Reintroducing Politics:

Recent Developments in

Feminist Theories of the State

Dominique Masson

Carleton University

My research draws on recent developments in feminist theories of the
state to underscore the necessity to ' reintroduce politics ' in feminist analyses

of the interrelation between gender, women's movements, and states. This

argument stems from my concerns forthe contemporary Quebecois women's
movement and for its relationship to the Canadian and Quebecois states, as

well as from my profound dissatisfaction, as a feminist activist and as an
intellectual, with the pessimistic, disempowering and theoretically problem-

atic accounts that the now 'classical' feminist theories of the state have

offered. I begin by recallingwhat I think arethe main problems ofthe classical

feminist frameworks as they have been highlighted by what is currently called

'the new feminist scholarship on the state.' Then, I sketch the three main

avenues by which the 'moment of politics' can and should be reintroduced

into the analysis . These avenues can be summed up as follows : ( 1 ) reasserting

the possibility of politics by taking seriously the notion of conflict and

political struggle; (2) shifting the focus to women's agency and to women's

agents as the actors ofpolitics; (3) 'getting into the black box' to understand

how the politics of the state work within specific state-sytems.

What I call 'the classical feminist frameworks' for theorizing the state

are exemplified in theworks ofBurstyn(1983), Mcintosh (1978), MacKinnon

(1983) and Eisenstein (1981). These accounts ofthe interaction between the

Western liberal state and gender relations of power still inform, even if in a

refined manner, much of the current feminist work on the welfare state and

social policy (McKeen 1993). The core insight of the early socialist and

radical works on the 'patriarchal,' or 'capitalist and patriarchal' character of

the state was to identify the state and state politics as gendered. There is

unquestionably a gender dynamic present in the workings of the contempo-

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Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

rary state, and the classical frameworks rightly point to the state's role in

institutionalizing and reproducing gender domination. Yet, there are also

major problems in thewaythese stories ofthe interconnection between gender

relations and 'the state' are told.

The structural-functional bias bequeathed on socialist and radical

feminist conceptions of the welfare state and of patriarchy by a particular

version of Marxism 1 poses important limits to our understanding of the

relationship between gender, the women's movement, the state, and social

change. In these conceptions, structures or social relations ofpower are seen

from a one-sided perspective as largely stable arrangements of exploitation

and domination. Fully-formed, easily grasped and pre-existing 'needs' or

'dominant interests' are inscribed in the structures of capitalism and patriar-

chy and which directly inform and impel state intervention (this with or

without adding in the play of 'structural contradictions,' or some kind of

'relative autonomy'). State action itself is viewed as always, either immedi-

ately or ultimately, functional for domination. Responses by states to

women's demands, be they funding childcare facilities, implementing pay

equity programs, or recognizing abortion rights, are then interpreted at best

as concessions, or "as compromising short-term concerns in the service of

broader, long-term goals, such as normalizing the system and stabilizing

power relations," (Rhodes 1994: 1185)that only recompose masculine and/

or capitalist domination under a renewed guise.

Short ofrevoluti on, these formulations leave very little space for women

and the women' s movement to make meaningful gains or to realize significant

social change within andthroughthe state. Yet, women's movements from the

turn of the century to the present have pressed their demands on states and

have obtained reforms that have undoubtedly had an impact on the way

gender relations are lived and, most importantly, have inscribed women's

participation in the very "making" ofWestern welfare state forms. 2 Account-

ing for women's effective agency in "shaping the state" is, as Yeatman points

out, an element that seriously complicates our understanding ofthe "patriar-

chal character" of the state (1990: 144).

Furthermore, classical accounts have tended to postulate a more or less

automatic correspondence between social determinants, seen in terms of

overarching structures, and a gendered, oppressive or regulationist state

intervention. •' Yet, thejob of relating 'gendered effects' to 'gender structure'

becomes painstakingly hard, and sometimes uselessly reductionist, when

confronted wi til the evi dence ofthe variability with which concrete states have



historically handled gender relations and translated them into policies. As

Jenson (1986:22) notes:

The states may or may not have assumed that women provide free

labour in the family. They may or may have not have di scouraged

women's work outside the home. They may or may not have tried

to establish equality between female and male workers. They may

or may not have encouraged childbearing in a way that would

subordinate women to men, to the state, or to both.

Increasingly, empirical studies indicate that 'the state' does not occupy "a

clear-cut and fixed place in the structure of gender or in the field of sexual

politics" (Franzway, Court & Connell 1989: 41), and this seems to hold in
comparative perspective as well as internally, within states. ' How are we to
interpret this?

