Weidt
17th December 2003, 01:52
MARXISM AND FEMINISM
by Joe DeNeen
December 15, 2003
Essay for POL 365, Marxist Political Thought
. . . . . . . . . .
Karl Marx may not have spoken much about gender, sex or sexuality, but his works have definitely influenced movements centered on those important topics. The 1960s and 70s witnessed the emergence of new movements for and by women and queers, in addition to the civil rights movement and the rainbow of identity movements. In what was called the 'second wave,' feminism took on a new and broader character than its 'first wave' predecessor. Armed with new perspectives, Marxism and feminism were developed, transformed and re-packaged enabling virtually anyone to jump on board one of the numerous variations. In this process the two theories found both common ground and antagonism and today has created quite a child known as socialist, or Marxist, feminism.
Independently, "feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression." [1] On the other hand, Marxism is, fundamentally, a movement to abolish class and end class exploitation and oppression. At first glance one may conclude the two theories have nothing in common; however, there lies the historical mistakes made by both movements over the last century.
As already stated, Karl Marx said very little on the so-called "woman question." Instead the duty was left to his close comrade Friedrich Engels who also spoke little on the topic and only did so within the context of the family. (Another criticism was that throughout the works of Marx and Engels the overwhelming references are toward [white] men.) In his famous work Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels presented these limited analysis of the family and thus of women. Ronaldo Munck wrote a critical essay, "Unhappy Marriage: Marxism and Women," on Engels' writings and pointed that even though Engels did discuss reproduction in relationship to the family, Engels "still takes as a given that the domain of reproduction is a female one, counterposed to a male realm of production." [2] In addition, Engels assumed that production is the liberation of women, yet still deduces domestic labor to women. In contrast, Engels recognizes the socially created hierarchies within the family when he writes in The Condition of the Working Class in England: "We shall have to accept the fact that so complete a reversal of the role of the two sexes can be due only to some radical error in the original relationship between men and women. If the rule of the wife over her husband – a natural consequence of the factory system – is unnatural, then the former rule of the husband over the wife must also have been unnatural." [3]
Nonetheless, the lack of writing by these great theorists on the "woman question" cannot be excused outright; however, the conditions at the time cannot be ignored either. They wrote during the industrial revolution and witnessed, and participated in, bourgeois revolutions throughout Western Europe. As a result both focused their theory and analysis upon these important happenings, especially with Marx producing the most thorough and involved critique of capitalism in its adolescence. Their primary goal was to provide the tools from which the self-emancipation of the working class may happen and with it the emergence of revolutionary democracy and complete liberation of humanity.
Since Marx and Engels, the discussion over the "woman question" has been approached, but it remained peripheral to class. In 1878 the German social democrat August Babel wrote Woman and Socialism to rave reviews within the social democratic circles in Europe. Unfortunately he too retained a sexist analysis of women's position in capitalism by believing certain work was harmful to their femininity.
Munck discusses two prominent socialist women, Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai, and their firm commitment to women's liberation. Zetkin led the German socialist women's movement and through a primitive fusion of Marxism and early feminism came to the conclusion women's liberation must be analyzed within the context of gender and class. Thanks in part to Zetkin and her role in the Socialist Women's International, an autonomous entity of the Second (Socialist) International, women have their own day on March 8 – International Women's Day. For Kollontai, Russia was ripe with revolution and she successfully led the women's movement to victory following the 1917 October Revolution by obtaining equal pay for women and legal abortion. She, like Zetkin, embraced a mixture of gender and class analysis. Here too we may add great women like the American socialists Kate Richards O'Hare and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
Within the feminist movement, many feminists tended to write Marxism off completely as not having any substance whatsoever to contribute. Fortunately, feminism, like Marxism, has a variety of interpretations. Liberal feminists deduce the problems to a denial of equality within the existing society. Radical feminists recognize patriarchy as the root of their oppression and at times are given the label of being "anti-male" in their pursuits for alternative egalitarian ways of living separate and in opposition to male-dominated society. Neither of these movements accepted Marxism, or did on a very low level.
Given the limits of Marx and Engels and the above limits of liberal and radical feminists, an alternate was needed to bridge the gaps and in fact revitalize both Marxism and feminism. Here came along socialist feminism (sometimes referred to as Marxist feminism) to fill the void.
