a contract of marriage.

The origins of the patriarch have been since the Seventeenth century where women knew that wives were subordinates by husbands. Women were also being exploited because they belonged to a contract. In this case, in the marriage contract, one of the parties had the right to make decisions and use the other party in the way that he wanted. In this case, the women were used sexually and also had to fulfill the tasks of the house (pg 8).

At present time  I believe that marriage contract has not changed much because even now women are dominated by husbands especially women who grew up seeing a man as the only one in making decisions in a marriage.  I think this subordination also comes from our culture, for those who come from countries in South America is very common that men dominate their wives. Even today the role of women in some marriages is to serve the husband and procreate a family, without having a voice in the relationship and only trying to accept their husband’s requirements.

Carole pateman explains that while women have no part in the original contract with civil society, they are not left out of the “state of nature,” this makes me wonder what are they trying to say about woman as a whole? The civil society is structured; you make an agreement before entering into a community.  With civil society comes civil freedom and social contract.  By learning to live together in a civil society we look out for one another, we learn to be more rational and  moral.  In a “state of nature” it is the complete opposite.  With “state of nature” its believe that society makes us, before a society existed we as people were different.  With “state of nature.” We have physical freedom but there is a lack of morality and rationality.

Now referring back to Carole Pateman who explains that woman had no part in the original contract with civil society but all parts of the “state of nature,” are they trying to say that woman doesn’t have any morals and are irrational? Do our desires and impulses have a reason behind it? The inclusion of women in our civil society, seems to be only included when a man is involved.  There is a sense of domination over a woman Carole Pateman’s explains and this domination is of course a man.  A man’s power as a father comes after he has exercised the patriarchal right of a man (a husband) over a woman (wife).  (pg.3)

The civil society seems more as a man society than a woman’s society.  A woman  living  in a civil society according  to the reading seems to be more submissive, to the man.  Woman are the subject of the contract.  The sexual contract is the vehicle through which men transform their natural right over woman  into the security of civil patriarchal right . (pg.6)  The fact that men made the original contract shows that woman never had a chance of being incorporated into the sphere of  civil society.  Men  are the ones with the higher power, they are the patriarch, all adults even woman want to enjoy the same civil rights and exercise their own freedom with out someone looking down on  them.  Why can’t women  have just as much power as the men ? why must a man have domination over a woman and  have the right to enjoy sexual access to a woman?

According to my understanding about what Carole Pateman states in The sexual contract, the original contract is both sexual and social. Patriarchal social order was part of the sexual contract, in which men had political power over women including their bodies. Women were not even considered individuals and did not have the attributes and capacities to enter into contracts, only men  therefore women were sexual objects being dominated by men. In this way women were left out of the original contract because they were not even mentioned. In the social contract men can enjoy their freedom. Also, the social contract was created by men for men. However, women came to form part of these contracts only through marriage, because it guaranteed the cicil patriarchal right since women continued to be the subject and the dominated by men. Through The marriage contract husbands had all the right to exploit their wives because it was all about domination and subjection. Subjection was given in exchange of protection in the case the relationship of worker and capitalist in which all the power rest on only one party. An example of capitalist industry was prostitution which the patriarchal right justified men demanding for women’s bodies for sale.

Hobbes the first contractarian, and his radical individualism doctrine influenced a lot in the thinking of the society regarding the original contract. Hobbes insisted that when married women become pregnant and give birth to their babies, mother have power over the child because she will offer protection to the child, therefore the child must obey her mother. In this perspective mothers had a political right over their children which is the power of an absolute lord. He also adds that there can not be a confrontation between two sexes because both are strong beings capable of killing each other. So, the only political right women can have is motherhood. Even though Hobbes seemed to give some kind of minimum power to women, in Leviathan he wrote that a family consist of “a man and his servants, a man and his children, a man and his children and servants, so in conclusion the father is the sovereign leaving women and mother out.

According to another contract theorist, Locke who thinks that as marriage is a agreement between two individuals, furthermore through marriage women are naturally subject to men. So, women freely decide to get married. This shows the incorporation of women in society, However, once married they are subordinate to their husbands which puts them in the same situation as patriarchal order.

The sexual contract,Carol Pateman addresses very seriously is the concept of the women been left behind on society. In her book she mention the state of nature,that was use in moral,political philosophy religion and social contract theories. She explained that our rights and freedoms were acquire from the social contract and it was interpret  by political theorist like Locke,Rousseau and Hobbes. Pateman mention the story of the original contract that establishes modern patriarchy and how the sexual contract is ignore over women’s rights. However one of the main targets on the book is about those feminist who have looked for a better contract having an equal rights. She also mention the conventional understanding of actual contract in every day life such as marriage contract, employment contract and prostitution contract.

