Who Needs Civil Society?

Distinctions between public and private have been central to feminist analysis. Distinctions between civil society and the state are far less frequently invoked. Does feminism need a concept of civil society? It certainly does not need what is presented in so much of the historical literature, where civil society figures as a place where women are not. Hegel saw man as having his “substantive life” in the state and civil society, while woman pursued her “substantive destiny” in the family, and this highly gendered understanding of civil society is by no means unique. “Civil” often implies a contrast with natural or familial. “Woman” still suggests an association with nature or family. It is hardly surprising that civil society so often conjures up a masculine realm.

Yet feminists did not stop talking about the state just because so few women exercised political power—if this were the policy, there would be all too many things on which feminists would have to remain silent. The deeper difficulty is that the problems that generate the category of civil society derive from a nonfeminist agenda, and that this remains true even if we leave Hegel behind to concentrate on more recent debates. What makes civil ...