Equality was always a chimera or a lie; separation was real. The
model held that social institutions could be reasonably and fairly
constructed on the basis of biology, for instance, race or skin color.
What made separation necessary—the presumed inferiority of one
of the biologically defined groups—made equality impossible. The
idea of separation and the institutions of separation derived from a
social inequality of such astonishing magnitude and crass cruelty
that separation in idea or practice essentially denied that blacks had
a human nature in common with whites or any common human
standing. The separate-but-equal model itself originates in the conviction that men and women could not stand on common human ground. The model originates in the effort to justify the subordination of women to men (and in the justification to perpetuate that subordination) by positing male and female natures so biologically
different as to require social separation, socially antithetical paths,
social life bifurcated by sex so that there are two cultures, one
male, one female, coexisting in the same society. The separate-but-
equal model applied to sex predated the variation of the model applied to race. With respect to sex, the separate-but-equal model held that women and men were destined by biology for different
social spheres. The spheres were separate but equal, which made
the men and women separate but equal. The sphere of the woman
was the home; the sphere of the man was the world. These were
separate-but-equal domains. The woman was supposed to bear and
raise the children; the man was supposed to impregnate her and
support them. These were separate-but-equal duties. The woman
had female capacities— she was intuitive, emotional, tender,
charming (in women a capacity to arouse or entrap, not an attribute). T he man had male capacities— he was logical, reasoning, strong, powerful (as a capacity and relative to the woman). These
were separate-but-equal capacities. The woman was supposed to
do domestic labor, the precise nature of which was determined by
her husband’s social class. The man was supposed to labor in the
world for money, power, recognition, according to his social class.
This was separate-but-equal labor.
Sex segregation in practice is necessarily different from race segregation: women are everywhere, in almost every home, in most beds, as intim ate as it is possible to be with those who want to keep
them separate. Given the nearly universal intim acy women have
with men, it is astonishing to recognize how successful sex-segre-
gation bolstered by the separate-but-equal model has been and
continues to be. Women have invaded the male sphere of the marketplace, only to be segregated in female job ghettos. In jobs, duties, responsibilities, physical, moral, and intellectual capacities, division of labor within the home, the ethic and practice that still
obtains is sex segregation. The separate-but-equal model applied to
men and women continues to be effective because it is seen to correspond to biology accurately and fairly. The model has credibility because the sexual subordination of women to men is seen to be in
the nature of things and a logical premise of social organization— a
biological reality that is properly reiterated in social institutions,
civil prerogatives, and sex-segregated obligations. The model is
perceived as fair because in it men and women are kept biologically
separate (discrete), socially separate (discrete), and they are declared equal because each is doing equally what is appropriate to
their sex. Separation is seen to be the only real vehicle of equality
for women. The notion is that women competing with men, not
limited to a female sphere, could never achieve social or economic
or sexual equality because of their nature—which in all of these
areas would simply be inferior to male nature; females are inferior,
however, only because they have left the female sphere, which in
itself is equal, not inferior; females are only inferior to men in a
male sphere, where they do not belong. Equality is guaranteed by
setting up separate spheres according to sex and simply insisting
that the spheres are equal. This amounts to a kind of metaphysical
paternalism: constructing a social model in which women need not
experience their inferiority as a burden but instead are assigned
such social value as women that their inferiority is of equal social
worth to the superiority of men. The separate spheres are declared
equal with no reference to the material conditions of the persons in
the spheres and this is the sense in which women have equality
with men under this model. There need not be equality of rights,
for instance; indeed, it is counterindicated. Since the sexes are not
the same, they should not be treated the same, and something is
wrong when a common standard is applied to both. In this social
model, separation by sex class is viewed as the only basis for equality; sex segregation is the institutional expression of this egalitarian ethic, its program in fact. With sex as with race, separation is a
fact; equality is a chimera or a lie.
The woman-superior model of antifeminism is found in two apparently opposing realms: the spiritual and the sexual. In the spiritual realm, the woman is superior to the male by definition; he worships her because she is good; her sex makes her moral or gives
her the responsibility for a morality that is sex-specific. Being
female, she is higher, by nature closer to some abstract conception
of good. She is credited with a moral sensibility that men are hard
put to match (but then, they are not expected to try): she is ethereal, she floats, her moral nature lifts her up, she gravitates toward
that which is pure, chaste, and tasteful. She has an instinctive, sex-
based knowledge of what is good and right. Her moral sensibility
is unfailingly benign, always an influence toward the good. Her
sex-class business includes the business of being virtuous— a
strange assignment by sex, since the Latin root of the word v irtu e
means “strength” or “m anliness, ” which perhaps shows the futility
of the project for her. T his goodness of her sex is essentially based
on a presumed chastity, a necessary chastity— of behavior but also
of appetite. She, as a woman, is not supposed to know sexual desire. Men lust. As one who by her nature does not lust, she is the opposite of man: he is carnal; she is good. There is no notion of
female m orality or of a woman’s being good in the world that is not