Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T07:23:39.941Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gay Marriage: An American and Feminist Dilemma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Ann Ferguson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Gay marriage highlights a contradiction in American national identity: if gay marriage is supported, the normative status of the heterosexual nuclear family is undermined, while if not, the civil rights of homosexuals are undermined. This essay discusses the feminist dilemma of whether to support gay marriage to promote these individual civil rights or whether to critique marriage as a part of the patriarchal system that oppresses women.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 22 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Writing Against Heterosexism , Winter 2007 , pp. 39 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Jacqueline. 1999. Revolutionary community. In On feminist ethics and politics, ed. Card, Claudia. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Araujo, Robert John S.J. 2003. The incoherence of the argument for same‐sex marriage. In Marriage and same‐sex unions, ed. Wardle, et al.Google Scholar
Behar, Ruth. 1993. Translated woman: Crossing the border with Esperanza's story. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Jessica. 1995. Like subjects, love objects: Essays on recognition and sexual difference. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Benston, Margaret. 1969. The political economy of women's liberation. Monthly Review 21 (2).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlant, Lauren. 1997. The Queen of America goes to Washington city: Essays on sex and citizenship. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Boswell, John. 1980. Christianity, social tolerance, and homosexuality: Gay people in Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to the fourteenth century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 1997. States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of “sex.” New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1997. The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 2004. Undoing gender. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Card, Claudia. 1997. Against marriage. In Same sex, ed. Corvino, .Google Scholar
Chauncey, George Jr. 2004. Why marriage? The history shaping today's debates over gay equality. Cambridge, Mass.: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Chodorow, Nancy. 1978. The reproduction of mothering. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Susan, and Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod. 1988. The war over the family is not over the family. In Feminism, children and the new families, ed. Dornbusch, Sanford M. and Strober, Myra H. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cornell, Drucilla. 1998. At the heart of freedom. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corvino, John ed. 1997. Same sex: Debating the ethics, science, and culture of homosexuality. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Dornbush, Sanford, and Strober, Myra, eds. 1988. Feminism, children, and the new families. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Edwards, Robert, and Spector, Stephen. 1991. The olde daunce: Love, friendship, sex, and marriage in the medieval world. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 2004. Against gay marriage. In Same‐sex marriage pro and con: A reader, ed. Sullivan, Andrew. New York: Vintage/Random House.Google Scholar
Faderman, Lillian. 1981. Surpassing the love of men. London: Junction.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Leslie. 1993. Stone butch blues. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Ann. 1998. Prostitution as a morally risky practice. In Daring to be good: Essays in feminist ethico‐politics, ed. Bar On, Bat‐Ami and Ferguson, Ann. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Ann. 2006. Socialist feminism, cooperatives, and the right to care. In Beyond global capitalism: Socialist visions of a possible future, ed. Anton, Anatole and Schmitt, Richard. Boston: Lexington Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Ann, and Folbre, Nancy. 2000. Women, care, and the public good: A dialogue. In Not for sale: In defense of public goods, ed. Anton, Anatole, Fisk, Milton, and Holmstrom, Nancy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
Folbre, Nancy. 2000. The invisible heart: Economics and family values. New York: The New Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 1997. Justice interruptus: Critical reflections on the “postsocialist” condition. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Friedan, Betty. 1963. The feminine mystique. New York: Dell.Google Scholar
Goldman, Emma. 1969. Anarchism and other essays. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Hennessy, Rosemary. 2000. Profit and pleasure: Sexual identities in late capitalism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hoagland, Sarah. 1988. Lesbian ethics: Toward new value. Palo Alto, Calif.: Institute of Lesbian Studies.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooks, Bell. 1992. “Is Paris burning?” In Black looks: Race and representation. Boston: South End.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1975/1985. This sex which is not one. Trans. Porter, Catherine. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Knight, Robert H. 1997. How domestic partnerships and “gay marriage” threaten the family. In Same sex, ed. Corvino, .Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. 1986. The Kristeva reader/Julia Kristeva. Ed. Moi, Toril. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 2002. Moral politics: How liberals and conservatives think. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George. 2004. “What's in a word?” Alternet. http://www.alternet.org/members/story.htmlStoryID=17876 (accessed February 17, 2004).Google Scholar
Lehr, Valerie. 1999. Queer family values: Debunking the myth of the nuclear family. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Pierce, Christine. 1995. Gay marriage. Journal of Social Philosophy 28 (2): 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rauch, Jonathan. 1997. Who needs marriage? In Same sex, ed. Corvino, .Google Scholar
Rubin, Gayle. 1975. The traffic in women. In Toward an anthropology of women, ed. Reiter, Rayna. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Stack, Carol. 1974. All our kin. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Andrew ed. 2004. Same‐sex marriage pro and con: A reader. New York: Vintage/Random.Google Scholar
Tronto, Joan. 1993. Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethics of care. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Vaid, Urvashi. 1995. Virtual equality: The mainstreaming of gay and lesbian liberation New York: Anchor.Google Scholar
Wardle, Lynn D., Strasser, Mark, Duncan, William C., and Coolidge, David Orgon, eds. Marriage and same‐sex unions: A debate. London: Praeger.Google Scholar
Weston, Kath. 1991. Families we choose. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Witte, John. 2003. The tradition of traditional marriage. In Marriage and same sex unions, ed. Wardle, et al.Google Scholar
Wilton, Tamsin. 1995. Lesbian studies: Setting an agenda. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2003. Feminist reactions to the contemporary security regime. Hypatia 18 (1): 223–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar