Socialist feminism rose in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of the
feminist movement
The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such ...
and
New Left
The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights ...
that focuses upon the interconnectivity of the
patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...
and
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
.
However, the ways in which women's private, domestic, and public roles in society has been conceptualized, or thought about, can be traced back to
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft (, ; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationsh ...
's ''
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
''A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects'' (1792), written by British philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), is one of the earliest works of feminist philosop ...
'' (1792) and
William Thompson's utopian socialist work in the 1800s.
Ideas about overcoming the patriarchy by coming together in female groups to talk about personal problems stem from Carol Hanisch. This was done in an essay in 1969 which later coined the term 'the personal is political.' This was also the time that second wave feminism started to surface which is really when socialist feminism kicked off. Socialist feminists argue that
liberation
Liberation or liberate may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War
* "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode
* "Liberation" (''K-9''), an episode
Gaming
* '' Liberati ...
can only be achieved by working to end both the
economic
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...
and
cultural
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.T ...
sources of women's
oppression
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination ...
.
Socialist feminism is a two-pronged theory that broadens
Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant of feminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property. According ...
's argument for the role of capitalism in the oppression of women and
radical feminism
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other ...
's theory of the role of
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most culture ...
and the patriarchy. Socialist feminists reject radical feminism's main claim that patriarchy is the only, or primary, source of oppression of women. Rather, Socialist feminists assert that women are oppressed due to their financial dependence on males. Women are subjects to male domination within capitalism due to an uneven balance in wealth. They see economic dependence as the driving force of women's subjugation to men. Further, Socialist feminists see women's liberation as a necessary part of a larger quest for social, economic, and political justice. Socialist feminists attempted to integrate the fight for women's liberation with the struggle against other oppressive systems based on race, class, sexual orientation, or economic status.
Socialist feminism draws upon many concepts found in
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
, such as a
historical materialist point of view, which means that they relate their ideas to the material and historical conditions of people's lives. Thus, Socialist feminists consider how the sexism and gendered division of labor of each historical era is determined by the economic system of the time. Those conditions are largely expressed through capitalist and patriarchal relations. Socialist feminists reject the
Orthodox Marxist notion that class and
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The form ...
are the only defining aspects of history and economic development.
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
asserted that when class oppression was overcome, gender oppression would vanish as well. According to Socialist feminists, this view of gender oppression as a sub-class of class oppression is naive, and much of the work of Socialist feminists has gone towards specifying how gender and class work together to create distinct forms of oppression and privilege for women and men of each class. For example, they observe that women's class status is generally derivative of her husband's class or occupational status, e.g. a secretary that marries her boss assumes his class status.
In 1972,
Socialist Feminism: A Strategy for the Women's Movement, which is believed to be the first publication to use the term socialist feminism, was published by the Hyde Park Chapter of the
Chicago Women's Liberation Union (
Heather Booth
Heather Booth (born December 15, 1945) is an American civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist who has been involved in activism for progressive causes. During her student years, she was active in both the civil rights movement ...
, Day Creamer, Susan Davis, Deb Dobbin, Robin Kaufman, and Tobey Klass).
Other socialist feminists, notably two long-lived American organizations
Radical Women
Radical Women (RW) is a socialist feminist grassroots activist organization affiliated with the Freedom Socialist Party. It has branches in Seattle, Washington, and Melbourne, Australia.
History
Radical Women emerged in Seattle from a "Free Uni ...
and the
Freedom Socialist Party, point to the classic Marxist writings of
'') and
August Bebel
Ferdinand August Bebel (22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 mer ...
(''Woman and Socialism'') as a powerful explanation of the link between gender oppression and class exploitation. In the decades following the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
, feminist writer and scholar Sarah Evans says that the socialist feminist movement has lost traction in the West due to a common narrative that associates socialism with totalitarianism and dogma.
Post-1970, the socialist feminist movement continued to grow. In "Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth & early Twentieth Centuries," by
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, social feminism is defined as "women who saw the root of sexual oppression in the existence of private property and who envisioned a radically transformed society in which man would exploit neither man nor women
" The equality described has to do with a transformed society in which both sexes are equal and given the same opportunities despite any physiological differences. Going forward it is described to need a total change in both the economic and social system to create the lasting improvement that the socialist feminism movement is looking for.
Kristen Ghodsee argues in her book ''
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism'' that free markets discriminate against women as big bosses consider women to be less reliable, weaker and more emotional which leads to the gender pay gap as they need financial incentives to employ them.
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
quotes "Capitalism acts on women as a continual bribe to enter into sex relations for money". He also claims many women take part in work within the household but this is invisible as far as the market is concerned.
Core issues
Intersectionality
Socialist feminist
Claudia Jones
Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and black nationa ...
worked to incorporate Black women, other working women of color, and their needs into
The Communist Party in the 1930s. This is because The Communist Party tended to default to issues of the white, male proletariat. Jones theoretical background rests at the intersection of
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
,
Black Nationalism
Black nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that black people are a race, and which seeks to develop and maintain a black racial and national identity. Black nationalist activism revolves aro ...
, and
Feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
and she is credited with theorizing ''
triple oppression
Triple oppression, also called double jeopardy, Jane Crow, or triple exploitation, is a theory developed by black socialists in the United States, such as Claudia Jones. The theory states that a connection exists between various types of oppressi ...
'', the concept that Black and Brown women experience oppression based on race, class, and gender. Jones further argues that white women, much less Black and Brown working women, would never be liberated if the structures of colonialism were not abolished and Black Nationalism were not adopted.
Feminist historian
Linda Gordon
Linda Gordon is an American feminist and historian. She lives in New York City and in Madison, Wisconsin. She won the Marfield Prize for ''Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits'', and the Antonovych Prize for ''Cossack Rebellions: Social Turmoil ...
asserts that socialist feminism is inherently intersectional, at least to a certain degree, because it takes into account both gender and class. Gordon says that because the foundation of socialist feminism rests on multiple axes, socialist feminism has a history of intersectionality that can be traced back to a period decades before Dr.
Kimberlé Crenshaw first articulated the concept of
intersectionality
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adva ...
in 1989. According to Gordon, socialist feminism of the 1980s presaged the concept of intersectionality by examining the overlapping structures that produce an individual's experience of oppression. Feminist scholar and women's studies professor
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy says that this broader analysis of societal structures began with socialist feminism and served as a catalyst for feminist scholarship. Kennedy says that many of the first women's studies programs were established by socialist feminist theorists.
