Left Behind By the Alter: Why Queers and Sociologists Need Materialist Feminism

Abstract

The United States marriage rights movement just culminated in July 2015 with the Supreme Court declaring same-sex marriage constitutional.  The mainstream — the mainstream media and the mainstream LGBT rights movement — all applaud this trajectory, with no attention to those who get left behind in marriage politics.  In this paper, I will argue that same-sex marriage is in need of a materialist feminist analysis.  I will critique my discipline — Sociology — for failing to adequately theorize same-sex marriage as a key component of the 21 st Century landscape of the capitalist mode of production.  I will also critique the mainstream LGBT rights movement and the media attention given same-sex marriage for their lack of attention to the classed relations embedded in marriage rights.  A materialist feminist analysis will allow us to see that there’s still a need for a larger, more emancipatory sexual politics.