Nancy Holmstrom defines a socialist feminist as "anyone trying to understand women's subordination in a coherent and systematic way that integrates class and sex, as well as other aspects of identity such as race/ethnicity or sexual orientation, with the aim of using this analysis to help liberate women." [4] Furthermore, she states "all socialist feminists see class as central to women's lives, yet at the same time none would reduce sex or race oppression to economic exploitation." [5]
In fact, this can be traced back to the legacy of Zetkin and Kollontai who led this push within the worldwide socialist movement. Angela Y. Davis discusses the history and development of both the socialist and feminist movements within the United Stated in her book Women, Race and Class. Davis, like Holmstrom, criticizes the liberal and radical feminists for ignoring capitalism and she explicitly calls them out on their neglect of women of color. Holmstrom states the former criticism quite clearly: "Feminist theory that is lost in theoretical abstractions or that depreciates economic realities will be useless for this purpose. Feminism that speaks of women’s oppression and its injustice but fails to address capitalism will be of little help in ending women’s oppression. Marxism’s analysis of history, of capitalism, and of social change is certainly relevant to understanding these economic changes, but if its categories of analysis are understood in a gender- or race-neutral way it will be unable to do justice to them." [6] This has fundamentally when the error of mainstream feminism and continues today.
Not only has Marxism contributed class to feminism, it has also given feminists a dialectical and materialist approach to capitalism. In other words, Marxism has provided the tools to recognize alienation and commodification of women in capitalist society. Socialist feminist theorists have written about the alienation women face within reproduction and domestic labor. In addition, they have contributed to a critique of consumerism and the role of women as both consumer and product since women are commodified by sexuality and reproduction, whereas men are commodified by production.
Feminism has transformed Marxism; Marxism has transformed feminism. Feminism gained from a class analysis and an anti-capitalist perspective, while Marxism has gained from a gender, sex, sexuality and sex analysis and an anti-patriarchy perspective. These two important theories combine into socialist feminism and, for the most part, is the new wave of feminism and Marxism today in the United States. Within the American socialist movement you can witness this fusion in organizations such as the Socialist Party USA, the Freedom Socialist Party and Solidarity. The feminist movement also contains this fusion through the likes of Nancy Holmstrom, Angela Y. Davis, Naomi Klein, Barbara Ehrenreich and thousands of working class women.
. . . . . . . . . .
FOOTNOTES:
[1] bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000), p. 1.
[2] Ronaldo Munck, "Unhappy Marriage: Marxism and Women," Marx @ 2000, p. 78-79.
[3] Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), p. 164.
[4] Nancy Holmstrom, "The Socialist Feminist Project," Monthly Review, Vol. 54, No. 10 (March 2002), p. 38.
[5] Ibid., p. 39.
[6] Ibid., p. 39.
by Joe DeNeen
December 15, 2003
Essay for POL 365, Marxist Political Thought
. . . . . . . . . .
Karl Marx may not have spoken much about gender, sex or sexuality, but his works have definitely influenced movements centered on those important topics. The 1960s and 70s witnessed the emergence of new movements for and by women and queers, in addition to the civil rights movement and the rainbow of identity movements. In what was called the 'second wave,' feminism took on a new and broader character than its 'first wave' predecessor. Armed with new perspectives, Marxism and feminism were developed, transformed and re-packaged enabling virtually anyone to jump on board one of the numerous variations. In this process the two theories found both common ground and antagonism and today has created quite a child known as socialist, or Marxist, feminism.
Independently, "feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression." [1] On the other hand, Marxism is, fundamentally, a movement to abolish class and end class exploitation and oppression. At first glance one may conclude the two theories have nothing in common; however, there lies the historical mistakes made by both movements over the last century.
As already stated, Karl Marx said very little on the so-called "woman question." Instead the duty was left to his close comrade Friedrich Engels who also spoke little on the topic and only did so within the context of the family. (Another criticism was that throughout the works of Marx and Engels the overwhelming references are toward [white] men.) In his famous work Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels presented these limited analysis of the family and thus of women. Ronaldo Munck wrote a critical essay, "Unhappy Marriage: Marxism and Women," on Engels' writings and pointed that even though Engels did discuss reproduction in relationship to the family, Engels "still takes as a given that the domain of reproduction is a female one, counterposed to a male realm of production." [2] In addition, Engels assumed that production is the liberation of women, yet still deduces domestic labor to women. In contrast, Engels recognizes the socially created hierarchies within the family when he writes in The Condition of the Working Class in England: "We shall have to accept the fact that so complete a reversal of the role of the two sexes can be due only to some radical error in the original relationship between men and women. If the rule of the wife over her husband – a natural consequence of the factory system – is unnatural, then the former rule of the husband over the wife must also have been unnatural." [3]
Nonetheless, the lack of writing by these great theorists on the "woman question" cannot be excused outright; however, the conditions at the time cannot be ignored either. They wrote during the industrial revolution and witnessed, and participated in, bourgeois revolutions throughout Western Europe. As a result both focused their theory and analysis upon these important happenings, especially with Marx producing the most thorough and involved critique of capitalism in its adolescence. Their primary goal was to provide the tools from which the self-emancipation of the working class may happen and with it the emergence of revolutionary democracy and complete liberation of humanity.