Despite the claims of being a homogenizing philosophy that erases difference of identity, socialist feminism's inherent approach to difference of identities, through an analysis of economic exploitation of all, is both recognized and enhanced by Crenshaw's intersectionality.
Despite the alleged presence of intersectionality in socialist feminism, many feminists, particularly women of color, critique the movement for perceived deficiencies in regards to racial equity. In Kennedy's account of socialist feminism's impact on women's studies, she says that
a lack of Black voices in feminist academia contributed to whitewashing of women's studies programs and courses.
Kum-Kum Bhavani, a professor at University of California Santa Barbara, and Margaret Coulson, a socialist feminist scholar, assert that racism in the socialist feminist movement stems from the failure of many white feminists to recognize the institutional nature of racism. According to Bhavani and Coulson, race, class, and gender are inextricably linked, and the exclusion of any one of these factors from one's worldview would result in an incomplete understanding of the systems of privilege and oppression they say constitute our society. Kathryn Harriss, a feminist scholar from the United Kingdom, describes what she sees as the shortcomings of the socialist feminist movement of the 1980s in the United Kingdom. Harriss describes marginalized women's grievances with the
Women's Liberation Movement
The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
. She says many lesbian women criticized the movement for its domination by heterosexual feminists who perpetuated
heterosexism
Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of female–male sexuality and relationships. According to Elizabeth Cramer, it can include the belief that all people are or should be heterosexual and that heterosexua ...
in the movement. Similarly, Black women asserted that they were deprived a voice due to the overwhelming majority of white women in the WLM advocating widely held views regarding violence against women, the family, and reproductive rights that failed to account for the distinct struggles faced by women of color.
Motherhood and the private sphere
Theorists
Anna Wheeler and
William Thompson, in ''The Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery'', published in 1825, describe how women's work contributes to capitalism's continuance. They assert that cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and all other activities that are deemed domestic work do constitute as actual work. Wheeler and Thompson assert that people, or labor, are needed for capitalism to function and that without women producing children as well as fulfilling these domestic activities, capitalism would fail.
Flora Tristian, French socialist activist, in her piece "Why I mention Women" published in 1843, argued that women and girls do not receive education because they are tasked with domestic duties. Girls and women, according to Tristan, thus cannot obtain gainful employment outside of the domestic sphere due to their neglect in their education and forced preoccupation with cleaning, cooking, and tending to children.
Socialist feminists highlight how motherhood and the gendered division of labor grows "naturally" from women's role as mothers, is the source of women's exclusion from the public sphere, and creates women's economic dependence on men. They assert that there is nothing natural about the gendered division of labor and show that the expectation that women perform all or most
reproductive labor, i.e. labor associated with birthing and raising children but also the cleaning, cooking, and other tasks necessary to support human life, deny women the capacity to participate fully in economic activity outside the home. In order to free themselves from the conditions of work as a mother and housekeeper, socialist feminists such as
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (; née Perkins; July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935), also known by her first married name Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was an American humanist, novelist, writer, lecturer, advocate for social reform, and eugenicist. She w ...
saw the professionalization of housework as key. This would be done by hiring professional nannies and housekeepers to take the load of domestic work away from the woman in the house. Perkins Gilman also recommended the redesign of homes in ways that would maximize their potential for creativity and leisure for women as well as men, i.e. emphasizing the need for rooms like studios and studies and eliminating kitchens and dining rooms. These changes would necessitate the communalization of meal preparation and consumption outside the home and free women from their burden of providing meals on a house-by-house scale.
Toxic Masculinity
Socialist feminists claim that toxic masculinity is not only damaging to men but also women and non-binary people. Toxic masculinity is the idea that men should behave in a specific way, most commonly these behaviors are strong and with hold emotion (Salam, Maya). For example, in Latinx culture toxic masculinity is referred to as "Machismo" (FEM Magazine). Machismo keeps men in their designated masculine roles while women are given the submissive role. Machismo enforces the idea that men are the superior gender and women are second class citizens. The pressure on men to adhere to gender roles and in particular a gender binary feeds to the crisis of male suicide, rape culture and the normalization of violence. Socialist feminist politics aims to say this normalized behavior is just another part of gender construction the patriarchy has just created to harm women.
Toxic masculinity can be observed in every day life such as "locker-room talk" (FEM Magazine). Locker-room talk is an excuse for men to spew comments about women that are most commonly sexual. Because these men are in a certain environment, this behavior is normalized. However, locker-room talk is extremely harmful especially because it enforces the gender hierarchy that socialist feminism aims to diminish. Another example in which exemplifies toxic masculinity is the phrase "boys will be boys". This term is usually used to justify an action of a male that is rude or inappropriate which in turn harms women because it makes exceptions for men to behavior however they please. These examples enforce the behaviors that are sexist and give a false idea to men that they are allowed to treat women however they want.
Toxic masculinity has become a more popular issue to discuss among feminists due to the increase of popular male influencers that promote the behaviors and mindsets of toxic masculinity. Males will go on social media platforms such as Tiktok, and share their harmful ideas about how women should be behaving. This has become a major issue among feminists today, and trends on Tiktok have been curated to combat toxic masculinity. For example the #97% trend was created for women to share their stores about sexual harassment. 97% of women will experience some form of sexual harassment in their lifetime, and therefore this trend shows that women suffer immensely at the hands of men.
Gender pay gap
Socialist feminist theories have been used to highlight the economic disparities amongst women on a global scale. Contemporary socialist feminists have shifted their concerns from uncompensated house labor to the insufficient pay women receive for work done outside the home. Although some women have secured high-paying male-dominated jobs, most find work in service, clerical, agriculture, and light industrial work.
Feminist philosopher
Rosemarie Tong presents three common reasons for the gender wage gap: "the concentration of women in low-paying, female-dominated jobs; the high percentage of women who work part-time rather than full-time; and outright wage discrimination against women."
The gender pay gap has been produced and sustained through patriarchal and capitalist conditions. The feminization and devaluation of service-based jobs have subjected women to low wages. The lack of access women have to alternative employment which may harbor higher pay, has increased the wage gap. Households that cannot hire additional aid for domestic duties limit the hours women are able to work outside their homes—having to do both outside and inside labor results in the uncompensated "second shift", expanding the gap. Women's work is considered "secondary wages" under patriarchy.
Even women who can work full-time and do the same jobs as men are not paid equally. Tong claims that "women are paid less simply because they are ''women,'' a very disturbing thought to say the least."
