1949–
American cultural anthropologist who coined the sex/gender system in "The Traffic in Women"
In "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex" (1975) she named the arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity the "sex/gender system", arguing that Marxist conceptions could not adequately explain women's oppression.
An American cultural anthropologist, theorist and activist, raised in a middle-class Jewish home in segregated South Carolina. At the University of Michigan she took part in a feminist consciousness-raising group and a lesbian-feminist group, and "The Traffic in Women" (1975), which coined the sex/gender system, shaped second-wave feminism and early gender studies. In 1978 she moved to San Francisco to study the gay male leather subculture and co-founded Samois, the first lesbian BDSM group in the United States. "Thinking Sex" (1984) is regarded as a founding text of gay and lesbian studies and queer theory. She took her PhD in anthropology at Michigan in 1994 and teaches anthropology and women's studies there.
Activities and affiliations
- 1975–
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1978–1983
Social movements and organizing
From "The Traffic in Women" to "Thinking Sex"
She was born on 1 January 1949 and raised in a middle-class Jewish home in segregated South Carolina, attending segregated schools whose classes were integrated only in her senior year; she wrote that the experience left her "an abiding hatred of racism in all its forms". In 1968 she joined an early feminist consciousness-raising group at the University of Michigan and wrote for women's movement papers and the Ann Arbor Argus, and in 1970 she helped found Ann Arbor Radicalesbians, an early lesbian-feminist group. In 1975 she took part in the founding of the graduate employees' union at Michigan.
The same year her essay "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex" galvanised feminist theory. Rubin named the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and satisfies these transformed sexual needs, the "sex/gender system", and defined gender as "a socially imposed division of the sexes". She critically reread Lévi-Strauss on kinship, Freud and Lacan, and Mauss on the gift, and while arguing that the reproduction of labour power depends on women's housework, she held that gender oppression could not be adequately explained by Marxist conceptions of patriarchy.
In 1978 she moved to San Francisco to study the gay male leather subculture as an anthropologist of a contemporary community rather than from a clinical or individual-psychological perspective. On 13 June that year she co-founded, with Pat Califia and others, Samois, the first lesbian BDSM group in the United States, which lasted until 1983; she also joined the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project in 1978 and helped found the GLBT Historical Society in 1985.
"Thinking Sex", presented at the 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality often seen as the start of the feminist sex wars and published in 1984, is regarded as a founding text of gay and lesbian studies, sexuality studies and queer theory. It questioned the value hierarchy that marks some sexual behaviour as good and natural and other kinds, such as homosexuality or BDSM, as bad and unnatural, picturing privileged sexuality as a "charmed circle". Its defence of "man-boy lovers" alongside sex workers, homosexuals and BDSM practitioners drew heavy criticism; in a 2011 reflection Rubin said those comments were made in the different context of the moral panics of the 1980s and that she never imagined people would claim she had supported the rape of pre-pubescents. She took her PhD in anthropology at Michigan in 1994 with a dissertation on San Francisco's leathermen.