Gender as a class

[Questionable]

It is a proven fact that unwaged reproductive labor is disproportionately performed by women in even the most “progressive” areas of the imperialist metropolis (Scandinavia for example), not to speak of the incredible dichotomies prevailing in the majority of the world.
The immediate beneficiary of the direct and personal relations of exploitation quantified by this asymmetry is not the bourgeois as some Marxists like to insist. After all the way in which the burden of unpaid reproductive labor is distributed within the working class has no immediate effect on the wage (so long as capital remains able to “evade responsibility”). In this respect the gendered assignment of unwaged labor in the sphere of reproduction is different from the equally persistent super-exploitation of waged female labor in the sphere of production.
In fact the class which benefits from the gendered assignment of unpaid reproductive labor is the class of males as a group who perform a specific role within the prevailing relations of reproduction. Thus a factually violent class antagonism runs right through the heart of the working class dividing it in half.
In any other circumstance so called Marxists would recognize a relationship in which one group is consigned to perform unpaid labor for the physical and emotional maintenance of another-a relationship continually enforced by violence and terror as an antagonistic class contradiction. However when it comes to gender which is historically the original class contradiction it is always discovered that in this special case and despite all the otherwise universal principles of class struggle two unites into one!
Those who think this problem has been “solved” already by the neo-colonial readjustment of gender relations the assignment of male roles to the biologically and culturally female and so on have a great deal in common with the partisans of an America whose “post-racial” status is ensured by the election of Obama to the presidency.
The increasing assimilation of certain strata of women to dominant roles within the capitalist patriarchy only makes the contradiction more complex without subtracting any of its intensity. The class of men who parasitize off unwaged female labor are perhaps the numerically largest contingent of the global labor aristocracy-of proletarians with a real stake in the exploitation and subordination of other strata of the class.
The truth of this statement is written in blood everyday.
The construction of the proletariat as a truly unified political subject able to successfully carry out the transition to communism entails as its precondition the liquidation of men as a social class.
The division between waged productive and unwaged reproductive labor, the family as an economic and cultural unit all the preconditions for the perpetuation of gender must be attacked under the leadership of those who find themselves the objects of exploitation and subordination within these relations.
And one must not shrink from the use of antagonistic means to settle antagonistic contradictions.

http://www.signalfire.org/?p=15026

Any opinions on this? I'm not sure I agree with this, it sounds like identity politics. Now there are three classes; men, women, and bourgeoisie? How can male workers exercise control over a system that have no stake in? Isn't this denying the role the bourgeoisie have played in the division of men and women?

[campesino]

is it not the goal of all marxist to make all labor unwaged.
It maybe that in the future, a household will have to contribute x amount of hours to social production, for y amount of people under the pension age, within the household. Who does that labor will be up to the household.

It is wrong to force a women to have children and force her to raise them, but most family relationships are built on consent and a mutual agreement as to how labor will be divided.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Signal Fire is a real wingnut site, I wouldn't pay attention to much of what's written on it honestly. :closedeyes:

[cynicles]

It is wrong to force a women to have children and force her to raise them, but most family relationships are built on consent and a mutual agreement as to how labor will be divided.

Are most based on mutual agreements?

[Rusty Shackleford]

Question, does human reproduction produce a commodity or use-value?


id wager its both yes and no, at least in capitalist society.

[Lynx]

Traditional families are feudal in nature, where the husband plays the role of lord. This arrangement is on its way to extinction.

[campesino]

Are most based on mutual agreements?

for the most part, yes. a man and a woman develop feelings for each other and agree to start a family. Of course there are abusive relationships out there, and women who are forced to be stay-at-home moms, but that does not mean all women want to have outside work.

I wouldn't say families are feudal in nature, only when feudalist have families.
I would say marriage licenses/contracts and the sort are feudal, but families aren't.
@Lynx what will replace the traditional family? I hope it is not a kibbuts like system where the children are raised collectively and separated from parents. that distresses the parents and children.