The gender pay gap is an issue that is especially prevalent in the United States. In ''Feminist Policy and Human Nature'',
Allison Jagger describes the biological differences between women and men that would affect job performance namely "Most evidently, women's reproductive functions may mean that women have needs for pregnancy leave, maternity services and arrangements for easy access to their nursing babies."
This fact insists that it is not only important but it is necessary for the workplace to incorporate this fairly into contracts. Forcing women to take unpaid maternity leave goes into the issue of the gender wage gap since women have reproductive needs that go far beyond men but are not compensated for that.
In looking at the amount of unpaid labor that women have worked over centuries is a major issue regarding unpaid labor in the house and in childcare. Women in capitalism are not compensated for their role in the household including housework, cooking, cleaning, childcare and the cost of carrying and delivering a child. "Contracts for husbands to pay their wives for domestic services have been found invalid by the courts. If housewives do not like the conditions of their work they are hardly free to move to another household; instead, they are tied by an elaborate legal contract which can only be broken on special grounds. Marriage is, in fact, a relation that is remarkably similar to the feudal relation of vassalage; it provides a means for exchanging support and protection from the husband in return for services and devotion from the wife." The idea of a contract for husbands to pay their wives is an exaggerated circumstance yet for decades it was the expectation that the woman would be considered a housewife and the man would be the breadwinner and make decisions for the family. This idea of women's unpaid labor is more than simply the housework and childcare services; it's the fact that the labor housewives did was considered compulsory instead of labor. This is the type of thinking and mentality that the socialist feminism and women who want more of these
In 2017, there was an international women's strike protesting the unfair treatment of women in today's society. The strike included over 50 countries and occurred on international women's day. The strikes in each country were focused on an injustice in that specific country. In the United States women protested by not working or spending money to show how much influence women have.
Sub-theories of socialist feminism
Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism, also referred to as anarchist feminism, is a system of analysis which combines the principles and power analysis of anarchist theory with feminism. Anarcha-feminism closely resembles intersectional feminism. Anarcha-feminism ...
, also called anarchist feminism and anarcho-feminism, combines
anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
with
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
. It generally views
patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...
as a manifestation of involuntary
coercive hierarchy that should be replaced by
decentralized free association. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The form ...
, and the
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...
struggle against the
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
. In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice versa.
L. Susan Brown
''The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism, and Anarchism'' is a 1993 political science book by L. Susan Brown. She begins by noting that liberalism and anarchism seem at times to share common components, but on other occasions ...
claims that "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist".
Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary s ...
opposed
patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...
and the way the law "subjects
omen
An omen (also called ''portent'') is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was commonly believed in ancient times, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages fr ...
to the absolute domination of the man". He argued that "
ual rights must belong to men and women" so that women can "become independent and be free to forge their own way of life". Bakunin foresaw the end of "the
authoritarian
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic vot ...
juridical family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
" and "the full sexual freedom of women."
[An Anarchist FAQ]
What is Anarcha-Feminism?
Anarcha-feminism began with late 19th and early 20th century authors and theorists such as anarchist feminists
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
,
Voltairine de Cleyre and
Lucy Parsons
Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons (born Lucia Carter; 1851 – March 7, 1942) was an American labor organizer, radical socialist and anarcho-communist. She is remembered as a powerful orator. Parsons entered the radical movement following her marriag ...
. In the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
, an anarcha-feminist group, (Free Women) linked to the , organized to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas, while the prominent Spanish anarchist and feminist leader
Federica Montseny
Frederica Montseny i Mañé (; 1905–1994) was a Catalan Anarchism, anarchist and intellectual who served as Ministry of Health (Spain), Minister of Health and Social Assistance in the Government of the Second Spanish Republic, Spanish Republi ...
held that the "emancipation of women would lead to a quicker realization of the social revolution" and that "the revolution against sexism would have to come from intellectual and militant 'future-women.' According to this Nietzschean concept of Federica Montseny's, women could realize through art and literature the need to revise their own roles."
In Argentina,
Virginia Bolten
Virginia Bolten (26 December 1870 – 1960) was an Argentine journalist as well as an anarchist and feminist activist of German descent. A gifted orator, she is considered as a pioneer in the struggle for women's rights in Argentina. She was de ...
is responsible for the publication of a newspaper called ' (''The Woman's Voice''), which was published nine times in Rosario between 8 January 1896 and 1 January 1897, and was revived, briefly, in 1901. A similar paper with the same name was reportedly published later in
Montevideo
Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...
, which suggests that Bolten may also have founded and edited it after her deportation.
"La Voz de la Mujer described itself as "dedicated to the advancement of Communist Anarchism". Its central theme was that of the multiple nature of women's oppression. An editorial asserted, "We believe that in present-day society nothing and nobody has a more wretched situation than unfortunate women." Women, they said, were doubly oppressed—by bourgeois society and by men. Its feminism can be seen from its attack on marriage and upon male power over women. Its contributors, like anarchist feminists elsewhere, developed a concept of oppression that focused on gender oppression. Marriage was a bourgeois institution which restricted women's freedom, including their sexual freedom. Marriages entered into without love, fidelity maintained through fear rather than desire, oppression of women by men they hated—all were seen as symptomatic of the coercion implied by the marriage contract. It was this alienation of the individual's will that the anarchist feminists deplored and sought to remedy, initially through free love and then, and more thoroughly, through social revolution."
was an
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...
women's organization in
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
that aimed to empower working class women. It was founded in 1936 by
Lucía Sánchez Saornil
Lucía Sánchez Saornil (1895–1970), was a lesbian Spanish poet, militant anarchist and feminist. She is best known as one of the founders (alongside Mercedes Comaposada and Amparo Poch Y Gascón) of ''Mujeres Libres'' and served in the Conf ...
,
Mercedes Comaposada and
Amparo Poch y Gascón
Amparo Poch y Gascón (15 October 1902 – 15 April 1968) was a Spanish anarchist,
pacifist, doctor, and activist in the years leading up to and during the Spanish Civil War.
Poch y Gascón was born in Zaragoza.Lola Campos, ''Mujeres aragones ...
and had approximately 30,000 members. The organization was based on the idea of a "double struggle" for
women's liberation
The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
and
social revolution
Social revolutions are sudden changes in the structure and nature of society. These revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed society, economy, culture, philosophy, and technology along with but more than just the political syst ...
and argued that the two objectives were equally important and should be pursued in parallel. In order to gain mutual support, they created networks of women anarchists. Flying day-care centres were set up in efforts to involve more women in union activities.
