1. Lorber, "Minimalist and Maximalist Feminist Ideologies," cites a lecture given by Stimpson in 1980, entitled "The New Scholarship about Women: The State of the Art," at the City University of New York Graduate Center, New York City, October 6. Stimpson has continued to use this distinction in her lectures up to the present. [BACK]

2. See Gordon, "Feminism, Reproduction, and the Family." [BACK]

3. For an excellent description of the vicissitudes of the tension between similarity and difference in gender roles and gender symbolism that goes back to the beginnings of the modern world in the sixteenth century, see Bloch, "Untangling the Roots." [BACK]

4. Ehrenreich and English, Introduction to For Her Own Good. [BACK]

5. For summaries see Degler, At Odds; Ryan, Womanhood in America; Rothman, Woman's Proper Place. [BACK]

6. For a good sampling of differing perspectives among feminist historians on the tension between women's rights versus women's culture in the nineteenth century see Walkowitz et al., "Politics and Culture in Women's History." [BACK]

7. In 1985 the median full-time earnings for women were 65 percent of men's earnings, and 56 percent of women working in the civilian labor force were married. [BACK]

8. Friedan, Feminine Mystique; Rossi, "An Immodest Proposal"; Firestone, Dialectic of Sex. [BACK]

9. See, for example. Bunch, "Lesbians in Revolt." Myron and Bunch, Lesbianism and the Women's Movement contains a number of other early lesbian feminist analyses. [BACK]

10. See "Institution of Sexual Intercourse." [BACK]

11. For a more recent version of the radical feminist argument against continue

difference, see Ringelheim, "Women and the Holocaust." Ringelheim describes how she now rejects her emphasis on women's special virtues in caring for one another in a way men did not while imprisoned during the holocaust. She became convinced (apparently by Ti Grace Atkinson) that her focus on difference detracted from a focus on women's oppression and a willingness to fight that oppression. The argument is that if difference exists in the context of oppression (no theory here about causation), to emphasize or point to difference is to valorize oppression. The terms of her argument are so general that it is difficult for me to see its logic. In this book I try to break down difference into two aspects and argue that their relationship to oppression needs to be analyzed separately. [BACK]

12. Kanter, "Women and the Structure of Organizations." [BACK]

13. Kessler and McKenna, Gender. [BACK]

14. Weisstein, "'Kinder, Küche, Kirche.'" Lipman-Blumen, Gender Roles and Power, pp. 69-98. Unger, Female and Male; see especially Chapter 1. [BACK]

15. Goldberg, Inevitability of Patriarchy. [BACK]

16. In later interviews, de Beauvoir continued to associate femininity with being "secondary," "modest," and "powerless." Asked how we might break out of this vicious circle of "femininity," de Beauvoir acknowledged that there are problems with women's "joining the rat race with men" but that it is necessary to gain power. De Beauvoir never approved of much of anything about women, including motherhood, which she described in The Second Sex as passive and debilitating. She also continued to be irritated when she was accused of saying this or that because she was a woman (Schwarzer, After the Second Sex, especially pp. 115-18). To me this suggests a reluctance to identify with women. [BACK]

17. Barrett, Women's Oppression Today. [BACK]

18. See especially Gyn/Ecology. [BACK]

19. Rossi, "Biosocial Perspective on Parenting." Smith-Rosenberg, "Female World of Love and Ritual." Bernard, Female World. Smith, "Women's Perspective." See also Smith, "Sociology for Women," and Daniels, "Feminist Perspectives." [BACK]

20. On mothering as a basis for gender difference, see Ruddick, "Maternal Thinking," and Rich, Of Woman Born. On mothering as a cause of gender difference, Chodorow, Reproduction of Mothering ; Keller, "Gender and Science"; Benjamin, "Bonds of Love." [BACK]

21. Gilligan, In a Different Voice. [BACK]

22. For an excellent discussion of some of the dangers and excesses involved in the difference position, especially with regard to the family, see Stacey, "New Conservative Feminism," [BACK]

23. Chodorow, "Feminism and Difference." break [BACK]

24. Elshtain seems to come close to this position at times, but I believe her intent is to critique the public sphere by citing the virtues that are now realized only in the private sphere. See "Antigone's Daughters." [BACK]

25. Wives of course may "mother" their husbands, but when they do, it is in a context of dependency on them. [BACK]

26. Tiger and Fox, Imperial Animal, p. 110. [BACK]

27. Sacks, Sisters and Wives. [BACK]

28. Rossi makes the point that in this society women's mothering has been subordinated to men's sexuality. She argues that while children are of importance to women in and of themselves, men tend to view children as consequences of or appendages to mating. See "Biosocial Perspective on Parenting." [BACK]

29. See O'Brien, Politics of Reproduction, and "Dialectics of Reproduction." [BACK]

30. M. O'Brien, Politics of Reproduction, p. 50. [BACK]

31. M. O'Brien, "Dialectics of Reproduction," p. 236. [BACK]

32. Lévi-Strauss, Elementary Structures of Kinship. K. Paige and J. Paige, Politics of Reproductive Ritual. [BACK]

33. M. O'Brien, "Dialectics of Reproduction," p. 235. [BACK]

34. M. O'Brien, Politics of Reproduction, p. 91. [BACK]

35. Holter, "The Reorganized Patriarchy." [BACK]

36. Ruddick, "Maternal Thinking." [BACK]

37. Most notably, Friday, My Mother/My Self. [BACK]

38. Barry, Female Sexual Slavery. MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment. [BACK]

39. See, for example, the critique of Rich made by Ferguson, "Patriarchy, Sexual Identity." [BACK]

40. Ti Grace Atkinson, "Institution of Sexual Intercourse." [BACK]

41. Wittig, Les Guerillères, and especially "One Is Not Born a Woman." [BACK]

42. Shaktini makes this clear in "Displacing the Phallic Subject." [BACK]

43. Allen, "Motherhood." [BACK]

44. Pogrebin, Growing Up Free, p. 40. [BACK]

45. Ryan, Womanhood in America, pp. 337-39. [BACK]

46. Lamphere, "Review Essay," p. 622. [BACK]

47. Lloyd, "Yoruba of Nigeria." [BACK]

48. D. O'Brien, "Female Husbands." For instance, over forty African populations have the status of "female husbands." While woman-woman marriages are often a mechanism for a wealthy patriarch to hold on to valuable resources in the absence of male heirs, in those cases where a woman moves into an extradomestic status of high prestige on her own, such as political leader or diviner, she must take on the social role of "husband" and head of a household. Even though most female husbands are not powerful in their own right, it would be anomalous for those who have power to be in the role of "wife." break [BACK]

50. Between 1940 and 1980 the proportion of births outside marriage increased from less than 4 percent to over 18 percent and continues to rise. This increase in births to never-married women is not the result of an increased rate of childbearing by unmarried women, however, but mainly the result of an increase in the number of unmarried women "at risk" of bearing a child. Between 1970 and 1979 the number of nonmarital births increased by roughly 50 percent, while the nonmarital fertility rate went up by only 5.3 percent. (Espenshade, "Marriage Trends in America.") [BACK]