emmanuel reynaud holy virility the social construction of masculinity

has fallen so low that the job is beginning to lose its exclusively
male character:
To compensate for the shortage of manpower, the army is
recruiting more and more women: nearly sixty thousand at
present, of whom 39 percent are assigned to the traditional
auxiliary positions as office workers, medical assistants
etc. But there are increasing numbers of women occupying
the more qualified positions which, in the past, were
reserved for men: air or land transport, technical
maintenance etc. Also it is increasingly common for them
to receive training for combat, but in their contract it is still
stipulated that they cannot be recruited to fight.'
(Le Monde, 17 October 1980)
Unable to sell their labour power, or to get a good enough price
for it, women are often driven to selling themselves: to 'giving'
themselves to a man. Once again, the words speak for
themselves, in marriage or in 'love', it is no longer only the
woman's labour power which is at stake, but woman herself who
is appropriated in her entirety― as Collette Guillaumin puts it: 'It
is the material unit which produces the labour power that is
taken in hand.' [2]
[The daddy and the rapist / 75]
In the marriage contract, or the tacit convention which 'love' is,
there is no limit to the work-time which the woman owes her
husband or lover. 'For a woman . . to love is to relinquish
everything for the benefit of a master,' [3] observed Simone de
Beauvoir. According to Pope Paul VI: 'Woman is the companion,
the partner, the mysterious source of life ... for her, the
customary heroism of sacrifice.' [4] Man can go out and
confront the dangers and challenges of the world, since he
knows that when he comes back, he can put his feet up and
read his newspaper in peace, changing the world in his
imagination while his wife finishes the washing-up and cleans
the kitchen. In one way or another, man collects the medals and
the applause whilst, off stage, woman dresses his wounds,
types his manuscripts, relieves his penis, feeds his stomach,
keeps his house, brings up his children. She is entirely at his
service and is completely eclipsed in the glow of his triumph.
In return for his supposed protection, man obtains the sacrifice
of woman's own self, a sacrifice that in the name of love is, in
most cases, legally ratified by the marriage vows. This
relationship is reminiscent of that of feudal lord and serf in the
Middle Ages: the former, in the name of divine right, 'protected'
the latter from being attacked by other feudal lords, and was
'kind' enough to let the serf work for him. However, in this type
of relationship, it was possible to free oneself from the power of
the lord of the manor by fleeing the countryside and taking
refuge in the city:
The serf was 'part of the land'; if he could escape the land,
a path to emancipation was open to him. Woman is like the