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Some Historians (e.g., Dejean, Lerner) Have Traced The development of human societies and the place of women as it evolved through historical times. The survival of early social groups depended on high reproductive activity, and such activity restricted considerably the participation of women in many social activities. Levi-Strauss (1969) spoke of what he called “the exchange of women” as practiced in early human groupings, mostly to avoid inbreeding. In such exchanges, women became “reified” and, to some extent, dehumanized.
In The History of Sexuality, Foucault (1918) observed, “Sexuality must not be thought of as a natural given which power tries to hold in check, or as an obscure domain which knowledge tries to uncover. It is the name that can be given to a historical construct” (p. 37). During the long elaboration of this historical construct, the emphasis was placed predominantly if not exclusively on male sexuality, whereas female sexuality, at least for the vast majority of women, was given little attention. Female sexuality, if considered at all, was seen entirely in the service of reproduction. As Robinson (1976) observed, it was only by delinking sexuality from reproduction that a whole range of sexual acts could be looked at from a different perspective.