Family, Law and Sexuality: Feminist Engagements

The author explores feminist frameworks within which questions of family, law and sexuality can best be explored, drawing on recent efforts to (re)establish materialist feminist theory. She suggests that in order to make the important link between questions of gender, sexuality, difference, desire, identity and subjectivity on the one hand, and problems of production and exploitation on the other, a materialist feminist theory must incorporate the strengths of Marxist feminism with those of postmodernist feminism. As a way of exploring the politics of current struggles for legal recognition of lesbian and gay relationships as 'spousal', she engages with the debate between Nancy Fraser and Judith Butler on the 'recognition/redistribution' dichotomy. She argues that neither theorist takes seriously enough the role of the family in the privatisation of the costs of social reproduction within capitalism. She concludes that the important lesbian/gay struggles for legal recognition of 'spousal' relationships, such as in the M v H lesbian spousal support case in Canada, should not be seen as sufficient to achieve social equality. Such legal struggles must be accompanied by trenchant critiques of the limits of such recognition in redistributing wealth and well-being.