Since Marx and Engels, the discussion over the "woman question" has been approached, but it remained peripheral to class. In 1878 the German social democrat August Babel wrote Woman and Socialism to rave reviews within the social democratic circles in Europe. Unfortunately he too retained a sexist analysis of women's position in capitalism by believing certain work was harmful to their femininity.
Munck discusses two prominent socialist women, Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai, and their firm commitment to women's liberation. Zetkin led the German socialist women's movement and through a primitive fusion of Marxism and early feminism came to the conclusion women's liberation must be analyzed within the context of gender and class. Thanks in part to Zetkin and her role in the Socialist Women's International, an autonomous entity of the Second (Socialist) International, women have their own day on March 8 – International Women's Day. For Kollontai, Russia was ripe with revolution and she successfully led the women's movement to victory following the 1917 October Revolution by obtaining equal pay for women and legal abortion. She, like Zetkin, embraced a mixture of gender and class analysis. Here too we may add great women like the American socialists Kate Richards O'Hare and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
Within the feminist movement, many feminists tended to write Marxism off completely as not having any substance whatsoever to contribute. Fortunately, feminism, like Marxism, has a variety of interpretations. Liberal feminists deduce the problems to a denial of equality within the existing society. Radical feminists recognize patriarchy as the root of their oppression and at times are given the label of being "anti-male" in their pursuits for alternative egalitarian ways of living separate and in opposition to male-dominated society. Neither of these movements accepted Marxism, or did on a very low level.
Given the limits of Marx and Engels and the above limits of liberal and radical feminists, an alternate was needed to bridge the gaps and in fact revitalize both Marxism and feminism. Here came along socialist feminism (sometimes referred to as Marxist feminism) to fill the void.
Nancy Holmstrom defines a socialist feminist as "anyone trying to understand women's subordination in a coherent and systematic way that integrates class and sex, as well as other aspects of identity such as race/ethnicity or sexual orientation, with the aim of using this analysis to help liberate women." [4] Furthermore, she states "all socialist feminists see class as central to women's lives, yet at the same time none would reduce sex or race oppression to economic exploitation." [5]
In fact, this can be traced back to the legacy of Zetkin and Kollontai who led this push within the worldwide socialist movement. Angela Y. Davis discusses the history and development of both the socialist and feminist movements within the United Stated in her book Women, Race and Class. Davis, like Holmstrom, criticizes the liberal and radical feminists for ignoring capitalism and she explicitly calls them out on their neglect of women of color. Holmstrom states the former criticism quite clearly: "Feminist theory that is lost in theoretical abstractions or that depreciates economic realities will be useless for this purpose. Feminism that speaks of women’s oppression and its injustice but fails to address capitalism will be of little help in ending women’s oppression. Marxism’s analysis of history, of capitalism, and of social change is certainly relevant to understanding these economic changes, but if its categories of analysis are understood in a gender- or race-neutral way it will be unable to do justice to them." [6] This has fundamentally when the error of mainstream feminism and continues today.
Not only has Marxism contributed class to feminism, it has also given feminists a dialectical and materialist approach to capitalism. In other words, Marxism has provided the tools to recognize alienation and commodification of women in capitalist society. Socialist feminist theorists have written about the alienation women face within reproduction and domestic labor. In addition, they have contributed to a critique of consumerism and the role of women as both consumer and product since women are commodified by sexuality and reproduction, whereas men are commodified by production.
Feminism has transformed Marxism; Marxism has transformed feminism. Feminism gained from a class analysis and an anti-capitalist perspective, while Marxism has gained from a gender, sex, sexuality and sex analysis and an anti-patriarchy perspective. These two important theories combine into socialist feminism and, for the most part, is the new wave of feminism and Marxism today in the United States. Within the American socialist movement you can witness this fusion in organizations such as the Socialist Party USA, the Freedom Socialist Party and Solidarity. The feminist movement also contains this fusion through the likes of Nancy Holmstrom, Angela Y. Davis, Naomi Klein, Barbara Ehrenreich and thousands of working class women.
. . . . . . . . . .
FOOTNOTES:
[1] bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000), p. 1.
[2] Ronaldo Munck, "Unhappy Marriage: Marxism and Women," Marx @ 2000, p. 78-79.
[3] Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), p. 164.
[4] Nancy Holmstrom, "The Socialist Feminist Project," Monthly Review, Vol. 54, No. 10 (March 2002), p. 38.
[5] Ibid., p. 39.
[6] Ibid., p. 39.