“These familiar readings of the classic stories fail to mention that good deal more than freedom is at stake Men’s domination over women and the right of men to enjoy equal sexual access to women is at issue in the making of the original pact” Pg2 I think this quote has a meaning, because over the years women are been trying to have the same rights as a men, we still fighting over men been dominant and I think there are some changes over the years, I notice that in the streets there is more men taking care of their kids, men with strollers or  picking their child from school. I also notice women working in position that use to be only for men.

The reading of the theoretical battle between the patriarchalists and social contract theorists. There are different theorist have their own version of the state of nature. Pateman mention some of the political theorist, for example  she mention Hobbes on pg. 6 ” Women are the subject of the contract. The (sexual) contract is the vehicle through which men transform their natural right over women into the security of civil patriarchal right” Hobbes have the idea that all human are by nature equal in faculty of body and mind. However Locke consider the state of nature that all men are free but  depending on their actions and possession  they will be free.

Pateman writes about Rousseau where she mention that he was the only classic contract theorist who rejects slavery and any contract. One of Rousseau theory was that all men are born as a blank slate and later society and the environment influence which way it lean. I believe this is true, society and the environment is a huge influence in what our actions are, specially in this days where we have technology and we are able to watch over the world.

The Social Contract, written by Carole Pateman, an intriguing tale about the guiding principles used to justify why women have no part in the original contract with civil society, and why women were only described in the “state of nature”. However evidence showed that women were incorporated into a sphere that “is and is not in civil society.”

The original contract is a sexual agreement between two heterosexual individuals. The subordination of women was developed from the original contract. In this case, both parties did not come to an agreement. Was this a contract misunderstanding? So women were involved in the fornication activity; however, they did not have the capacity to take part in the sexual contract. My point is the sexual contract had been written in error perhaps because only one consenting party signed off on the arrangement. Another way of thinking was theorist original contract was based on political myth. Considering, most theorist never expressed reasons for multiple contracts agreed upon without a participating co-signer. Contract signing whether written or spoken is an agreement between two concerning parties. The inconsistency in the sexual contract agreement was clear. Women were not considered individuals yet only individuals presumably signed the sexual contracts. In the past, contract theorist created distinct contracts. From the sexual contract the writer referenced two spheres. One sphere related to women subjection. The private sphere described women’s subordination. Women were chained to domestic work. Women were home with no voice because they were unable to vote. They were ignored. This was the “state of nature. “ They were only valued for procreation. And the men considered them irrelevant. In accordance to Hobbes, “the classic theorist claimed that women naturally lack the attributes and capacities of ‘individuals’. Sexual difference is the difference between freedom and subjection (Pg 6). This meant, women were not considered citizens. Women were considered property. Consequently women were absent from society.

Different than the private sphere was the public sphere. Civil society materialized from the public sphere. Men with property had the liberty to vote. They not only owned property but they owned human beings. Some capitalist were able to market prostitution. Some women engaged in sexual activity for profit. Women worked as an employee in a capitalist market owned by aristocratic men. Thus men were forced to construct an employment contract. According to G.D.H. Cole, critics focused on exploitation (inequality) and therefore overlook subordination, or the extent to which institutions …resembled that of master slave contract (Pg9).  In other words, men brought into existence women who they claimed did not appear relevant to society to sign contracts. So how does an employment contract get validated by women who are not considered a citizen?

To conclude the sexual contract showed men and women separate yet inseparable.  The dichotomy man vs women one could not exist without other. The slave contract was replaced with the employment contract and marriage contract.  All three contracts initiated by men who expanded the notions that men gave an account for women participation into a sphere that “is and is not in civil society”, again women were peppered through the sexual contract, and the marriage contract and the employment contract although the implication was women had no role in these three contracts. Men established new contracts in the place of the original contract but in the process brought about women entangled in every part of their life.

The introduction of “civil society” as mentioned by Carole Pateman in the book The Sexual Contract, displays a change of interpretation which men have disguised the social contract to politically and by form of law to control women. Such interpretation gives a disguise of freedom towards women in believing or trusting men. It was not always the case when much was set forth from within the realm of what is naturalistically their right. Yet, the extension of such rights, to be equally leveled at the status of men, comes with a limit even if the woman would be stamped by taking the last name of the husband. That the idea of patriarchy itself, not diminished, would transform in a “modern form of patriarchal social order” (Pateman 1).

