Revision summary
Feminists treat the state as gendered, not as a neutral referee. Pateman locates a sexual contract beneath the social contract. MacKinnon reads law as organised around male power. The public–private split hid household domination from liberal theory. Indian Article 15, Vishaka, and the 73rd Amendment are incomplete replies.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Feminist critique treats the state as a gendered power, not a neutral umpire. Carole Pateman and Catharine MacKinnon argue that public authority has been built on men’s private command over women.
Body
The claim
- Pateman’s sexual contract sits under the social contract: brothers make a public fraternity while keeping women in the household.
- MacKinnon reads the state through male dominance: rape law, workplace rules, and the public–private split protect a sexed hierarchy.
- Liberal night-watchman talk, from Locke to a thin reading of J. S. Mill, treated the family as pre-political, which hid unpaid care and domestic violence.
- Marxist feminism adds that the state also reproduces cheap social reproduction for capital.
Indian bearing
- Article 15, Vishaka guidelines, and later workplace-harassment law show the state being forced to enter the “private”.
- Reservation of seats for women in panchayats after the 73rd Amendment is a partial opening of office, not the end of sarpanch-pati practice.
- The critique does not say that every statute is simply “men”. It says that legitimacy, force, and welfare still assume a male citizen unless redesigned.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD F[Feminist critique] --> P[Pateman sexual contract] F --> M[MacKinnon male dominance] F --> PR[Public-private split] ST[State] --> PR
Conclusion
Feminist critique of the state, in Pateman and MacKinnon, is that public power rests on a sexual contract and male dominance. Indian rights and panchayat quotas have begun to rewrite that bargain. They have not yet made the state sex-neutral.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Do feminists want to abolish the state?
Some radical strands are sceptical of the state. Liberal and socialist feminists more often demand a reconstructed rights-and-welfare state.
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Is Mill a feminist of the state?
J. S. Mill argued for women’s suffrage and against legal subjection. Pateman still says his liberalism left the household undertheorised.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2026 · Q3(b) · PSIR GS 1 · 15 marks
Wollstonecraft developed first systematic feminist critique. Discuss her main ideas
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