[Thirsty Crow]

It is a proven fact that unwaged reproductive labor is disproportionately performed by women in even the most “progressive” areas of the imperialist metropolis (Scandinavia for example), not to speak of the incredible dichotomies prevailing in the majority of the world.I tend to agree and think that this reflects the prevalence of, more or less, subtle (yeah, in certain parts of the world - not subtle at all!) coercion that we can call structural sexism. This ties in with what campesino says:


Of course there are abusive relationships out there, and women who are forced to be stay-at-home moms, but that does not mean all women want to have outside work. The point is decisevely not to conclude that all women must want to engage in wage labour. Rather, the point is that through socialization, upbringing and through constant cultural pressure women are subjected to a set of values and ideas that would "show them their place". Of course, women do like and do want to do that but that is besides the point, which relates to the necessity of the abolition of said social and cultural mechanisms. And as Marxists and anarchists, we have sort of an idea how to do that. It's not that we intend to tell women what they must want - very far from it.


Question, does human reproduction produce a commodity or use-value?


id wager its both yes and no, at least in capitalist society.
Of course that it produces a commodity, the most important of them all, labour power.

I wouldn't know how to approch the question of the production of "use value" here though. What would that mean when people are in question?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

for the most part, yes. a man and a woman develop feelings for each other and agree to start a family.

That's pretty much like saying I developed feelings for hamburgers and entered in to a consensual relationship with A&W, at which point A&W and I agreed that I should flip the burgers.

[Tenka]

What was quoted was rather agreeable to me. It is identity politics, but identity divides the working class. Is it any more nutty to speak against enduring antagonisms between sexes based on feudal patriarchal shit than it is to speak against institutionalised racism?

And someone mentioned communal child-rearing unfavourably in this thread; that guy is wrong. Children are raised by society as it is, and wanting them tied inextricably to a particular family based on genetics alone... that's just reactionary and in some ways welcomes abuse. If someone gets something out of raising children, they can work at the communal nurseries or whatever. As it is, many children have it worse than pets in their families' homes (I can't substantiate that claim, so don't ask me to).

[campesino]

this thread has been hijacked by trolls, or by the ignorant. So I will no longer participate in what has quickly become an irrational series of disagreements, rather than a dialogue.
this is directed @Tenka and VMC.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Materialist Feminism - the most important tool in any troll's toolbox.

In all seriousness though, while recognizing important specificities, this parallels some of what I was trying to get at in a thread concerning white supremacism (I don't recall the title of the thread at this moment). Again, I think a great deal of the response has been a steadfast reductionist refusal to grapple with serious material contradictions that don't conveniently reduce to "the working class" as a homogenous entity as regards its relationship to capital.

I think this article is pretty "on".

[Questionable]

I posted this on reddit's communism board and generated some pretty interesting discussion, so I'll copy+paste my thoughts here as well.