A social civil structure placed by men, at which it is not valuable for them at that time, to then ignore without importance the quarrel between the women’s natural sphere and the public civil sphere within society. The natural sphere, also known as a private one, more in favor towards the women, within the views of society, sets women to enter in a marriage of what one could say of emotional feeling. Yes, it may seem to be the case that a woman has gained an equal place aside the husband, that the husband has given her his last name because of love. That as a loving wife who will bare to have the many children, nonetheless unknowingly, will become a hiddenly dominated, of which she will encounter from the man. Once entered at such phase, so begins the stage of what one could explain as a public civil sphere. Where it is determined of what “civilized society’s” expectations are from the wife through the eyes of men. A stroke of penmanship that places the woman to have no voice and saying except for the sole purpose of using the body at any way possible. Such assumptions then place the women to be in a contractual marriage, a sort of mandated fulfilling of a somewhat similar slave. Having unwanted sex, doing the chores, caring and baring as many as children the man says and how ever treatment the man might feel towards her, baring the maltreatment just because that’s what’s society has placed and at the same time ignores.

The fusion of women at a world that “is and is not civil society”, demonstrates how men have found a form to still possess women as possessions that can be manipulated to their own selfish desires without the consent of the women.

In Lynn Hunt’s Inventing Human Rights, we have already seen complications with biases regarding who has proposed needs for rights and equality, who they were intended for and who oversees their implementations. In this reading, women are still being discussed as somewhat passive to men, and yet, they are not completely excluded and ignored. They are wanted, necessary and purposeful to men. In The Sexual Contract, there is a distinction mentioned regarding natural conditions and civil conditions. The significance of these conditions are who these conditions can be associated with. Natural conditions are associated with women, where women are irrelevant in public and political issues, but are inclusive as subordinates and sex-objects in the private world of marriage. Civil conditions, however, are associated with men of privilege and their roles in government and ultimate dominance.

Men, who are a part of this patriarchal government that women are mostly excluded from, have created these civil liberties and systems of governments not only to be authoritative over politics, but to be authoritative over women and to have access to hetero-sexual relations. The marriage contract to officialize the relationship between man and woman is odd though, according to Locke, considering that women are claimed to be naturally subjected to men. This can be related to previously mentioned historical needs to declare natural rights, rights that are supposedly self-evident. Due to the emphasis on marriage, sexual relations are a political move, a move that needs both man and woman to make. “The sons overturn paternal rule not merely to gain their liberty but to secure women for themselves. Their success in their endeavor is chronicled in the story of the sexual contract” (p. 2).

Incorporation of women into a sphere that “is and is not in civil society” is portrayed through obvious marriage contracts, though considered mostly of natural and private matter, are publicly acknowledged in civil societies. Their involvement goes deeper, as mentioned in chapter three, whereas their obedience is an act done submissively with the expectation of protection by the man in return. Here, because marriage is a private matter, we can see some limitations on forceful male power, apart from political standing, if the wife is willingly involved in making a marriage work for both partners’ benefits. Locke brings up the topic of family, where women are again inclusive, considering their parental power and voice over their children. In situations where there are problems between a married man and women, women have been known to exercise their right to leave their husbands, which proves that men, again, have no absolute control in all standings.

Incorporation of women are also evident through women’s contribution to trade and industry. Women, who are of a lower-ranking and status than men, make an economical difference when acknowledging prostitution; sexual favors in return for compensation. The contribution and profit the act has on capitalist production should make them recognizable in a capitalist and civil society, and yet, because of their subjection, their contributions are overlooked. Though it may not be considered morally ethical, their role is played in satisfying men in a civil society that isn’t so chivalrous and gallant.

