Tuesday, March 2, 2021

From 2010... A central feature of patriarchy has been the construction of ‘moral’ ideologies that inhibit women from exploiting their erotic capital to achieve benefits; women have more erotic capital because they work harder at it

From 2010... Erotic Capital. Catherine Hakim. European Sociological Review, Volume 26, Issue 5, October 2010, Pages 499–518, https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcq014

Abstract: We present a new theory of erotic capital as a fourth personal asset, an important addition to economic, cultural, and social capital. Erotic capital has six, or possibly seven, distinct elements, one of which has been characterized as ‘emotional labour’. Erotic capital is increasingly important in the sexualized culture of affluent modern societies. Erotic capital is not only a major asset in mating and marriage markets, but can also be important in labour markets, the media, politics, advertising, sports, the arts, and in everyday social interaction. Women generally have more erotic capital than men because they work harder at it. Given the large imbalance between men and women in sexual interest over the life course, women are well placed to exploit their erotic capital. A central feature of patriarchy has been the construction of ‘moral’ ideologies that inhibit women from exploiting their erotic capital to achieve economic and social benefits. Feminist theory has been unable to extricate itself from this patriarchal perspective and reinforces ‘moral’ prohibitions on women's sexual, social, and economic activities and women’s exploitation of their erotic capital.

Denial of Erotic Capital

The Male Bias in Perspectives

Why has erotic capital been overlooked by social scientists? This failure of Bourdieu and other researchers is testimony to the continuing dominance of male perspectives in sociology and economics, even in the 21st century. Bourdieu's failure is all the more remarkable because he analysed relationships between men and women, and was sensitive to the competition for control and power in relationships (Bourdieu, 1998). However, like many others, Bourdieu was only interested in the three class-related and inheritable assets that are convertible into each other. Erotic capital is distinctive in not being controlled by social class and status,21 and has a subversive character.

Erotic capital has been overlooked because it is held mostly by women, and the social sciences have generally overlooked or disregarded women in their focus on male activities, values and interests. The patriarchal bias in the social sciences reflects the male hegemony in society as a whole. Men have taken steps to prevent women exploiting their one major advantage over men, starting with the idea that erotic capital is worthless.22 Women who parade their beauty or sexuality are belittled as stupid, lacking in intellect, and other 'meaningful' social attributes. The Christian religion has been particularly vigorous in deprecating and disdaining everything to do with sex and sexuality as base and impure, shameful, belonging to a lower aspect of humanity. Laws are devised to prevent women from exploiting their erotic capital. For example, female dancers in Britain are debased by classifying lapdancing clubs as ‘sexual encounter’ venues, later amended to the marginally less stigmatizing ‘sexual entertainment’ venues in the new Crime and Policing law debated in Parliament in 2009. They are prohibited from charging commercial fees for surrogate pregnancies, a job that is exclusively and peculiarly female. If men could produce babies, it seems likely that it would be one of the highest paid occupations, but men use ‘moral’ arguments to ensure that women are not allowed to exploit any advantage.

The most powerful and effective weapon deployed by men to curtail women's use of erotic capital is the disdain and contempt heaped on female sex workers. Sex surveys in Europe show that few people regard commercial sex jobs as an occupation just like any other. Women working in the commercial sex industry are regarded as victims, drug addicts, losers, incompetents, or as people you would not wish to meet socially (Shrage, 1994, pp. 88). The patriarchal nature of these stereotypes is exposed by quite different attitudes to male prostitutes: attitudes here are ambivalent, conflicted, and unsure (Malo de Molina, 1992, pp. 203). Commercial sex is often classified as a criminal activity so that it is forced underground, as in the USA, and women working in the industry are harassed by the police and criminal justice system. Even in countries where selling sex is legal, such as Britain, Finland, or Kenya, everything connected with the work is stigmatized and criminalized, with the same effect.

Male control of female erotic capital is primarily ideological. The ‘moral’ opprobrium that enfolds the commercial sale of sexual performance and sexual services extends to all contexts where there is any exchange of erotic capital for money or status. Occupations, such as stripper or lapdancer, are stigmatized as lewd, salacious, sleazy, meretricious, and prurient (Frank, 2002). An attractive young woman who seeks to marry a wealthy man is branded a ‘gold-digger’, criticized for ‘taking advantage of’ men unfairly and immorally. The underlying logic is that men should get what they want from women for free, especially sex. Surprisingly, feminists have supported this ideology instead of seeking to challenge and overturn it. Even the participants in beauty contests are criticized by women.23

The patriarchal ‘morality’ that denies the economic value of erotic capital operates in a similar way to downplay the economic value of other personal services and care work. England and Folbre (1999: pp. 46) point out that the principle that money cannot buy love has the unintended and perverse consequence of justifying low pay for personal service and care work, a conclusion reiterated by Zelizer (2005, pp. 302).

The Failure of Feminist Theory

Why have women, and feminists more particularly, failed to identify and valorize erotic capital? In essence, because feminist theory has proven unable to shed the patriarchal perspective, reinforcing it while ostensibly challenging it. Strictly speaking, this position is a feature of radical Anglo-Saxon feminism more specifically, but the international prominence of the English language (and of the USA) makes this the dominant feminist perspective today.24

Feminist theory erects a false dichotomy: either a woman is valued for her human capital (her brains, education, work experience, and dedication to her career) or she is valued for her erotic capital (her beauty, elegant figure, dress style, sexuality, grace, and charm). Women with brains and beauty are not allowed to use both—to ‘walk on two legs’ as Chairman Mao put it.

