The sexual contract

The Sexual Contract is a 1988 non-fiction book by British feminist and political theorist Carole Pateman which was published through Polity Press. This book is a 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 Sexual Contract is on rebutting the idea that a post-patriarchal or anti-patriarchal society 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 as being responsible for the development of modern rights and freedoms derived from archaic standards of contract that are deeply embedded within Western Spheres, particularly America, England and Australia, which are the focus areas for her work.