Lucía Sánchez Saornil
Lucía Sánchez Saornil (1895–1970), was a lesbian Spanish poet, militant anarchist and feminist. She is best known as one of the founders (alongside Mercedes Comaposada and Amparo Poch Y Gascón) of ''Mujeres Libres'' and served in the Conf ...
, was a
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
poet, militant
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...
and
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
. She is best known as one of the founders of ''
Mujeres Libres
Mujeres Libres ( en, Free Women, italic=yes) was an anarchist women's organisation that existed in Spain from 1936 to 1939. Founded by Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Mercedes Comaposada, and Amparo Poch y Gascón as a small women's group in Madrid, it ...
'' and served in the
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo ( en, National Confederation of Labor; CNT) is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions, which was long affiliated with the International Workers' Association (AIT). When working wi ...
(CNT) and
Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista
Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista ( en, International Antifascist Solidarity, italic=yes), SIA, was a humanitarian organisation that existed in the Second Spanish Republic. It was politically aligned with the anarcho-syndicalist movement com ...
(SIA). By 1919, she had been published in a variety of journals, including ''Los Quijotes'', ''Tableros'', ''Plural'', ''Manantial'' and ''La Gaceta Literaria''. Working under a male
pen name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen na ...
, she was able to explore
lesbian
A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...
themes at a time when homosexuality was criminalized and subject to
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
and punishment. Writing in anarchist publications such as ''Earth and Freedom'', the ''White Magazine'' and ''
Workers' Solidarity'', Lucía outlined her perspective as a feminist.
In the past decades, two films have been produced about anarcha-feminism. ''
Libertarias
''Libertarias'' (English: ''Libertarians'') is a Spanish historical drama made in 1996. It was written and directed by Vicente Aranda.
In 1936, Maria (Ariadna Gil), a young nun is recruited by Pilar (Ana Belén), a militant feminist, into an an ...
'' is a historical drama made in 1996 about the Spanish anarcha-feminist organization
Mujeres Libres
Mujeres Libres ( en, Free Women, italic=yes) was an anarchist women's organisation that existed in Spain from 1936 to 1939. Founded by Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Mercedes Comaposada, and Amparo Poch y Gascón as a small women's group in Madrid, it ...
. In 2010, the Argentinian film ''Ni dios, ni patrón, ni marido'' was released which is centered on the story of anarcha-feminist
Virginia Bolten
Virginia Bolten (26 December 1870 – 1960) was an Argentine journalist as well as an anarchist and feminist activist of German descent. A gifted orator, she is considered as a pioneer in the struggle for women's rights in Argentina. She was de ...
and her publishing of ''La Voz de la Mujer''.
Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant of feminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property. According ...
is a sub-type of
feminist theory
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist ...
which focuses on the social institutions of
private property
Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and personal property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or ...
and
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
to explain and criticize gender inequality and oppression. According to Marxist feminists, private property gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, political and domestic struggle between the sexes, and is the root of women's oppression in the current social context.
Marxist feminism's foundation is laid by
'' (1884). He argues that a woman's subordination is not a result of her biological disposition but of social relations, and that men's efforts to achieve their demands for control of women's labor and sexual faculties have gradually solidified and become institutionalized in the
nuclear family
A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the larger ...
. Through a Marxist
historical
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
perspective, Engels analyzes the widespread social phenomena associated with female sexual morality, such as fixation on
virginity
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
and sexual purity, incrimination and violent punishment of women who commit
adultery
Adultery (from Latin ''adulterium'') is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal ...
, and demands that women be submissive to their husbands. Ultimately, Engels traces these phenomena to the recent development of exclusive control of private property by the patriarchs of the rising slaveowner class in the ancient mode of production, and the attendant desire to ensure that their inheritance is passed only to their own offspring: chastity and fidelity are rewarded, says Engels, because they guarantee exclusive access to the sexual and reproductive faculty of women possessed by men from the property-owning class.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both
Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin (; ; ''née'' Eißner ; 5 July 1857 – 20 June 1933) was a German Marxist theorist, communist activist, and advocate for women's rights.
Until 1917, she was active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany. She then joined the ...
and
Eleanor Marx
Jenny Julia Eleanor Marx (16 January 1855 – 31 March 1898), sometimes called Eleanor Aveling and known to her family as Tussy, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a socialist activist who sometimes worked as a ...
were against the
demonization
Demonization or demonisation is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally by the monotheistic and henotheistic ones. The term has since been expanded to refer to any characterization of indi ...
of men and supported a
proletariat
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...
revolution that would overcome as many male–female inequalities as possible.
In this way, a politic of solidarity was seen as the means to enact a socialist platform. As their movement already had the most radical demands in women's equality, most Marxist leaders, including Clara Zetkin and
Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (russian: Алекса́ндра Миха́йловна Коллонта́й, née Domontovich, Домонто́вич; – 9 March 1952) was a Russian revolutionary, politician, diplomat and Theoretician ...
, counterposed Marxism against bourgeois feminism, rather than trying to combine them.
Orthodox Marxists argue that most Marxist forerunners claimed by feminists or Marxist feminists including Clara Zetkin
[Zetkin, Clar]
Lenin on the Women's Question
/ref> and Alexandra Kollontai[Kollontai, Alexandr]
1909 were against capitalist forms of feminism. They agreed with the main Marxist movement that feminism was a bourgeois ideology counterposed to Marxism and against the working class. Instead of feminism, the Marxists supported the more radical political program of liberating women through socialist revolution, with a special emphasis on work among women and in materially changing their conditions after the revolution. Orthodox Marxists view the later attempt to combine Marxism and feminism as a liberal creation of academics and reformist leftists who want to make alliances with bourgeois feminists. For instance, Alexandra Kollontai wrote in 1909: For what reason, then, should the woman worker seek a union with the bourgeois feminists? Who, in actual fact, would stand to gain in the event of such an alliance? Certainly not the woman worker.