I like the main issue of this article but I'm really not sure about men and women being totally different economic classes. Isn't that taking it a bit far? They still occupy the same productive position in the social relations of capitalism, and the oppression that minority groups face is still ultimately brought on and maintained by the ruling class. The family unit came as a result of capitalism, it's not as if men just decided to give women all the hard work because they're jerks.
Using the logic in this article that reproductive labor is unpaid labor thus men are exploiters and constitute a new economic class, we can go a step further and conclude that since children are often employed in doing chores around the house and helping with upkeep which they aren't paid for (At least not in wages), that children are also the third economic class. Time for a children's revolution against the exploitative parent class? One could argue back against me by saying that even with children's help the mother still does the bulk of the reproductive labor, but nowadays it's becoming very commonplace for both parents to work full-time wage jobs, leaving home economics such as chores or food-making to their kids.
I also detect some close-mindedness in the article, and that kind of upsets me. The author seems to imply that you either agree with their notion of women and men being different classes or you believe that sexism doesn't exist in capitalism.
I would also disagree with the little bit about the bourgeoisie not caring what family unit we have. Firstly, the historical origin of the bourgeois nuclear family came about in early capitalism as a solution to the poor conditions the proletariat were facing. Secondly, the bourgeoisie have shown strong political interests in preserving the nuclear family, as you can see from corporate giants like Wal-mart donating to anti-gay politicians and legislators. I'm not educated enough to completely understand why they want to keep the nuclear family, but they have shown great interest in preserving it.
It's certainly an interesting topic but I'm just not sure how I feel about saying that men and women are different classes. I would say that the contradictions with workers face within capitalism is what created the nuclear family. And I'm not sure about the unpaid reproductive labor thing. Surely men contribute to their families in general as well? They must. One could even suggest that in a stereotypical nuclear family with a working husband and a non-employed wife, the wages that the working husband brings home counts as the "wage" to the unemployed wife because they ultimately go towards the upkeep of the family, which of course includes the wife. It's a system based on exchange-value but that is because it is a capitalist society. Last thing I'll say is; can we really say that the wife is a creator of value in the Marxist sense? Exploitation of employees occurs because they are not paid the full value of their work but only a smaller portion, it is a mathematical fact, but is this relationship of exploitation even possible in the situation of the family? There is no capital being gathered, so how could it?
Just to be clear I totally agree with the spirit of this article, but the theory behind it is where I have an issue.

[Crux]

for the most part, yes. a man and a woman develop feelings for each other and agree to start a family. Of course there are abusive relationships out there, and women who are forced to be stay-at-home moms, but that does not mean all women want to have outside work.

I wouldn't say families are feudal in nature, only when feudalist have families.
I would say marriage licenses/contracts and the sort are feudal, but families aren't.
@Lynx what will replace the traditional family? I hope it is not a kibbuts like system where the children are raised collectively and separated from parents. that distresses the parents and children.
Oh boy. So you think the fact that the vast vast majority of unpaid labour (80% are the numbers for "progressive" Sweden) in homes is done by women is because of a mutual agreement? This isn't about abusive relationships but about an ever prevailing norm that goes so deep that some will even allege that women would be "naturally" predisposed to housework. Complete nonsense of course.

This said I don't fully agree with the OP although I certainly get what they are getting at. The conflict between men and women is not a class conflict in that it is not antagonistic.

[Lynx]

@Lynx what will replace the traditional family? I hope it is not a kibbuts like system where the children are raised collectively and separated from parents. that distresses the parents and children.
Single parent households are the most common alternative in Canada. Collective raising of children isn't seen outside of religious groups. Unless you consider day care to be a form of collective child rearing?

[cynicles]

Given the economic gap between men and women I'm not so sure any relationship can be considered entirely free of coercion and a balance of power more in favour of men.

[Questionable]

I don't think anyone is trying to say that women have achieved a liberated status, certainly I'm not. My main issue in the article was whether or not women and men have a different class interest, whether the relationship between them is antagonistic or can be overcome.

[Luís Henrique]

http://www.signalfire.org/?p=15026

Any opinions on this? I'm not sure I agree with this, it sounds like identity politics.

No, it doesn't. It sounds like pseudo-Maoist denegation of class struggle. And it probably sounds like that because it is what it is.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Are most based on mutual agreements?

Evidently.

The problem is that mutual agreements don't take place in the abstract; they take place within hierarchical societies.

Luís Henrique

[Tenka]

To be clear, I don't believe working class men and women are a class apart; just that many men benefit in some marked ways from the patriarchal family structures that Capitalism since the 50s has really sought to promote, and that women are more exploited. There are antagonisms, but not between classes (of "men" and "women"): rather they are within the class.

Also someone mentioned chores (sorry for responses like this; I'm posting from a mobile browser and it's really tedious). Making children clean up after the household, i.e., chores, is nothing other than unpaid child labour. It's good to help out, but many parents use chores in order to prepare their children for work under Capitalism (hence allowances, for some...), and this doesn't sit right with me. I think a generation of lazy "entitled" bastards would be more revolutionary than people who have been conditioned to enjoy work, but this is way off-topic.

