í Assignments

My apologies if you read an earlier version of this response. I accidentally posted before I was finished writing.

During week 2, we focused on the documents and declarations that Lynn Hunt views as precursors to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights passed by the United Nations in 1948. Hunt notes how discussions about “the rights of man” reorganized the relationship of French and American subjectivity to the sovereign, paving the way for discourses that emphasize rights as universal. Carole Pateman’s work takes a different view on “rights,” stressing how in social contract theory “sex right” is joined to such discourse. Hunt suggests that by defining natural rights in terms that stressed a right to property, theorists like John Locke engineered rights in terms that did not challenge slavery. This point becomes much more nuanced in Pateman’s work, I would argue. For Pateman, the conceptualization and arrangement of property and subjectivity (for white men of a certain standing) was joined to the bodies of women who were brought into civil society through the marriage contract.

As we discussed in class last Tuesday, one way of reading Pateman’s work and the distinction between public and private life that she stresses follows contract theorists like Locke and Rousseau who make women more a part of the environment that directors of it. In this way, the subjugation of women and their bodies are connected to the individuality that is being defined for men only. As Allison noted in her presentation, this understanding of women, as something less than an individual capable of making a contract, raises questions about the way equality is being instrumentalized through subjugation. We spent a good portion of class discussing whether and how the inequality that Pateman attributes to contract theory continues to define marriage today. I think Pateman is suggesting we consider as well how the arrangement and conceptualization of sexual difference becomes a way of framing a story about freedom and subjection (see p. 6, for example).

Building on this point, we should consider how the conceptualization and organization of the body (and differences between bodies) are connected to the stories we tell about life and its possibilities. This idea bears some kinship to the argument Wendy Brown makes in the essay we are reading for this week, on “Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism.” If you have trouble following Brown’s essay, I encourage you to read page 460. There is a good synopsis of her argument at the top of this page where she ask us to consider how projects that aim to reduce or limit suffering are already joined to certain ways of imagining subjects and their potential. This point is repeated throughout Brown’s essay as she guides us through a substantive rethinking of Michael Ignatieff’s argument that human rights campaigns can be an apolitical attempt to reduce human suffering.

Wendy Brown’s essay, “‘The Most We Can Hope For…’: Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism,” is a decidedly scathing – and compelling – critique of the prevailing Human Rights discourse articulated by establishment liberalism and embodied, in this case, by Michael Ignatieff. Brown had much to criticize considering that Ignatieff had been the director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, yet also supported the massive bombing campaign and subsequent invasion of Iraq headed by the US military in 2003.

Ignatieff’s position on the Iraq war is, perhaps, Brown’s strongest piece of evidence against the notion that Human Rights work – at least, of the type promoted by the likes of Ignatieff – has much to do with defending those who can’t defend themselves against the powerful. Brown is certainly justified in pointing this out. Indeed, the US bombing campaign against Iraq, nicknamed “shock and awe,” was the most devastating in world history. Estimates of the dead reach into the millions – including nearly 500,000 children – and the utter destruction of multiple towns and cities created what was, at the time, the largest refugee crisis the world had ever seen. Of course, the US was (and remains) the largest, most powerful military force in the world. If the world standard for human rights discourse does not even deem it necessary to defend those on the receiving end of that most massive and powerful of bombing campaigns by trying to prevent it, does it really adhere to any minimal standards as it claims? By almost all accounts, the war in Iraq did not help anyone, most certainly not those who were killed, lost loved ones, or left without a home or even a neighborhood. To do all of this under the mantle of humanitarian intervention only makes it more hypocritical.

Brown also challenges Ignatieff’s arguments about the primacy of, for example, freedom of speech over more basic rights like food, shelter, and healthcare (456). Clearly, the latter three basic necessities form the foundation for human survival. Brown aptly demonstrates that Ignatieff’s insistence on ignoring what should be the most basic of human rights and instead focusing on the lofty and uber-democratic sounding freedom of speech is suspect. First, she makes the rather salient point that, given the political order of a world dominated by corporations and their mouthpieces, “freedom of speech” takes on an almost sinister dimension. She then uses Ignatieff’s own words to show that his real concern has very little to do with defending the defenseless and much more to do with maintaining the ideals of a free market economy – i.e. the ability to pursue profits unimpeded.

Here too, I agree with Brown. That the head of a human rights agency can not concern himself with making sure first and foremost that everyone in the world is properly nourished – a totally attainable goal, in my opinion, if profit didn’t stand in the way – says something deeply troubling about the real agenda of such an agency.

Moreover, Brown’s point about the obsession with individual over collective rights – a throwback to the ridiculous hysteria of cold war anti-communism – is well taken. This, too, seems like a classic bait and switch. Put in the starkest terms, why shouldn’t the right to healthy food be a collective one? I cannot think of an argument against that. Least of all any argument that claims to speak in defense of human rights.

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.

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.