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Delphy was a pioneer of materialist feminism, 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). So the main enemy of women is not capitalism 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.

With Nicole Claude-Mathieu, Emmanuèle de Lesseps, Colette Guillaumin, Monique Wittig, and Paola Tabet, 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 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).

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).

Against Racism within the French Feminist Movement

In more recent years, the implementation of the 2004 French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools—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, calling out their stances as hypocritical and racist.

Or put this under activism.

A Materialist Feminism Is Possible

Rethinking Sex and Gender

Pour un feminisme materialiste

Antisexisme ou antiracisme