Christine Delphy (born 1941) is a French

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

sociologist, writer and theorist. Known for pioneering

materialist feminism Materialist feminism highlights capitalism and patriarchy as a central aspect in understanding women's oppression. It focuses on the material, or physical, aspects that define oppression. Under materialist feminism, gender is seen as a social con ...

, she co-founded the French women's liberation movement (Mouvement de Libération des Femmes, or MLF) in 1970 and the journal '' Nouvelles questions féministes'' (New Feminist Issues) with

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even th ...

in 1981.→Delphy, Christine.

Biography

Christine Delphy was born in 1941 to parents who owned a local pharmacy. In the documentary film on her life and ideas, ''"Je ne suis pas féministe, mais..."'' (''"I am not a feminist, but..."'') Delphy describes an early feminist consciousness in observing her parents: though running the pharmacy was labor-intensive for both of them, when they came home at lunch, Delphy noticed her father putting his feet up to rest and read the newspaper while her mother was obliged to cook a midday meal and then do the dishes before they both returned to work. Nevertheless, Delphy did not always identify as a feminist, owing to stigma around the term. In a television interview in 1985, she described a period of her life when she routinely prefaced comments with, ''"Je ne suis pas féministe, mais..."'' (the phrase from which the film draws its title).

Education

Delphy studied

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. Returning to France, Delphy was interested in pursuing a dissertation project on women, but she describes in ''Je ne suis pas féministe, mais...'' meeting resistance to the topic in her then-advisor

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...

, who told Delphy that there was no one to advise such a project because no one researches women (though French sociologists like Andrée Michel had already published significant research). Delphy agreed to pursue rural sociology instead, but the question of women, and particularly the economic role women played, emerged in this project as well. While pursuing fieldwork, "I realized there was a whole set of goods that absolutely did not pass through the marketplace," with much of women's economic contributions functioning as unpaid labor, in contrast to the wage labor that was central to theories of capitalist oppression (that is, the capitalist class extracts the value between the wages they pay workers and the actual value of what the workers produce). "To a degree, the outline of elphy's magnum opus'' The Main Enemy'' was already there. The bringing to light not just the economic exploitation of women, but a specific form of economic exploitation."

Activism

Delphy arrived in the U.S. in 1962 during the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

, and says that it was in the United States that she came to see the reality of racism. "Racism existed at home in France, but I didn't see it." In 1965 Delphy left Berkeley to work for the Washington Urban League and, through these experiences in the Civil Rights Movement, developed a belief in the value of oppressed groups (like women) developing autonomous activist movements, as African-Americans had done. She returned to France and after the evens of

May 1968 The following events occurred in May 1968: May 1, 1968 (Wednesday) * CARIFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade Association, was formally created as an agreement between Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. * RAF Strike ...

, took part in a feminist group FMA (Féminin Masculin Avenir), which with other groups would eventually form the Women's Liberation Movement (Mouvement de Libération des Femmes, or MLF). In August 1970, Delphy and other members of the MLF brought flowers to the "unknown wife of the unknown soldier," the first of the MLF's actions to receive attention in the media. Delphy is openly

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

and was a member of the

Gouines rouges The ''Gouines Rouges'' ("Red Dykes") are a French radical feminist lesbian movement. The Gouines Rouges were founded in April 1971, out of a wish to assert themselves within both the feminist movement and the homosexual movement, and the fear t ...

("Red Dykes"). In 1971, she added her name to the

Manifesto of the 343 The Manifesto of the 343 (), was a French petition signed by 343 women "who had the courage to say, 'I've had an abortion. It was an act of civil disobedience, since abortion was illegal in France, and by admitting publicly to having aborted, they ...

, publicly declaring she'd had an abortion when it was illegal in France.Le manifeste des 343
In more recent years, the implementation of the 2004

French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public (e.g., government-operated) primary and secondary schools. The law is an amendment to the French Code of Educatio ...

—a law which includes banning French Muslim school-girls from wearing their headscarfs on school grounds—brought the issues and discrimination facing French Muslim women to Delphy's attention. In response to this, Delphy confronted and addressed the reaction of many French feminists who support the law, criticizing this stance as hypocritical and racist.

Ideas

Materialist Feminism Delphy was a pioneer of

, applying a materialist approach to gender relations. Delphy analyzes inequalities between men and women as rooted in a material economic basis, specifically the domestic relations of production. This revision of Marxism questioned the idea that there are only capitalist classes. For Delphy, gender is also a position in the mode of production (domestic labor). In this view, the main enemy of women as a class is not capital but patriarchy. She also developed an analysis of gender arguing that gender precedes sex. Her theory constitutes a landmark in the process of denaturalizing sex, which is a marker of gender. Along with Nicole-Claude Mathieu,

Monique Wittig Monique Wittig (; July 13, 1935 – January 3, 2003) was a French author, philosopher and feminist theorist who wrote about abolition of the sex-class system and coined the phrase "heterosexual contract". Her seminal work is titled ''The Straigh ...

