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= The Sexual Contract (Book) =

The Sexual Contract is a 1988 non-fiction book by British feminist and political theorist Carole Pateman which was published through Polity (publisher) Press. This book is seminal work which discusses how contract theory continues to affirm the patriarchy through methods of contractual submission where there is ultimately a power imbalance from systemic sexism. The focus of the The Sexual Contract is on the false narrative that there is a post-patriarchal or anti-patriarchal society that presently exists as a result of the conception of a civil society, instead Pateman argues that civil society continues to aid feminine oppression and that the orthodoxy of contracts such as marriage cannot become equitable to both women and men. Pateman uses a feminist lens when rationalising the argument proposed in The Sexual Contract through the use of works by classic political and liberal philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and later interpreted by the Founding Fathers whom Pateman has before critiqued for on how modern rights, freedoms are derived from archaic standards of contract that are deeply embedded within Western Spheres particularly America and England.

Background
Carole Pateman when writing The Sexual Contract used her previous background in political theory as support to substantiate a feminist commentary and critique on the nature of contracts as tools to control womanhood. The key to the The Sexual Contract is rooted in how the period of enlightenment was essentially led by men for the liberation of men with the quote Liberté, égalité, fraternité literally excluding the possible liberation of womanhood through the language used with 'brotherhood'. Pateman highlights this in order to illustrate her point that social contracts based upon these ideas of liberty are inherently skewed to favor men and the subordination of women to sustain such contract therefore becoming a sexual contract.

Summary
The Sexual Contract is divided into eight chapters, Pateman utilizes 'feminist storytelling' structures to illustrate contract theory from its origins to it's contemporary implications. Pateman displays how contracts affect womanhood in a multitude of ways such as economic and sexual capitalisation that is exploited from women through marriage, surrogacy and prostitution.

Reception
The Sexual Contract received the 2005 Benjamin E. Lippincott Award sponsored by the American Political Science Association, Seventeen years after it was initially published. The book has been widely used as an example of work that transcends mainstream academic work, it has been cited in a number of Journals on Political Theory and Feminism being translated into Polish, Turkish, French, Slavic, Croatian and Portuguese. Thirty years after it's initial publication, an anniversary edition of 'The Sexual Contract' was published to celebrate the impact it had on political and feminist theory.

Impacts on understandings of Law and Gender
The Sexual Contract has become an important work within the context of understanding the intersection between womanhood and political, legal theories

Critiques
Category:1988 non-fiction books Category:Political philosophy Category:Jurisprudence Category:Gender studies books Category:Feminist books