Kollontai was a prominent leader in the Bolshevik party in Russia, defending her stance on how capitalism had shaped a rather displeasing and oppressing position for females that are part of its system. She recognized and emphasized the difference between the proletariat and bourgeoise women in society, though it has been expressed by Kollontai's thought that all women under a capitalist economy were those of oppression. One of the reasons Kollontai had a strict opposition of the bourgeois women and proletariat or working-class women to have an alliance is because the bourgeois was still inherently using the women of the working class to their advantage, and therefore prolonging the injustice that women in a capitalist society are treated. She theorized that a well-balanced economic utopia was ingrained in the need for gender equality, but never identified as a feminist, though she greatly impacted the feminist movement within the ideology of feminism within and throughout socialism. Kollontai had a harsh stance on the feminist movement and believed feminist to be naïve in only addressing gender as the reason inequality was happening under a capitalist rule. She believed that the true issue of inequality was that of the division of classes that led to the immediate production of gender struggles, just how men in the structure of the classes shown a harsh divide as well. Kollontai analyzed the theories and historical implications of Marxism as a background for her ideologies, which she addressed the most profound obstacle for society to address be that of the gender inequality, which could never be eradicated under a capitalist society. As capitalism is inherently for private profit, Kollontai's argument toward the eradication of women suffrage within society under a capitalist rule also delved into how women cannot and will not be abolished under a capitalist society because of the ways in which women's "free labor" has been utilized. Kollontai criticized the feminist movement as also neglecting to emphasize how the working class, while trying to care and provide for a family and being paid less than that of men, was still expected to cater to and provide for the bourgeois or upper-class women who were still oppressing the working-class women by utilizing their stereotypical type of work. Kollontai also faced harsh scrutiny in being a woman leader in a time of a male dominated political stance during the Bolshevik movement. In keeping with her unusual position during her time, she also kept diaries of her plans and ideas on moving towards a more "modern" society where socialism would help uproot that of capitalism and the oppression that different groups of gender and class had been facing. Kollontai was a great example of a woman who was indeed still oppressed by the times and was removed from her own ideologies and progress for the mere fact she was a woman in times where being so in a powerful position was frowned upon and "great women" were only allowed to be placed alongside "great men" in history. Kollontai's most pertinent presence in feminist socialism was her stance on reproductive rights and her view on women being allowed the same luxuries that men have in finding love not only to be stable and supported, and to also be able to make their own money and be secure on their own two feet. She focused her attention on opening up society's allowance of women's liberation from a capitalist and bourgeois control and emphasizing women's suffrage in the working-class.
A pioneering Marxist and feminist, Mary Inman of the Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
challenged the party's orthodox position by arguing that the home is a center of production and housewives carry out productive labor. Her writings include ''In Woman's Defense'' (1940) and ''Woman-Power'' (1942). Inman's work was at first warmly received by several top Communist women leaders, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (August 7, 1890 – September 5, 1964) was a labor leader, activist, and feminist who played a leading role in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Flynn was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union ...
and Ella Reeve Bloor
Ella Reeve "Mother" Bloor (July 8, 1862 – August 10, 1951) was an American labor organizer and long-time activist in the socialist and communist movements. Bloor is best remembered as one of the top-ranking female functionaries in the Communis ...
, but the CPUSA leadership began an official attack on Inman's work for purported ideological deviation in 1941. A series of articles written against Inman's ideas appeared in the party's literary monthly, ''The New Masses
''New Masses'' (1926–1948) was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA. It succeeded both ''The Masses'' (1912–1917) and ''The Liberator''. ''New Masses'' was later merged into '' Masses & Mainstream'' (19 ...
,'' and the polemic was extended with the publication of a pamphlet by A. Landy, ''Marxism and the Woman Question.''
Radical Women
Radical Women (RW) is a socialist feminist grassroots activist organization affiliated with the Freedom Socialist Party. It has branches in Seattle, Washington, and Melbourne, Australia.
History
Radical Women emerged in Seattle from a "Free Uni ...
, a major Marxist-feminist organization, bases its theory on Marx' and Engels' analysis that the enslavement of women was the first building block of an economic system based on private property. They contend that elimination of the capitalist profit-driven economy will remove the motivation for sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression.
Later theoretical works
Zillah R. Eisenstein
''Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism
''Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism'' is a 1978 anthology about socialist feminism edited by Zillah R. Eisenstein.
The sociologist Rhonda F. Levine cites the work as a "superb discussion of the socialist-feminist positio ...
'' was a collection of essays assembled and anthologized by Zillah R. Eisenstein
Zillah R. Eisenstein is an American political theorist and gender studies scholar and Emerita Professor of the Department of Politics at Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York. Specializing in political and feminist theory; class, sex, and race politic ...
in 1978.
Sociologist and academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
Rhonda F. Levine cites Eisenstein's work as a "superb discussion of the socialist-feminist position" in her anthology ''Enriching the Sociological Imagination: How Radical Sociology Changed the Discipline''.[Levine, Rhonda F. ''Legacies of the insurgent sociologist'' in ''Enriching the Sociological Imagination: How Radical Sociology Changed the Discipline'', Brill Press, 2004, 978-9004139923, p8] Levine goes on to describe the book as "one of the earliest statements of how a Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
class analysis
Class analysis is research in sociology, politics and economics from the point of view of the stratification of the society into dynamic classes. It implies that there is no universal or uniform social outlook, rather that there are fundamental co ...
can combine with a feminist analysis
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male poi ...
of patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...
to produce a theory of how gender and class intersect as systems of inequality".
Eisenstein defines the term 'capitalist patriarchy' as "descriptive of the 'mutually reinforcing dialectical relationship between capitalist class structure and hierarchical sexual structuring."
She believes: "The recognition of women as a sexual class lays the subversive quality of feminism for liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
because liberalism is premised upon women's exclusion from public life on this very class basis. The demand for real equality of women with men, if taken to its logical conclusion, would dislodge the patriarchal
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of Dominance hierarchy, dominance and Social privilege, privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical Anthropology, anthropological term for families or clans controll ...
structure necessary to a liberal society."
Donna Haraway and "A Cyborg Manifesto"
In 1985, Donna Haraway
Donna J. Haraway is an American Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies. Sh ...
published the essay "A Cyborg Manifesto
"A Cyborg Manifesto" is an essay written by Donna Haraway and published in 1985 in the '' Socialist Review (US)''. In it, the concept of the cyborg represents a rejection of rigid boundaries, notably those separating "human" from "animal" and "hu ...
: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" in ''Socialist Review
The ''Socialist Review'' is a monthly magazine of the British Socialist Workers Party. As well as being printed it is also published online.
Original publication: 1950–1962
The ''Socialist Review'' was set up in 1950 as the main publication o ...
''. Although most of Haraway's earlier work was focused on emphasizing the masculine bias in scientific culture, she has also contributed greatly to feminist narratives of the twentieth century. For Haraway, the Manifesto came at a critical juncture at which feminists, in order to have any real-world significance, had to acknowledge their situatedness within what she terms the "informatics of domination".[Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." Stanford University. .] Feminists must, she proclaims, unite behind "an ironic dream of a common language for women in the integrated circuit". Women were no longer on the outside along a hierarchy of privileged binaries but rather deeply imbued, exploited by and complicit within networked hegemony, and had to form their politics as such.