The way I interpreted Carole Pateman’s argument is the original contract not only excludes women but also subjugates them. The ‘natural state’ is used to enable this imbalance of power in the original contract. Reminiscent of the idea of “moral autonomy” that we discussed last week, the natural difference and constructed definitions of gender allow men to declare themselves as having political right via their rational thought and entrance into contracts, while simultaneously excluding women.
While Pateman offers a few different interpretations of the original contract, the key interpretation proves that rather than creating political right, the original contract creates patriarchal right, using the contemporary definition of patriarchal rather than the archaic meaning (paternal rule). This interpretation states that people, in their natural state with their natural rights gave up those natural rights in exchange for protection from the government, transforming those rights civil rights, and creating a contract of agreement between the governors and the governed. From that point people enter into countless social contracts, from the employment contract to the marriage contract. The privilege granted to men in the marriage contract, and to men of power in all other contracts negates the idea of fully free political right. In fact, as Pateman argues, rather than transforming natural right into civil right in the original contract, men turn natural right into patriarchal right, including sexual right, over women. This distinction applies to all marginalized groups, but Pateman is primarily concerned with women, and though all women must contend with male power, she is focused on heterosexual women and their relationships with heterosexual men. When she touches on identity politics, it is almost exclusively through the lens of the heterosexual female.
As the original contract gives men political right over women, including access to women’s bodies, it involves not only the social contract but the sexual contract (including the marriage contract, which exists in both spheres). Because contract theorists have chosen not to question this distribution of power, they embed it within their history of modern society. Left unexamined, it enables these theorists to focus solely on the social contract, thus eliminating the sexual contract, and therefore the private sphere in which it partially exists from the conversation. However, as Pateman argues, the private sphere and public sphere exist only in the definition of each other, there is not one without the other. The same is true of the social and sexual contract which are interrelated as evidenced by their interaction within the marriage contract, the prostitution contract and even the employment contract, all of which favor men and give men power. Contracts involving women have mostly been relegated to the ignored private sphere, and considered apolitical. Arguing that body politics exist becomes tricky, as Pateman explains, because the current construct of ownership in one’s own body is rhetoric created by the contract theorists who uphold the power of men. Regardless, women are left out of the original contract (easily noted in the myriad ways women haven’t been given the title of “individual”) and subject to the powers men who subscribe to this theory would describe as the their natural right. Women are therefore left to the private sphere, a realm recognized by civil society, but not discussed, nor considered political. The private sphere being part of civil society, but not part of the civil, or public sphere. The private sphere is considered the “natural” and “feminine” sphere, and is connected to civil society not just through its connection to the public sphere, but through the sexual contract (Pateman, pg 11).

In Sexual Contract by Carole Pateman I noticed how she is addressing how much women have suffered through history; when it comes to being equal and man being superior. She explains how the sexual contract is not quite complete. In other words, the people who wrote it were all males with no women’s opinions. In my understanding the contract will only benefit whoever wrote it and all males. According to The Sexual Contract women were just a subject to man, meaning every man had power over women. The marriage contract only meant two people coming together to create a family, luckily women had the right to stay with the child. This reading reminded me of the first one we did in class, if equality of rights is so self-evident, why did this allegation had to be made. Same thing goes with this topic. It was self-evident how women were thread it and how all males felt towards all females, then why it was so important to made this contract. The argument would be why is so important to make this type of contracts what was the point of it. The social contract left women out with no liberties and political rights, which means women didn’t have a voice to prove that they deserve equality. “only men, that is to say, are ‘individuals’ (p.6). It was officially, women were seen as nothing it was really unfair for women. What exactly a woman or just the female gender did to deserve this kind of punishment. I believe that in a civil sphere women wouldn’t be equal as man and their only right would be to focus on their families or husband. The contract talks about the rule women needed to follow in order to achieve wifely duties. This means woman were seen as property or subjects to man, they weren’t considered civil individuals they would have had the same freedom as man. In conclusion, women weren’t incorporated in the original contract because according the theorists only man were seen as individuals and women as property. In addition, since all females were property all males have the power to do whatever they wish with them. The sexual contracts are a subjection of women and social contract is the freedom each gender had. The argument in this chapter was about women being a property and how man had the opportunity to do whatever they want.

As I read Carole Pateman’s writing in “The Sexual Contract”, it was clear that women were put into very low standards to men. Through the fields of ‘civil society’, which contains nothing but in my opinion, insecure elite, narcissistic, dominating men, they would create an original contract that merely excluded women on her rights. It was also clear that in the only incorporation a women had in the civil society was to comply and obey as a wife and a women, she was to please her man when he wanted to, because “rape didn’t exist within a marriage”, and do her job as a wife especially having his child. Because she was excluded in such contract, the man had all the rights to the women’s body. As contract theorist Locke would lay his statement that “every man has a property in his own person” (pg. 13).

Many social contract theorists would argue and believed that men owned their property also through women, women were not considered equal to a man. It seemed that marriage contract was more to avoid that woman’s weren’t just their slaves but their wife, in other words in my opinion, a marriage contract was a cleaner way to do it. Although entering marriage through a marriage contract, women were still excluded on their rights, Pateman would write “what it means to be an ‘individual’, a maker of contracts, and civilly free, is revealed by the subjection of women with the private sphere” (pg. 11), in other words women were categorized as in the natural but private sphere, which indicated what was private; where a woman a placed in a place where she is mostly likely not seen and not validated, but yet natural to the civil society still excluded the woman to having the same power as a man through the contract, they apparently were not considered “individual”. The only right a woman had was her child, a child who will then eventually have a contract to obey his mother.

It seems beyond me that what is naturally in listed for us as a human being, is controlled by such contract. Women are the ones who should be validated not only for their womanhood but also just primarily as human beings, it becomes more clear as to why many feminist have fought to break down the issue on woman’s right on their body, choice and what they should do after during marriage, in participation on politics have become a strong and vocal on what’s right.