, and others, Delphy launched the materialist feminism school. Materialist feminism is particularly present in the journal '' Nouvelles questions feministes'', still directed by Delphy. Against Essentialism and the so-called "French Feminism" Delphy challenges the biological essentialist view of gender, even when it comes from the women's movement. She also critiqued what she called "the invention of 'French Feminism'": she argues that most

French feminists Feminism in France is the history of feminist thought and movements in France. Feminism in France can be roughly divided into three waves: First-wave feminism from the French Revolution through the Third Republic which was concerned chiefly wit ...

are against essentialism and very few support what was called "French Feminism" in the United States. For Delphy, the American invention of "French Feminism" had a political purpose: the acceptance of essentialism among Anglo-American feminists (it was expected they would think, ''If French women think this way, we have to respect and accept this'').See "L'invention du 'French Feminism': une démarche essentielle", in Christine Delphy, L'Ennemi principal, tome 2 : Penser le genre (2001) All these ideas are elaborated in many articles from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s in ''Questions féministes'' and ''Nouvelles questions féministes'' and were published in the following books: ''L'Ennemi principal, tome 1 : L'Économie politique du patriarcat'' (1997) and ''L'Ennemi principal, tome 2 : Penser le genre'' (2001).

Bibliography

*The Main Enemy, 1W.R.R.C.P., London, 1977 *Close to Home London, Hutchinson, & The University of Massachusetts Press, 1984 *Familiar Exploitation: A New Analysis of Marriage in Contemporary Western Societies, avec Diana Leonard, Oxford, Polity Press, 1992 * ''L'Ennemi principal 1, Économie politique du patriarcat'', Syllepse, "Nouvelles Questions féministes", 1998. * ''L'Ennemi principal 2, Penser le genre'', Syllepse, "Nouvelles Questions féministes", 2001. * Avec Sylvie Chaperon (dir.), ''Le Cinquantenaire du Deuxième Sexe'', Syllepse, 2002. *''Classer, dominer, Qui sont les "autres" ?'', La Fabrique, 2008, . * Un universalisme si particulier, Féminisme et exception française, Paris, Syllepse, 2010 * Un troussage de domestique (dir.), Paris, Syllepse, 2011 * ''Separate and dominate: Feminism and Racism after the War on Terror'', Verso, 2015. * '' Pour une théorie générale de l'exploitation : des différentes formes d'extorsion de travail aujourd'hui'', Paris : Éditions Syllepse ; Québec : M éditeur, 2015. * ''Rethinking Sex and Gender'', I.R.E.S.C.O., 59-61 rue Pouchet, 75849 Paris Cedex 17, France.

Filmography

Christine Delphy appears in numerous films: * Manifestation of the Women's Liberation Movement, Paris place de l'Étoile, RTF news, first appearance of a women's movement in Paris since the Second World War, near the

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier A Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is a monument dedicated to the services of an unknown soldier and to the common memories of all soldiers killed in war. Such tombs can be found in many nations and are usually high-prof ...

, 1970 * Le Ghetto Expérimental by Jean-Michel Carré and Adams Schmedes, 1975 * Kate Millett talks about prostitution with feminists, Videa, during the prostitutes' strike in 1975 and after Kate Millett's book release (with French feminist such as Monique Wittig, Christine Delphy...), 1975 * Au nom des femmes, Simone de Beauvoir, émission Aujourd'hui la vie, debate on feminism

Delphine Seyrig Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig (; 10 April 1932 – 15 October 1990) was a Lebanese-born French actress and film director. She came to prominence in Alain Resnais's 1961 film ''Last Year at Marienbad'', and later acted in films by Francois ...

, Christine Delphy..., A2 / France 2, 1985 * Thank God I'm a Lesbian! by Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert, 1992 * Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex, on the 50th anniversary of the book's release, interviews by Michelle Perrot and Christine Delphy, TF1 TV news, 1999 * Debout ! A history of the Women's Liberation Movement 1970-1980, by Carole Roussopoulos, 1999 * Cinquantenaire du deuxième sexe, by Carole Roussopoulos and Christine Delphy, a film on the conference, 2001 * Bleu, blanc, rose by Yves Jeuland, 2002 * Un racisme à peine voilé by Jérôme Host, 2004 * La prostitution, TV show L'arène de France, with interviews of Christine Delphy, Nicole Borvo and Florence Montreynaud, A2 / France 2, 2007 * Chahinaz : quels droits pour les femmes, documentary on a young Algerian woman, with interview of Christine Delphy, France 5, 2007 * Encore elles ! by Constance Ryder and Josiane Szymanski, 40 years after MLF's birth, today who are the feminists?, 2011 * Carole Roussopoulos, une femme à la caméra, by Emmanuelle de Riedmatten, 2012
Je ne suis pas féministe, mais...
(I'm not a feminist, but...) by Florence Tissot and Sylvie Tissot, 2015
L'Abécédaire de Christine Delphy
(Christine Delphy from A to Z) by Florence Tissot and Sylvie Tissot, 2015

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delphy, Christine 1941 births 20th-century LGBT people 21st-century LGBT people French feminist writers French journalists French lesbian writers French Marxists French socialist feminists French sociologists French women sociologists French women writers Lesbian feminists French LGBT rights activists Living people Marxist feminists Marxist theorists Materialist feminists University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Chicago alumni University of Paris alumni Academic staff of the University of Paris Women Marxists Writers from Paris Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Signatories of the 1971 Manifesto of the 343