Gayle Rubin

Gayle Rubin is a famous scholar and feminist thinker who is best known for her 1975 essay, "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex," which examined the ways that gender and sexuality influence power and authority in human societies. In her essay, Rubin argued that women are seen as objects of exchange or commodities to be bought and sold, both in economic and social terms. She also suggested that systems of gender and sexuality are systems of power, deeply embedded in everyday life and political structures. For example, she argued that marriage is an economic arrangement first and foremost, and that it gives men privileged access to women's labor, as well as to their bodies and reproductive capacities. Rubin's ideas have been influential in feminist thought, and her essay is considered one of the most important works on gender and sexuality in the 20th century.