å Tuesday, February 14th, 2017

I found the reading of Carole Pateman’s Sexual Contract very interesting. Although it was a lot to read, research and understand I did find it to be very informative. In the Sexual Contract Carole Pateman mentions the word “Patriarchal/ Patriarch” fairly often. A Patriarch is a male controlled government and/or society. A government that is controlled by male dominance is one that will forever under mind women.

In the past women were viewed as property. When marrying a woman in the past, a man would expect to receive land, money etc. Women were the subject in marital contracts dominated by men. These women were not labeled slaves but with no rights, not being seen as equal to their male counter parts, and not having a role in the governing society in which they lived basically made them slaves. If a civil society is one that connects its people by similar interest and “collective activity, how can a woman in the past or even now feel like they matter in a civil society that does not view them equal to men?

Carole Pateman brings up numerous theorists from the past. She speaks on these three theorists, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and the social contract. A social contract is made by a community and/or society that wants to create or define rules, benefits, rights and duties for its members. Once again social contracts were created by men. The making of the social contract did not include women although they were part of the society.  In my opinion “social contracts” were hypocritical because they were supposed to be created by members in the society but women (members of society) were not making or were not part of making social contracts.

The state of nature- “is a concept used in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law to denote the hypothetical conditions of what the lives of people might have been like before societies came into existence.”  In the Sexual Contract by Carole Pateman mentions that “wives” were not mentioned. Since Marriage combined man and woman to husband and wife, “they appeared only in civil society”. Thomas Hobbs believed that in a civil society and civil contract that men had no need to over power women however, women we still and are still over powered by men. With all of this information in these readings I still wonder what needed to be done or what needs to be done in order for women to truly be treated, respected and viewed as equal to men?

Due Sunday, February 19th, by midnight. Word count: 400 words. Please make sure everything is in your own words. If you paraphrase, make sure to include the proper citation.

In Wendy Brown’s essay, “‘The Most We Can Hope For…’ Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism,” she argues that human rights activism is more than it claims to be. In your own words, describe some of the evidence Brown provides to support her claim that human rights activism cannot be reduced to “a pure defense of the innocent and powerless” (2004:453). Do you agree with Brown? Why or why not?

This reading definitely had so much information compacted in to it its had to talk about just one specific thing, however one of the major points I gathered from this reading was Rousseau’s point that the social contract forces individuals to give in to the state and civil law in which freedom becomes obedience in exchange for protection. I thought this was one of the more powerful points of the text because here you are as the individual and if obedience has to be exchanged for protection then how are you really free? If you as the individual have to be subjected to the state and civil laws that say women are not even considered an individual but in fact just property , how is that freedom, and disobedience to the law would result in you politically being unprotected by the state. This is not unlike today where there are many laws that are in place that should be irradiated but to obtain protection from the law u must follow the law and in the same case obedience is exchanged for protection.

Another interesting point that was made was about the classic theorist creating and basically defining what it is to be a man or a woman. Defining that only men are considered individuals and naturally all men are born free and created equal. The problem with this is that if one man is allowed to be ruled or governed by another man then how can they be equal? The answer is they can not be equal. This brings us back to the invention of rights. The rights defined were never meant to include women or blacks. They were meant for the white man who owned property such as slaves and money and status. There is no way you can start an argument off with all men are created equal while one man owns another, and whats even more disheartening is that women were not at all included in these liberties. As the author of the text stated women had no natural freedom and are not born free. They were automatically considered property of their father and then of their husbands. Hobbes explained that women lacked the attributes and capacity to be considered an individual. In this case to be sexually different is to be politically different. This brings me back to my previous point . the phrase “all men” is even less than literal because not only does it excluded actually certain males but most definitely excludes all women.

The Sexual Contact

While reading “The Sexual Contract” by Carole Pateman, I began to question my own contract that I live in my everyday life. I feel that being a Latina from immigrants parents, I can see how in some ways men in my family have dominate their wives or partners. This hit a nerve for me as I began to compare the original contract with the sexual contract. I know that times have changes especially in the United States. But in some countries, women are very suppressed and have no rights. Women are only used for bearing children and for their husbands sexual relieves.

Women through marriage and after having children are not incorporated into a sphere that “is and is not in civil society”. Women have no part in the being economically independent. Women had no say in their reproductive right during this time. Many women didn’t have a say on who they were going to marry. Men always dominated the whole concept of “family”. While times have change as more women are educated, have jobs, have rights on contraception. We are currently living in a time where if we don’t stand and have our voices heard we can lose those rights again. With only 3 weeks after being elected president of the United States, our President “Trump” has made it clear that he thinks he can make choices on women reproductive rig. As I continued reading “The Sexual Contract” by Pateman, “the original contract creates the modern social whole of the patriarchal civil society” (pg. 12), men go back and forth in the private and public sphere, their sexual rights runs in both. The men are quickly to claim the rights over sexual access to women’s bodies making it a “obligation” for women to fill their husbands or partners sexual desire. For the most part no one mentions the problems that come with excluding women from the original contract but new contracts are in placed. Where men can use women for sexual fantasy as in prostitution. Men will pay women for sex in many cases.

Moreover, women have been working hard to eliminate the indifference between men and women. Making the new term gender neutral a more unique definition. The contracts have in some ways defined what is masculine and feminine in modern times. I shall continue to read and educate myself on the different contracts. Also, I can change or teach my family on how be more gender neutral.