Recent developments in feminist theories of the state propose that the

kind of state and of gender politics we have at a given time depends perhaps

less on the presence of 'structures of power,' and possibly more on the play

of 'politics of power.' In short, what has been missing all along is 'the stuff

of polities': i.e., the mediation of power structures introduced by conflicts,

alliances and compromises between real actors outside and within the 'black fill

box' ofthe state, a mediation that gives backtothepostulated correspondence

of the previous "input-output" model the problematic, contingent, variable

and unpredictable quality that the recent historical and comparative empirical

works reveal. What then are the avenues by which this 'moment of politics'

can be reintroduced in a feminist analysis ofthe state?
5

First, 'reintroducing politics' means reasserting the 'possibility of

polities'—that is, positing against one-sided views of 'structures' the possi-

bility that political and social struggles not only exist, but make a difference.

This can be done only by abandoning one-sided views, with their focus on

domination, rule, and regulation, for two-sided ones in which rule and

conflict, as well as structure and agency are constitutive of each other, and

where the action of social agents, not of reified structures, comes to the

forefront. In relation to gender, for example, working with the concept of

'gender relations of power' may be preferable to an orthodox reference to
Patriarchy (plagued by systemic, universalizing, and static undertones).

Thinking in terms ofrelations ofpower helps shift the focus from the analysis

ofthe mechanisms of domination to the exploration ofthe tensions that are

inherent in the notion ofpower as a social relation and as a balance of forces.



Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

Thus, this involves exploring the capacity of subjects to act as social agents

in not only reproducing, but also in contesting and altering this balance in the

always concrete and specificforms of discourses and practices into which

power relations are enacted and institutionalized. The state, then, rather than

being seen as an entity or a device of structural domination takes on the

character of these ongoing tensions. This is what is meant by current

formulations that propose to see states, their institutional features and their

policies as historical constructions: as products of specific, variable, open-

ended and unevenly deployed social struggles. Finally, rather than being

preempted from the start as an ever elusive goal, the prospects of realizing

'meaningful social change for women within or through the state' can then be

seen as residing precisely in these specific, variable, and open-ended possi-

bilities of altering the balance ofpower in favor ofwomen in concrete power

arrangements.

Secondly, 'reintroducing politics' implies rescuing from structural

oblivion the actors of politics, thus shifting attention towards agency and the

action ofsocial agents—because agency only exists as it is embodied in people

and in collectivities of people. New developments in feminist theory and
feminist theories of the state, however, force us to a revision of the way we

mP understand the women's movement as a political actor and as a particular
form ofcollective agency. The challenge from poststructuralism and from the

Non-Western feminist critique makes it increasingly difficult, if not impos-

sible, to speak of "women's interests" in "objective" and/or universalizing

terms, or to see "the women's movement" as a unitary actor. The diversity of

women's experiences, linked to the intertwining and cross-cutting effects of

historically and spatially specific power relations of gender, class, and race

(among others) in real life situations cannot but translate into a heterogeneous

and fragmented women's movement. The unity ofthis movement, rather than

being pre-given, is much more aptly to be conceptualized, in Laclau and

Mouffe's (1985) terms, as a hegemonic (or counterhegemonic) political

project (i.e., it has to be constructed).
6

In its dealings with the state, the women's movement thus speaks with

a diversity of voices. The versions of "women's interests" and the claims

articulated and put forward vary not only in space and time but also among

the organizations of national movements. This reflects the subjective con-

struction of these "interests" on the basis (but not the transparency) of the

social placings, experiences and representations of gender of their member-

ship, and is further mediated by what is subjectively perceived by the



organizational actors as desirable, acceptable, and feasible as political

strategies in a given context (Masson 1994b). It should be noted that it is only

unevenlythatthese organizations challengetheexistinggender order. Moreo-

ver, their capacity to exert agency is also uneven, and the diverse voices are

not represented with the same weight within the movement. As Michaud

(1992) argues, some voices are more central in the constitution of this

"feminist counter-hegemony," whereas others are pushed, or remain in the

margins. Then there is the question of who—which actor or actors of the
movement—gets to legitimately 'represent women' (and wliich women), a

question that further problematizes the notion of "women's demands to the

state." My point is that there are a series of subjective, as well as political,
mediations between the more abstract 'gender relations of power' and the

reality of women's encounter with the state. Judging, for example, that a

particular policy does not represent "what women wanted" may betoo simple
an account of the process through which states respond to multiply voiced,

historically specific, and already highly mediated women's claims. This is

especially the case when diversity might very well mean, as Pringle and

Watson suggest (1990: 239) that "no one policy will be a gain for all

women."7

The third avenue for 'reintroducing politics' is to bring the state itself

"back in" by unpacking the black box of 'The State' to understand the

concrete ways in which the politics ofgender are played out within the politics

of the state. The institutional, political, and bureaucratic characteristics of

particular state-systems as historical productions and fields of ongoing

struggles become central in this proposition:

