Untitled - California State University, Long Beach

In her essay “One is Not Born a Woman,” gender theorist Monique
Wittig asserts that the social institution of heterosexuality causes gender
inequality, as it advocates difference amongst the sexes and is founded
on the notion that “the capacity to give birth (biology) is what defines
a woman” (10). Arguing that a woman only exists by means of a
“specific social relation to a man” (20), a relationship which is defined by
reproductive and domestic obligations, Wittig suggests that the only way
for women to gain equality is through the destruction of heterosexuality
as an institution, as done in lesbian communities (20). Wittig posits that
if the concept of ‘woman’ is defined by its relationship with its binary
concept of ‘man’, then lesbians are neither women nor men; rather, she
argues that “lesbian is the only concept... beyond the category of sex”
(20). Thus, Wittig proposes that refusing “to become (or to remain)
heterosexual” (13) will result in the destruction of the system of gender
hierarchies, as with the disappearance of the class of ‘men’, “‘women’ as a
class will disappear as well, for there are no slaves without masters” (15).
Though relatively modern, Wittig’s theory is strikingly applicable
to the works of various seventeenth-century poets who express anxieties
over gender hierarchies, particularly in relation to reproduction. This
is not to suggest that seventeenth-century poets promoted lesbianism
as a means to deconstruct gender inequalities; however, there is
ample evidence that many early modern poets were concerned with
reproduction’s relationship to gender, with physical production being
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