According to Haraway's manifesto, "there is nothing about being female that naturally binds women together into a unified category. There is not even such a state as 'being
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
' female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices" (p. 155). A cyborg does not require a stable, essentialist identity, argues Haraway, and feminists should consider creating coalitions based on "affinity" instead of identity. To ground her argument, Haraway analyzes the phrase "women of colour", suggesting it as one possible example of affinity politics. Using a term coined by theorist Chela Sandoval, Haraway writes that "oppositional consciousness" is comparable with a cyborg politics, because rather than identity it stresses how affinity comes as a result of "otherness, difference, and specificity" (p. 156).
Donna Haraway is the author of A Cyborg Manifesto
"A Cyborg Manifesto" is an essay written by Donna Haraway and published in 1985 in the '' Socialist Review (US)''. In it, the concept of the cyborg represents a rejection of rigid boundaries, notably those separating "human" from "animal" and "hu ...
and it describes a dystopian future in which cyborgs represent the ideal way society would treat people in fixing the way society separates people by gender, race and religion. In her extensive manifesto written in 1991, Haraway explains about a political myth as a "cyborg" who represents the ideal way someone would be treated in society. Haraway's manifesto describes the cyborg as "A cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction. The international women's movements have constructed 'women's experience', as well as uncovered or discovered this crucial collective object. This experience is a fiction and fact of the most crucial, political kind" Defined as a post-gender world, this cyborg represents the idea that there can by a dystopian future in which gender, religion and race are not dismissed but are not factors in how members of this society treat each other. This manifesto is consistently mentioning the idea of feminism and how feminists aren't looking for more or less than men but to make the playing field equal. This also goes to the socialist feminism point that without a massive change in society the feminist won't be able to get lasting change.
Autonomist feminism
Leopoldina Fortunati is the author of ''The Arcane of Reproduction: Housework, Prostitution, Labor and Capital'' (''L'arcano della riproduzione: Casalinghe, prostitute, operai e capitale''), a feminist critique of Marx. Fortunati is the author of several books, including ''The Arcane of Reproduction'' (Autonomedia, 1995) and ''I mostri nell'immaginario'' (Angeli, 1995), and is the editor of ''Gli Italiani al telefono'' (Angeli, 1995) and ''Telecomunicando in Europa'' (1998), and with J. Katz and R. Riccini ''Mediating the Human Body. Technology, Communication and Fashion'' (2003). Her influences include Mariarosa Dalla Costa
Mariarosa Dalla Costa (born 1943 in Treviso) is an Italian autonomist feminist and co-author of the classic ''The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community'', with Selma James. This text launched the "domestic labour debate" by re-defining ...
, Antonio Negri
Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933) is an Italian Spinozistic- Marxist sociologist and political philosopher, best known for his co-authorship of ''Empire'' and secondarily for his work on Spinoza.
Born in Padua, he became a political ...
, and Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
.
Silvia Federici
Silvia Federici (born in Parma, Italy, 1942) is a scholar, teacher, and feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. She al ...
is an Italian scholar, teacher, and activist from the radical autonomist
Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendenci ...
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
Marxist tradition. Federici's best known work, ''Caliban
Caliban ( ), son of the witch Sycorax, is an important character in William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''.
His character is one of the few Shakespearean figures to take on a life of its own "outside" Shakespeare's own work: as Russell ...
and the Witch
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of Magic (supernatural), magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In Middle Ages, medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually ...
: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation'', expands on the work of Leopoldina Fortunati. In it, she argues against Karl Marx's claim that primitive accumulation
In Marxian economics and preceding theories,Perelman, p. 25 (ch. 2) the problem of primitive accumulation (also called previous accumulation, original accumulation) of capital concerns the origin of capital, and therefore of how class distinct ...
is a necessary precursor for capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
. Instead, she posits that primitive accumulation is a fundamental characteristic of capitalism itself—that capitalism, in order to perpetuate itself, requires a constant infusion of expropriated capital.
Federici connects this expropriation to women's unpaid labour, both connected to reproduction and otherwise, which she frames as a historical precondition to the rise of a capitalist economy predicated upon wage labor. Related to this, she outlines the historical struggle for the commons
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons c ...
and the struggle for communalism
Communalism may refer to:
* Communalism (Bookchin), a theory of government in which autonomous communities form confederations
* , a historical method that follows the development of communities
* Communalism (South Asia), violence across ethnic ...
. Instead of seeing capitalism as a liberatory defeat of feudalism
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
, Federici interprets the ascent of capitalism as a reactionary move to subvert the rising tide of communalism and to retain the basic social contract.
She situates the institutionalization of rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
and prostitution
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
, as well as the heretic
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
and witch-hunt
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The Witch trials in the early modern period, classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and European Colon ...
trials, burnings, and torture at the center of a methodical subjugation of women and appropriation of their labor. This is tied into colonial expropriation and provides a framework for understanding the work of the International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...
, World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
, and other proxy institutions as engaging in a renewed cycle of primitive accumulation, by which everything held in common—from water, to seeds, to our genetic code—becomes privatized in what amounts to a new round of enclosures
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
.
Material feminism
Material feminism highlights capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
and patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...
as central in understanding women's oppression. The theory centers on social change rather than seeking transformation within the capitalist system. Jennifer Wicke, defines materialist feminism as "a feminism that insists on examining the material conditions under which social arrangements, including those of gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most culture ...
hierarchy, develop .. terialist feminism avoids seeing this gender hierarchy as the effect of a singular ..patriarchy and instead gauges the web of social and psychic relations that make up a material, historical moment". She states that "materialist feminism argues that material conditions of all sorts play a vital role in the social production of gender and assays the different ways in which women collaborate and participate in these productions". Material feminism also considers how women and men of various races and ethnicities are kept in their lower economic status due to an imbalance of power that privileges those who already have privilege, thereby protecting the status quo.
The term material feminism was first used in 1975 by Christine Delphy
Christine Delphy (born 1941) is a French feminist sociologist, writer and theorist. Known for pioneering materialist feminism, she co-founded the French women's liberation movement (Mouvement de Libération des Femmes, or MLF) in 1970 and the j ...
. The current concept has its roots in socialist and Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant of feminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property. According ...
; Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, editors of ''Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives'', describe material feminism as the "conjuncture of several discourses—historical materialism
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
, Marxist and radical feminism
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other ...