What kind of state [of welfare state, of bureaucracy, of gender
regime or gender politics] we have depends on who was mobilized
in social struggle, what strategies were deployed, and who won. 8

(Franzway, Court & Connell, 1989:35)

Social struggles are not fought only outside the state (and nor are they only

about the state, for the matter), but within the state as well because of the

resources and ofthe constitutive capacity over social relations ofpower that

the state concentrates. That's what "feminism in practice" has seen in the state

that makes it worthwhile encountering (Connell, 1990: 518). It would be a

mistake, however, to see this encounter as being solely with the state, or with

state actors: it is an encounter within the arenas ofthe state with other political

actors that articulate other sets of interests and carry with them particular

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assumptions about gender relations (and race, and class). How conflicts,
alliances, strategies and compromises materialize over specific policies and

programs within particular state-systems constitutes a level ofmediation that

makes a difference in the outcomes: it makes a difference, for example,

between passing an "equal rights" amendment or not, criminalizing abortion

or not, and so on. In addition, these outcomes alter the conditions for further

contestations, possibly giving rise to "unintended consequences"
9
that may

help or hinder subsequent efforts at social change in the field of gender

politics.

The other major element we see from unpacking the black box is that
gender politics, within the politics ofthe state-system, not only pertain to how

the game offormal politics is played, but to how the game itself is framed by

the institutional and bureaucratic reality of particular state-systems. What

the legitimate actors are, what counts as legitimate gender issues, what the

institutional channels for their treatment are, andhow they areto be dealt with

in political and bureaucratic terms are all part of how state-systems are

gendered in ways that crystallize certain power arrangements and pose very

concrete obstacles to women's organizations' social change efforts. Yet, it

cannot be overemphasized that these features of state-systems are no less

historical than the rest: that they carry possibilities for change as well as

barriers or constraints to change, that they are objects ofcontention, that they

are changing and can be changed.

In short, people and their politics mediate between social structures

(relations of power, and so on) and state intervention in a way that makes

contingent, variable, and open-ended outcomes possible. That should be the

core of our feminist analyses of the state, and should buttress our strategy-

making. Broad, sweeping generalizations about "The Patriarchal" or "The

Capitalist State" might be easier to come with, but are unduly disempowering

for feminist activists and overly myopic for feminist academics. It may be a
truism to recall that reality is complex, but I insist that we ought to render

justice to this complexity.

Notes

1. Many authors have pointed to the structuralist bias and to the functionalism inherent in

these arguments. On classical feminist theories of the state see Piven (1984: 16), Franzway,

Court and Connell (1989: 20, 23), Gordon (1990: 179-180), Watson (1990: 6), Jen son

(1986: 10-13); on Marxism see Jessop (1990) and McLennan (1984).



2. Feminist works on the making of welfare states have highlighted the participation of

women social reformers and women's movements in the constitution of welfare policies

and programs. See for example Andrew (1984), Gordon (1990), Brenner & Laslett (1991),
Jenson (1986, 1987, 1989), Skocpol (1992).

3. I am indebted for this argument to Jessop (1990: 80).

4. The recognition of the existence of contradictory policies and positions in the field of

gender and sexual politics at the level of particular state-systems is not new. The internal

disunity of the state is argued in particular in Franzway, Court and Connell (1989), Pringle

and Watson (1990), Watson (1990).

5. The refraining I am advocating here owes much to what has been called 'the new feminist

scholarship on the state,' and in particular to the recent works of Fraser (1989), Jenson

(1986, 1987, 1989) and Skocpol (1992) on North America and Europe: and of Australians

Pringle and Watson (1990), Watson (1990), Franzway, Court and Connell (1989), Connell

(1990) and Yeatman (1990).

6. The recognition - and dilemma - of diversity lies at the core of the debate between the

proponents of a strategy based on "the politics of difference" (Young 1990) versus the

possibilities of more inclusive politics.

7. This should be kept in mind while analysing state intervention in the field of gender.

8. The reference to the welfare state, to the bureaucracy, and to the state's connections with

gender relations is from Franzway, Court and Connell (1989: 35). The notion of gender

regime is from Connell (1990).

9. See Skocpol (1985) on the notion of "unintended consequences" of state action. See

McKeen (1994) for an exemple of possibilities opened in terms of unintended consequences

in the EEC policies.

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