[hetz]

To be clear, I don't believe working class men and women are a class apart; just that many men benefit in some marked ways from the patriarchal family structures that Capitalism since the 50s has really sought to promote, and that women are more exploited.
Isn't it the other way around? Haven't these patriarchal structures started changing around the 60s when states started introducing "equality laws", when more women started working etc.
Compare America ( or England or Sweden ) of the 50s and America of the 80s.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

^
I actually agree with this. I think it's important to acknowledge that patriarchy isn't static, and reconfigures itself alongside of capital. I don't think this means that capitalism is necessarily progressive vis-a-vis patriarchy, or that the "seed" of womens' liberation is to be found in the unfolding of the capitalist dynamic.

Also - I don't know what the fuck this accusation of "pseudo-Maoism" means, besides not really grappling with the question at hand in favour of asserting a weird reductionist "Marxism". Bleh.

[cynicles]

It's MTW on a different axis, instead of using race it's using gender. I used this very same argument in the MTW where I asked whether it was equally valid to use gender and sexuality in place of race. The problems with both this idea of gender and race as forming separate classes are very similar.

[Tenka]

Mostly I just liked the idea of liquidating "men as a class", which I supposed meant the male social role, which is a really lame and reactionary construct. Maybe the author really meant what they put to text though, and not what I supposed....
At any rate, civil rights victories are not made without the bourgeoisie seeing what's in it for them. Yes, women are in the workforce, but still they make less than men doing the same shit and often are expected in addition to keep filling the roles previously relegated to them. No one is more exploited in the "developed" world than a single, working mom... besides prisoners, and maybe prostitutes and seasonal migrant workers; but all those things aren't mutually exclusive.

[Luís Henrique]

I actually agree with this. I think it's important to acknowledge that patriarchy isn't static, and reconfigures itself alongside of capital. I don't think this means that capitalism is necessarily progressive vis-a-vis patriarchy, or that the "seed" of womens' liberation is to be found in the unfolding of the capitalist dynamic.

Anyway, we are in a capitalist society. If we were in a feudal one, you might have a point - would it be necessary to undergo a bourgeois revolution, the expropriation of the peasantry, and all that, in order to build the conditions for the emancipation of women?

But since that is not the case, we are left with the lame alternative that either capitalism provides us with the tools to destroy it, and consequently achieve the emancipation of women, or capitalism on the contrary makes it impossible to even fight for the emancipation of women.


Also - I don't know what the fuck this accusation of "pseudo-Maoism" means, besides not really grappling with the question at hand in favour of asserting a weird reductionist "Marxism". Bleh.

Well. Sometimes it is necessary to call things for what they are. It is a ridiculous article in the worst tradition of class-struggle denying of some (pseudo-, because I don't think that Mao, with all his weird anti-Marxist positions, would support them) Maoist currents, in an obviously "Third Worldist" Maoist site (complete with links to the "Popular War" in Nepal, or India, or - even - Peru). So, sorry, it is pseudo-Maoism, and it is an effort to negate class struggle. Yes, it is a curious offshot, in that it is actually a blend of bad (pseudo-Maoist) Marxism with worse ("radical", or "gender", or "sexist") feminism. But it is still part of the same drive to negate the existence of class struggle in First World countries (because there is no proletariat there).

But if you want me to tear the whole thing apart and show how its internal logic is an anti-working class logic, I can do it. Just ask for it, and I will gather my gloves, lancet, and anti-gas mask, and disassemble it for you.

Otherwise, you can look at this:


It's MTW on a different axis, instead of using race it's using gender. I used this very same argument in the MTW where I asked whether it was equally valid to use gender and sexuality in place of race. The problems with both this idea of gender and race as forming separate classes are very similar.

which pretty much sums up the matter, more concisely and elegantly than I would.

