Rubin gave a version of her work “Thinking Sex” (see below) as a workshop there. “Thinking Sex” then had its first publication in 1984, in Carole Vance's book Pleasure and Danger, which was an anthology of papers from that conference. "Thinking Sex" is a sex-positive piece which is widely regarded as a founding text of gay and lesbian studies, sexuality studies, and queer theory. Rubin served on the board of directors of the Leather Archives and Museum from 1992 to 2000. The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley, which opened in 2017, consists of four works of art along Ringold Alley honoring the leather subculture; one of the works of art is a black granite stone etched with, among other things, a narrative by Rubin. Rubin was an important member of the community advisory group that was consulted to develop the designs of the works of art. Rubin is on the Board of Governors for the Leather Hall of Fame. Thought "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex" In this essay, Rubin devised the phrase "sex/gender system", which she defines as "the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied." She takes as a starting point writers who have previously discussed gender and sexual relations as an economic institution which serves a conventional social function (Claude Lévi-Strauss) and is reproduced in the psychology of children (Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan). She argues that these writers fail to adequately explain women's oppression, and offers a reinterpretation of their ideas. Rubin addresses Marxist thought by identifying women's role within a capitalist society. She argues that the reproduction of labor power depends upon women's housework to transform commodities into sustenance for the worker. The system of capitalism cannot generate surplus without women, yet society does not grant women access to the resulting capital. Rubin argues that historical patterns of female oppression have constructed this role for women in capitalist societies. She attempts to analyze these historical patterns by considering the sex/gender system. According to Rubin, "Gender is a socially imposed division of the sexes." She cites the exchange of women within patriarchal societies as perpetuating the pattern of female oppression, referencing Marcel Mauss' Essay on the Gift and using his idea of the "gift" to establish the notion that gender is