Socialism and liberation of women

Will socialism immediatly liberate women of oppression? Or will it only gradually liberate women, but no fully until communism has been achieved?

I wonder because a book on "gender" mentioned that many feminist-marxists believe that socialism wont end the oppression of women.

Will socialism immediatly liberate women of oppression? Or will it only gradually liberate women, but no fully untill ommunism has been reached?

I wonder because a book on "gender" mentioned that many feminist-marxists believe that socialism wont end the oppression of women.

I believe that socialism will to the largest extent remove the material incentives of the oppression of women.
I think that social oppression of women will still have to be fought, obviously, and I won't put it down to time for it to die out itself; women will only become fully liberated when they have liberated themselves through social struggle. There will still be resistance to women's liberation simply because of the nature of social power relationships.

Yes, and maybe we should concider the fact that it will take some time before the socialist mode of production can finally dominate or remove the old repressive capitalist and/or semi-feudal mode of production.

I suppose I would fall into the ranks of feminst-marxists who think feminism won't end the oppression of women.

Of course, I'm not sure it will end religion either, which I'm sure puts me pretty far into the minority. .

I suspect that full social liberation of women will only happen by the late socialist stage before the transition into communism. Even when the socialist mode of production is prevalent, it will take time before oppressive social attitudes dissipate (racism, homophobia, sexism etc).

As Des mentioned, and I agree, socialism will probably end the material incentives involved in the oppression of women. However, women will only truly be liberated when they liberate themselves. As a male, it is my duty as a feminist to aid in this liberation as much as possible - to open the doors which I can open, but I cannot step through them.

Ultimately, true equality among the genders will involve:
- Men recognized their own tendencies towards sexism and eliminating said actions/motives in their daily lives.
- Women seizing power (social, political, economic) whenever possible and voicing themselves.
- The gradual dissolution of the dual gender system, perhaps of the gender system entirely.
- And, of course, the destruction of capitalism.

Rudimentary perhaps, but I've only got a couple on minutes and really enjoy this user-group, so keep discussing!

- August

The idea that all social oppression (which of course includes the oppression of women) can be reduced simply to class struggle is a significant flaw and error that many Marxists make in my opinion.

Of course capitalism gives many material incentives for the continuation of the oppression of women. However, as we know, ideology comes along with that as well as culture and social oppression. Thus we need to deal directly with the social and cultural oppression of women and gender roles.

If one believes that the USSR under Stalin was "true socialism" that itself would be evidence that socialism doesn't liberate women, as Stalin actually rolled back many of the gains that women got after the revolution (in part to appease the conservatives).

Granted not everyone believes that Stalin's Soviet Union was socialist, which leaves the question more open. But even in the Stalinist Socialist states of Europe, the position of women in society was much better than under capitalism in the West. But there were obviously still problems and the full liberation of women was not achieved. But it was closer, as feminism was often included in the official ideology of the state. That of course doesn't translate into action always, but it gives a different framework, but we need to look at what actions can help to eliminate the social oppression of women specifically, and not ignore it or let it get lost in the general worker struggle.