Any scholar who argues that women have unique skills or special assets of any kind is instantly outlawed by being branded an ‘essentialist’. In principle, biological essentialism refers to an outdated theory that there are important and unalterable biological differences between men and women, which assign them to separate life courses. At present, it is often used to refer to the evolutionary psychology thesis that men focus on the sexual selection of the best women with whom to breed, while women invest heavily in their offspring. Put crudely, ‘sexuality for men and reproduction for women' are treated as the root cause of all social and economic differences between men and women. In practice, the ‘essentialist’ label has become an easy term of abuse among feminists, being applied to any theory or idea regarded as unacceptable or unwelcome (Campbell, 2002). This has the advantage of avoiding the need to address the research evidence for inconvenient ideas and theories. This approach is displayed in books that seek to summarize current feminist debates on sex/gender, in the process demonstrating that these discussions are so ideological, and so divorced from empirical research, that they have become theological debates (Browne, 2007).

A key failure of feminist scholarship is the way it has maintained the male hegemony in theory, although it has been more innovative and fruitful in empirical research. Feminists insist that women's position in society should depend exclusively on their economic and social capital. Cultural capital (where women can have the edge over men) is rarely pulled into the picture. It follows that women should invest in educational qualifications and employment careers in preference to developing their erotic capital and investing in marriage careers. The European Commission has adopted feminist ideology wholesale, and insists that ‘gender equality’ is to be measured exclusively by employment rates, occupational segregation, access to the top jobs, personal incomes, and the pay gap,25 treating women without paid jobs as ‘unequal’ to men.

Female social scientists repeatedly dismiss the idea that physical attractiveness and sexuality are power assets for women vis-à-vis men. For example, Lipman-Blumen (1984, pp. 89–90) lists this as just one in a series of 'control myths' adopted by men to justify the status quo; she claims that male vested interests necessarily bias any argument offered by men, even if they are social scientists. Feminist theory has so far failed to explain why men with high incomes and status regularly choose trophy (second) wives and arm-candy mistresses, while women who have achieved career success and high incomes generally prefer to marry alpha males rather than seeking toyboys and impecunious men who would make good househusbands and fathers (Hakim, 2000, pp. 153, 201).

Sylvia Walby (1990, pp. 79) admits in passing that the power to create children is one of women's few power bases, but she never states what the others might be. Mary Evans admits that Anglo-Saxon feminism is profoundly uncomfortable with sexuality, and frames it in a relentlessly negative perspective (Evans, 2003, pp. 99; see also Walby, 1990, pp. 110). Feminists argue that there is no real distinction between marriage and prostitution; that (hetero)sexuality is central to women's subordination by men; that patriarchal men seek to establish what Carole Pateman (1988, pp. 194, 205) calls ‘male sex-right’—male control of men's sexual access to women. Marriage and prostitution are portrayed as forms of slavery (Pateman, 1988, pp. 230; Wittig, 1992). Sexuality is the setting for every kind of male violence against women, overlooking women's use of sexuality to control men—a very one-sided perspective.26 Feminist theory and debate also display ambivalence about the idea of sex and gender, which is presented as a patriarchal cultural imposition, with no link to the human body and motherhood (Wittig, 1992; Browne, 2007). With heterosexuality (and motherhood) presented as the root cause of women’s oppression, feminist solutions include celibacy, autoeroticism, lesbianism, and androgyny (Coppock et al.1995). Paradoxically, these solutions reduce the supply of female sexuality to men, and thus raise the value of erotic capital among heterosexual women.

Feminist discourse comes in many colours and flavours, and is constantly changing, but the common theme is that women are the victims of male oppression and patriarchy, so that heterosexuality becomes suspect, a case of sleeping with the enemy, and the deployment of erotic capital becomes an act of treason. Post-feminism seems at first to avoid this perspective. Post-feminism is a mixed bag of literature, by novelists and journalists as well as social scientists (Coppock et al.1995; Whelehan, 1995). There is no single theme or thesis, although men are less likely to be treated as the source of all women’s problems. However post-feminism is unable to escape from the puritan Anglo-Saxon asceticism and its unwavering antipathy towards beauty and sexuality. Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, a diatribe against the rising value and importance of beauty and sexual attractiveness, is reinforced by feminists (Jeffreys, 2005). Lookism encapsulates the puritan Anglo-Saxon antipathy to beauty and sexuality, arguing that taking any account of someone’s appearance should be outlawed, effectively making the valorization of erotic capital unlawful (Chancer, 1998, pp. 82–172).

One stream of feminist theory presents men as violent sexual predators who exploit women. Another theoretical stream dismantles the concepts of sex and gender, so there are no fixed ‘opposites’ for mutual attraction anyway. A third theme treats beauty and pleasure as dangerous traps. Between these three themes, ideas of exuberant sexuality and women’s erotic power over men are squeezed out of existence. Feminist perspectives are so infused with patriarchal ideology that they seem unable to perceive heterosexuality as a source of pleasure and entertainment, and of women’s power over men.

No comments:

Post a Comment