, as well as postmodernist and psychoanalytic theories of meaning and subjectivity". The term materialist feminism emerged in the late 1970s and is associated with key thinkers, such as Rosemary Hennessy
Rosemary Hennessy (2 March 1950) is an American academic and socialist feminist. She is a Professor of English and Director of the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Rice University. She has been a part of the faculty at Rice ...
, Stevi Jackson
Stevi Jackson (born 23 June 1951), is an academic and writer working in the field of gender and sexuality. She has been Professor of Women's studies at the University of York, England since 1998,University of York, 2014 and is Director of the Un ...
and Christine Delphy. Rosemary Hennessy traces the history of Materialist Feminism in the work of British and French feminists who preferred the term materialist feminism to Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant of feminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property. According ...
. In their view, Marxism had to be altered to be able to explain the sexual division of labor. Marxism was inadequate to the task because of its class bias and focus on production. Feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
was also problematic due to its essentialist and idealist concept of woman. Material feminism then emerged as a positive substitute to both Marxism and feminism. Material feminism partly originated from the work of French feminists, particularly Christine Delphy. She argued that materialism is the only theory of history that views oppression
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination ...
as a basic reality of women's lives. Delphy states that this is why women and all oppressed groups need materialism to investigate their situation. For Delphy, "to start from oppression defines a materialist approach, oppression is a materialist concept". She states that the domestic mode of production was the site of patriarchal exploitation and the material basis of the oppression of women. Delphy further argued that marriage
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...
is a labor contract that gives men the right to exploit women. ''The Grand Domestic Revolution'' by Dolores Hayden
Dolores Hayden is an American professor emerita of architecture, urbanism, and American studies at Yale University. She is an urban historian, architect, author, and poet. Hayden has made innovative contributions to the understanding of the soc ...
is a reference. Hayden describes Material feminism at that time as reconceptualizing the relationship between the private household space and public space by presenting collective options to take the "burden" off women in regard to housework, cooking
Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to Outline of food preparation, prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric ...
, and other traditional female domestic jobs.
Ecological feminism or Ecofeminism
In the 1970s, the impacts of post-World War II technological development led many women to organise against issues from the toxic pollution of neighbourhoods to nuclear weapons testing on indigenous lands. This grassroots activism emerging across every continent was both intersectional and cross-cultural in its struggle to protect the conditions for reproduction of Life on Earth. Known as ecofeminism, the political relevance of this movement continues to expand. Classic statements in its literature include Carolyn Merchant, USA, ''The Death of Nature
''The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution'' is a 1980 book by historian Carolyn Merchant. It is one of the first books to explore the Scientific Revolution through the lenses of feminism and ecology. It can be seen as an ...
''; Maria Mies, Germany, ''Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale''; Vandana Shiva, India, ''Staying Alive: Women Ecology and Development''; Ariel Salleh, Australia, ''Ecofeminism as Politics: nature, Marx, and the postmodern''. Ecofeminism involves a profound critique of Eurocentric epistemology, science, economics, and culture. It is increasingly prominent as a feminist response to the contemporary breakdown of the planetary ecosystem.
Praxis
Socialist feminists believe that women's liberation must be sought in conjunction with the social and economic justice of all people. They see the fight to end male supremacy as key to social justice, but not the only issue, rather one of many forms of oppression that are mutually reinforcing.
Women's liberation in real socialism
In the forty years of socialism in East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, the German Democratic Republic
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
(GDR), many feminist demands were implemented:
* While women in the West still fought for a liberal abortion law, abortion was allowed up to the 12th week since 1972 and contraception was available to anyone.
* While women in the West still had no access to the better paid male dominated professions, women in the GDR were encouraged to do so and promoted to further studies.
* Children were taken care of by kindergarten
Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...
and pre-kindergarten
Pre-kindergarten (also called Pre-K or PK) is a voluntary classroom-based preschool program for children below the age of five in the United States, Canada, Turkey and Greece (when kindergarten starts). It may be delivered through a preschool ...
, a service women in West Germany are still waiting for and the main obstacle to equal employment opportunities.
Nevertheless, feminists of West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
remained skeptical as they lived door to door with this real socialism. Cäcilia Rentmeister
Cäcilia (Cillie) Rentmeister (born 1948 in Berlin) is a German art historian, culture scientist and researcher of cultural conditions of women and of gender. In addition to studying the different realities in which men and women are living, she h ...
, who had personal contacts to friends and relatives in East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...
analyzed in 1974 women's situation in the GDR in an article.
Chicago Women's Liberation Union
The Chicago Women's Liberation Union (CWLU) was formed in 1969 after a founding conference in Palatine, Illinois. Naomi Weisstein
Naomi Weisstein (October 16, 1939 – March 26, 2015) was an American cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, author and professor of psychology. Weisstein's main area of work was based in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. She consider ...
, Vivian Rothstein Vivian Leburg Rothstein (born 1946) is a labor rights activist, feminist, and community organizer. She was instrumental in the civil rights movement and the peace movement. She also cofounded the Chicago Women's Liberation Union.
Early life
Vivi ...
, Heather Booth
Heather Booth (born December 15, 1945) is an American civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist who has been involved in activism for progressive causes. During her student years, she was active in both the civil rights movement ...
, and Ruth Surgal were among the founders. The main goal of the organization was to end gender inequality and sexism, which the CWLU defined as "the systematic keeping down of women for the benefit of people in power". The purpose statement of the organization expressed that "Changing women's position in society isn't going to be easy. It's going to require changes in expectations, jobs, child care, and education. It's going to change the distribution of power over the rest of us to all people sharing power and sharing in the decisions that affect our lives." The CWLU spent almost a decade organizing to challenge both sexism and class oppression. The group is best known for the 1972 pamphlet
Socialist Feminism: A Strategy for the Women's Movement
, by the Hyde Park Chapter of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union. Nationally circulated, the publication is believed to be the first to use the term socialist feminism.
The CWLU was organized as an umbrella organization to unite a wide range of work groups and discussion groups. A representative from each work group went to monthly meetings of the Steering Committee to reach consensus on organizational policy and strategy. They addressed a myriad of issues including women's health, reproductive rights, education, economic rights, visual arts and music, sports, lesbian liberation, and more.
Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell
Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (W.I.T.C.H.) was the name of many related but independent feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
groups formed in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
during 1968 and 1969 and who were important in the development of socialist feminism. The name W.I.T.C.H. was also sometimes expanded as "Women Inspired to Tell their Collective History", "Women Interested in Toppling Consumer Holidays", and many other variations.