I am curious, however, about how confronting this quite brutish attempt to "reduce" gender to class is itself "reductionist Marxism".

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Mostly I just liked the idea of liquidating "men as a class", which I supposed meant the male social role, which is a really lame and reactionary construct. Maybe the author really meant what they put to text though, and not what I supposed....

The site has a fac-simile of the SCUM Manifesto on the top of the text in the OP. What do you think Valerie Solanas meant by "destroy the male sex"?


No one is more exploited in the "developed" world than a single, working mom... besides prisoners, and maybe prostitutes and seasonal migrant workers; but all those things aren't mutually exclusive.

Yes, some people are more exploited than others, or are exploited in a more brutal way. Should we conclude that those who are "less" exploited, or exploited in a less obvious way are part of the problem?

If so, I fear no revolution is possible, at all.

Luís Henrique

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Sorry, I can't take seriously any analysis of gender, class, or the intersections between the two from someone who refers to "sexist feminism". Please go back to the 60s.

Anyway, the question isn't a quantitative one ("more" or "less" exploited - though certainly, the numbers vis-a-vis women's unpaid hours of work, the degree to which women are compensated for paid work, the participation of women in precarious sectors, the treatment of women by the medical-industrial complex, etc. are all absolutely horrifying, and do speak to something quantitatively "worse" in terms of material conditions), but a qualitative one. The means by which womens bodies and identities are controlled and used is distinct, and gives women a distinct character vis-a-vis questions of class and class struggle.
That this is dismissed by the same members of the labour aristocracy who dismiss "third worldism" as a "pseudo-Marxist" deviation is hardly surprising, since it marks an investment in the worst of Marxism's heteropatriarchal and white supremacist tradition, as opposed to an emphasis on understanding the real material conditions within capital. Of course, it is precisely this configuration that views the working classes as a homogenous whole with only quantitative differences within them that ensures no revolution is possible.

P.S. My radical feminist partner has a S.C.U.M. tattoo. Really.

[Luís Henrique]

Sorry, I can't take seriously any analysis of gender, class, or the intersections between the two from someone who refers to "sexist feminism". Please go back to the 60s.

Nor I can take in serious any analysis that actually subscribes to such reductionist views as "radical" feminism or Maoist Third Worldism.


Anyway, the question isn't a quantitative one ("more" or "less" exploited - though certainly, the numbers vis-a-vis women's unpaid hours of work, the degree to which women are compensated for paid work, the participation of women in precarious sectors, the treatment of women by the medical-industrial complex, etc. are all absolutely horrifying, and do speak to something quantitatively "worse" in terms of material conditions), but a qualitative one. The means by which womens bodies and identities are controlled and used is distinct, and gives women a distinct character vis-a-vis questions of class and class struggle.

And?


That this is dismissed by the same members of the labour aristocracy who dismiss "third worldism" as a "pseudo-Marxist" deviation is hardly surprising, since it marks an investment in the worst of Marxism's heteropatriarchal and white supremacist tradition, as opposed to an emphasis on understanding the real material conditions within capital. Of course, it is precisely this configuration that views the working classes as a homogenous whole with only quantitative differences within them that ensures no revolution is possible.

On the contrary, the working class is very heterogeneous, which is something that petty bourgeois pseudo-radicalism cannot bear or understand. Thence the permanent tension for purges, real or imaginary. Because some members of the working class enjoy White privilege, or male privilege, petty bourgeois radicalism cannot reconcile this obvious fact with the also very obvious notion that those sectors are working class. It wants a pure, non-contradictory, absolutely homogeneous working class, that doesn't exist and cannot exist out of a petty bourgeois intellectual's imagination. And so it "reduces" the working class to its preferred "most exploited" segment - usually "productive" workers or Third World workers (most of the time smuggling the Third World bourgeoisie, or parts of it, in the process), but in the case of the OP, female non-productive workers...

Luís Henrique