GEN&SEX 50B Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Contagious Diseases Acts, Human Behavior, Unintended Consequences
20 Jun 2018
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Section Eight: Gender and the Rise of the Modern State
Reading A: Women, Gender and the State
(Jan Jindy Pettman)
Making the State
-The state is male dominated and a masculine construct
-Athenian polis marks emergence of free male citizen and the construction of public space
as male
Politics involved performance and appearance
Women, children and slaves worked to provide for the physical and emotional needs
of men
-Modern state system begins from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648)
Marked end of European religious wars
European state forms were imposed through wars and colonization
-Modern state was globalized through decolonization after WWII
Everyone lived in internationally recognized sovereign state
-European state-making processes reproduced in other parts of the world
Through consolidation of centralized government and power
Colonized elites fought against foreign control but not against introduced forms of
political authority
State-making included the giving up local political power and resources to the state
in return for men’s increased control over their families
Gendered States
-Not all men were admitted to public power, but all men were admitted to sex right (to
women’s unpaid labor, sexual services, and reproductive capabilities – to women
themselves)
-State subject is an individual male:
Citizen, soldier, worker- a reasonable man
-Men can move between the spheres
-Public space is male and women belong in the private- women in public appear “out of
place”
-“Body politic” is masculinized
-Public/ political of the individual citizen takes on the characteristics of the masculine
(associating men with ruling)
Private female is seen as either connected, dependent, nurturing or unruly, sexual,
disorderly
Women and the State
-“The State” : abstraction that refers to a set of relations, practices and institutions
Not monolithic, uniform or unitary
Variety of sites, institutions, operations
Try to maintain conditions for capital accumulation
-Western liberal democratic states:
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Interventionist states
Highly bureaucratized
Huge information gathering capacity
A reach that affects almost everyone in every aspect of life
Male states (heavily gendered)
Legislation and policies construct the public/ private
-Women as a group are more dependent on the state than men are
Women’s organizations and feminist groups demand services or protection from
state but at the same time are suspicious of the state and its implication in the
unequal gender relations
-Liberal / equality feminists:
Seek to end state-directed or sanctioned discrimination against women and urge
state actions for women’s equal rights
-Socialist feminists:
Ambivalent towards the state and possibilities towards using state for feminist goals
Recognize the need to engage with the state in defense of women’s rights
-Radical feminists:
See the male state as part of women’s oppression
Hostile to any further intrusion from state
Also urge state action in defense of women’s rights
Irony: appealing to the masculinist state for protection against the violence of men
-Individual feminists:
Take up different positions regarding the state
Reflects the complexity of a women’s different relations with the state
-Women are state workers in gendered positions
Teaching, nursing, social work, helping, service and clerical roles
Rarely in positions of power and policy
Unpaid labor in the domestic sphere also
-All states are part of a public / private divide
-Growth of welfare state in the west and provision of particular kinds of support to women
(especially mothers) is characterized as a shift from private to public patriarchy
The state replaces the individual man
Conditions for its “protection” (i.e. surveillance of women’s sexual relations
-Client- citizens:
Women in the UK and U.S.
Men treated as workers, women as mothers
-Citizen-workers:
Scandinavian countries
Winning rights like: child care, maternity leave
-Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, China, Cuba and Vietnam
Officially committed to equality for women
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Section eight: gender and the rise of the modern state. Reading a: women, gender and the state (jan jindy pettman) The state is male dominated and a masculine construct. Athenian polis marks emergence of free male citizen and the construction of public space as male. Women, children and slaves worked to provide for the physical and emotional needs of men. Modern state system begins from the treaty of westphalia (1648) European state forms were imposed through wars and colonization. Modern state was globalized through decolonization after wwii. Everyone lived in internationally recognized sovereign state. European state-making processes reproduced in other parts of the world. Through consolidation of centralized government and power. Colonized elites fought against foreign control but not against introduced forms of political authority. State-making included the giving up local political power and resources to the state in return for men"s increased control over their families.