There was no centralized organization; each W.I.T.C.H. group was formed independently by women inspired by the ideas and example of previous actions. Their activism mainly took the form of "zaps", a form of guerrilla theater Guerrilla theatre, generally rendered "guerrilla theater" in the US, is a form of guerrilla communication originated in 1965 by the San Francisco Mime Troupe, who, in spirit of the Che Guevara writings from which the term '' guerrilla'' is taken, e ...
mixing street theatre
Street theatre is a form of theatrical performance and presentation in outdoor public spaces without a specific paying audience. These spaces can be anywhere, including shopping centres, car parks, recreational reserves, college or university c ...
and protest
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...
, where they used attention-catching and humorous public actions to highlight political and economic complaints against companies and government agencies, frequently involving the use of witch
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of Magic (supernatural), magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In Middle Ages, medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually ...
costumes and the chanting of hexes. Witches often appeared as stock characters in feminist Left theatre, representing the misogynist crone
In folklore, a crone is an old woman who may be characterized as disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructive. The Crone is also an archetypal fig ...
stereotype.
On Halloween
Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...
1968, women from W.I.T.C.H. staged a " hex" of Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...
at a branch of Chase Manhattan Bank
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase Bank or often as Chase, is an American national bank headquartered in New York City, that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the U.S. multinational banking and fina ...
, wearing rags and fright makeup; Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan (born January 29, 1941) is an American poet, writer, activist, journalist, lecturer and former child actor. Since the early 1960s, she has been a key radical feminist member of the American Women's Movement, and a leader in the ...
stated that the Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.
The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...
declined sharply the next day. The DJIA did not decline sharply, and experienced a rise over the next several days and weeks. In December 1968 W.I.T.C.H targeted both the House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
and the Chicago Eight
The Chicago Seven, originally the Chicago Eight and also known as the Conspiracy Eight or Conspiracy Seven, were seven defendants—Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner—charged b ...
, saying that they conspired to treat only men as "leaders" of the antiwar movement
A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pea ...
. In 1969, W.I.T.C.H. held a protest at a "Bridal Fair" at Madison Square Garden. Members wore black veils. They handed out pamphlets titled "Confront the Whoremakers", chanted "Here come the slaves/Off to their graves", and had a mock "unwedding" ceremony. The protests also involved turning loose several white mice at the event, which Fair attendees began scooping up off the ground. The event resulted in negative media coverage for W.I.T.C.H., and some dissention among members over goals and tactics. In February 1970, the Washington coven
A coven () is a group or gathering of witches. The word "coven" (from Anglo-Norman ''covent, cuvent'', from Old French ''covent'', from Latin ''conventum'' = convention) remained largely unused in English until 1921 when Margaret Murray promote ...
(W.I.T.C.H. chapters were called "covens") held a protest during a Senate hearing on population control. They interrupted Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough
Ralph Webster Yarborough (June 8, 1903 – January 27, 1996) was an American politician and lawyer. He was a Texas Democratic politician who served in the United States Senate from 1957 to 1971 and was a leader of the progressive wing of his p ...
's testimony by chanting and throwing pills at panel members and people in the audience galleries. Spin-off "covens" were founded in Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, and Washington, D.C.
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, and W.I.T.C.H. zaps continued until roughly the beginning of 1970. The "zap" protests used by W.I.T.C.H. may have helped inspire the zap action protest tactics adopted shortly afterwards by LGBT activists, and still in use.
Big Flame
Big Flame was "a revolutionary socialist feminist organisation with a working-class orientation" in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. Founded in Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
in 1970, the group initially grew rapidly, with branches appearing in some other cities. Its publications emphasised that "a revolutionary party is necessary but Big Flame is not that party, nor is it the embryo of that party". The group was influenced by the Italian Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua (LC; en, Continuous Struggle) was a far-left paramilitary organization in Italy. It was founded in autumn 1969 by a split in the student-worker movement of Turin, which had started militant activity at the universities and factor ...
group.
The group published a magazine, ''Big Flame''; and a journal, ''Revolutionary Socialism''.[John Moorhouse, ''A Historical Glossary of British Marxism'' (Pauper's Press, 1987) ] Members were active at the Ford plants at Halewood
Halewood is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside, England. It lies near the city of Liverpool's southeastern boundary, bordered by the suburbs of Netherley, Hunt's Cross and Woolton.
Historically a part of Lancashire, ...
and Dagenham
Dagenham () is a town in East London, England, within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Dagenham is centred east of Charing Cross.
It was historically a rural parish in the Becontree Hundred of Essex, stretching from Hainault Forest ...
and devoted a great deal of time to self-analysis and considering their relationship with the larger Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
groups. In time, they came to describe their politics as libertarian Marxist
Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (201 ...
. In 1978, they joined the Socialist Unity electoral coalition
An electoral alliance (also known as a bipartisan electoral agreement, electoral pact, electoral agreement, electoral coalition or electoral bloc) is an association of political parties or individuals that exists solely to stand in elections.
Ea ...
, led by the Trotskyist International Marxist Group
:''See also the International Marxist Group (Germany).
The International Marxist Group (IMG) was a Trotskyist group in Britain between 1968 and 1982. It was the British Section of the Fourth International. It had around 1,000 members and supporte ...
. In 1980, the anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
s of the Libertarian Communist Group
The Anarchist Workers Association (AWA) was one of a number of class-struggle anarchist organisations that existed prior to the resurgence of anarchism in the United Kingdom during the miners' strike of 1984.
History
The Organisation of Revoluti ...
joined Big Flame. The Revolutionary Marxist Current also joined at about this time. However, as more members of the group defected to the Labour Party, the journal ceased to appear in 1982, and the group was wound up in about 1984. Ex-members of the group were involved in the launch of the mass-market tabloid newspaper the ''News on Sunday
The ''News on Sunday'' was a left-wing British tabloid newspaper. It was launched in April 1987. Publication ceased seven months later, in November 1987.
Origins
The founders of the paper were former members of the left-wing group Big Flame. T ...
'' in 1987, which folded the same year. The name of the group was taken from a television play, ''The Big Flame
''The Big Flame'' is a 1969 BBC television play by socialist playwright Jim Allen, produced by Tony Garnett and directed by Ken Loach. The play tells the story of 10,000 dockworkers occupying the Liverpool docks in a "work-in". Filmed in a gritt ...
'' (1969), written by Jim Allen and directed by Ken Loach
Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialist ideals are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (''Poor Cow'', 1967), homelessne ...
for the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'' season. It dealt with a fictional strike and
Docks.