visibility they inevitably do so. As a result, the token women give
out the correct line on fem ininity and at the same time bear the
brunt of the critical perception that obviously they are not at home
being fucked. T he woman who is not a token is mostly condescended to by the token, a condescension that she feels not only acutely but often, since the token is always pointed out to her as
proof that her own situation does not result from an exclusionary
social system . Every all-male or nearly all-male group— profession,
institution, business, club, or power clique—is a concrete embodiment of antifeminism. By its existence it upholds and proclaims the dominance of men over women. By its existence it reinforces the
social inferiority of women to men, perpetuates the political subordination of women to men, mandates the economic dependence of women on men, and endlessly revitalizes the sexual submission of
women to men. The all-male clique of power communicates the
antifeminism of male dominance everywhere it operates, all the
time, without exception. The power of men to make decisions and
determine policy, to create culture and to control the institutions of
culture, is simultaneously held to be the logical outcome of male
dominance and proof of its existence. Every institution that is
structurally male-dominant is also ideologically male-dominant; or
its structure would change. Every group that is structurally male-
dominant functions as concrete resistance, material resistance, to
the liberation of women: it prohibits the exodus of women from the
obligations and disadvantages, not to mention the cruelties, of inferiority. Any area that is virtually all male is hostile to women, to political rights, economic parity, and sexual self-determination
for women. The verbal support of men in all-male institutions,
groups, or cliques of power for mild feminist reform has no value
in the world of real, substantive change for women: it is the allmale structure itself that must be subverted and destroyed. Male dominance and the antifeminism that defends it can only be repudiated by being ended; those who construct it by literally being the bricks of which it is built cannot change it by merely disputing
it. The antifeminism in exclusively male enclaves is not made humane through gestures; it is immune to modification through diplomatic goodwill. As long as a road is closed to women, it is closed to women; and that means that women cannot take that road, however nicely the men on it suggest they would not mind. The road is not only a road to power or independence or equity; it is often the
only road away from tremendous abuse. The antifeminism in an
all-male institution cannot be mitigated by attitude; nor can male
dominance— alw ays the meaning of an all-male enclave— ever accept that women are not inferior to men. The token woman carries the stigma of inferiority with her, however much she tries to dissociate herself from the other women of her sex class. In trying to stay singular, not one of them, she grants the inferiority of her sex
class, an inferiority for which she is always compensating and from
which she is never free. If the inferiority were not reckoned universally true, she of all women would not have to defend herself against the stigma of it; nor would her own com plicity in the antifeminism of the institution (through dissociation with lesser women) be a perpetual condition of her quasi acceptance. Male
dominance in society alw ays means that out of public sight, in the
private, ahistorical world of men with women, men are sexually
dominating women. The antifeminism in the all-male rulership of
society alw ays means that in the intimate world of men with
women, men are politically suppressing women.
The three social models of antifeminism— the separate-but-equal
model, the woman-superior model, and the male-dominant model
—are not inimical to one another. T hey mix and match with perfect ease, since logic and consistency are not prerequisites for keeping women down: no one need prove his case to justify the
