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Marxist feminist theory
From the last 200 years, efforts have been constantly made to protect and uphold the rights of women all over the world through various movements. It started as early as the year 1789 when the suffragette movement was introduced to fight for women’s right to vote. From thereon, the feminist movements have only gained more and more prominence and recognition to inspire the current feminist movements. From the beginning of the 20th Century with rapid Industrialization taking place, there was further a need to protect the workers more specifically the women from facing any form of exploitation or discrimination in the workplace. As a result, during that time several thinkers or reformists laid down their own theories on the rights of women concerning several areas in the different economic systems. This article specifically aims to focus on the Feminist Theory devised by Karl Marx, a staunch proponent of communism.
What is the Marxist feminist theory
Feminism is a term used very widely in recent times and its definition has continuously been changed over the years to accommodate the changing needs of society. It essentially refers to any movement or a given set of movements to protect and uphold the various social, political, economic, or cultural rights of women and to provide them with equal opportunities to progress. The Marxist, Socialist, and even Capitalist feminist theories aim to achieve the same outcome but follow different paths. While Marxist feminism aims to liberate women by preventing them from being oppressed through some radical utopian demands, socialist feminism focused on liberating women by removing the patriarchy in society. Capitalist Feminist Theory on the other hand aimed to empower women by focusing on their economic freedom.
The Marxist feminist theory was focused on the exploitation women were subjected to under the Capitalist System with the amount of work they had to put in. They were forced to work in the industries for longer periods and were paid extremely low wages as compared to men. Even the working conditions were extremely dismal for them. Its main idea was that the women could be liberated only by eliminating the Capitalist System wherein the women were not paid sufficient wages for their labour. There are several aspects which Marxist feminism focuses on which are as follows:
Classless society
The primary objective of Marxist feminist theory was to create a classless society wherein both the upper class and the lower class people are treated equally. At that point in time, women were considered to be inferior to men and didn’t enjoy equal rights. Further, the women in poor households were discriminated against in the field of labour and employment. On the other hand, the upper-class women or the Bourgeoisie enjoyed certain privileges without putting in any labor. By creation of a classless society, the vision of Marx and Engels was to ensure that there was collective ownership and the basic dignity of women in society.
Equal pay
Karl Marx’s theory focused on providing equal wages to both men and women for the equal amount of work they were putting in. There shall be no gender-based discrimination in terms of wage payment. In several books introduced in the 1970s, women were stated as the reserve army of labour which was however unrecognized many times. As a result, they were not provided with equivalent wages for their efforts. Hence, they should also be provided with adequate protection for their labour.
Reproductive labour
Marx and Friedrich Engels under this theory also focused on the unpaid reproductive labour in which the women were involved.\ Women performed a very important role of bearing children or procreation which helped in carrying forward the future generations, but for which they weren’t paid anything. They also didn’t have an equal opportunity for carrying out productive labour. Being highly critical of Capitalism, Marx also held the opinion that capitalism was responsible for the state having control over a woman’s sexual desires or even their bodily integrity. The family eventually became a place where the women were oppressed and were considered to be subordinate to men thereby creating this gender gap in wages and status in society.
Social wages
Social wages essentially refer to the amenities that are provided to the persons in the society. At that point of time, a large number of women all over the world were landless and were not allowed any social participation. Hence the focus of the Marxist Feminists was to shift the attention to the rural women who despite working on the lands were landless because of male domination and the erasure of the work carried out by them on the family farms for self-production or self-subsistence. This had two outcomes at large:
a) Firstly, the labour of women in the subsistence farms fell within the purview similar to that of reproductive labour as they were not paid the wages for the work which they did on their own piece of land.
b) Secondly, the rural household was now considered as one economic unit and eventually led to the erasure of the value and the labour of rural women.
Wages for household work
As stated before, the women were not encouraged to engage in productive labour in the industries and were largely subjected to housework. Hence under Marxist feminism, there was a demand for the inclusion of the household work as well as for the determination of the wages. Further, there was also an opinion that private property was the main reason for such an exploitation of the women and there was a dire need to improve their working conditions be it their own house or their workplace.
Inter-sectionality
The Intersectional (interconnection between different sections of society on basis of gender, caste, or race) organizing of the women from the different castes, communities, or regions is a very important feature of Marxist Feminism. It essentially means that there shall be a wide coalition on the basis of the differences among the people. As a result, it would facilitate the interaction among the people with different identities and communities having different facets as a result of their continuous oppression. Such intersectional organizing of the people which focuses on the oppressions in recent times has played a vital role in promoting the social movements with the labour movements and facilitating increased cooperation between the agricultural labourers and industrial workers.
Emotional labour
Under the Marxist Feminist Theory, emphasis was also laid on the emotional labour of the women. It refers to the labour that women have to be involved in for keeping their family members emotionally stable. Though it didn’t directly create any product or service which is expected from all forms of labour, it was equally important to ensure the well-being of the entire family. Even in the field of employment, there was an emphasis on emotional labour on part of women to fulfill the job requirement which however used to go unnoticed.
Affective labor
The women were also involved in a form of labor that was byproductive in nature i.e., fulfilled two purposes. This was known as Affective Labor and was discussed by certain scholars such as Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, and Shiloh Whitney. These were all the thinkers who believed in Marxist feminism. It focused on the fine line that was there between the personal and the economic life of the women. While the women were involved in domestic labor, their work was also to be economically appreciated by including it in the overall production.
These were some of the important features of Marxist feminist theory which aimed to free the women from the clutches of Capitalism and provide them with the rights and dignity which they deserve.
These were all the major aspects of the Marxist Feminist Theory which despite its limitations played a significant role in shaping the modern Feminist Ideologies.
Marxist feminists
Marxist feminist perspective adapts the principles of Marxism to emphasise how capitalism uses the family oppresses women, and the harmful consequences of the family to women’s lives.
Marxist feminists look on class and gender inequalities as dual systems of oppression, with both being very powerful and independent systems. Marxist feminists often argue that class and gender inequalities reinforce each other and create groups that are doubly oppressed.
Margaret Benston’s (1972) Marxist feminist study: ‘The political economy of women’s liberation’ emphasises the value of the unpaid labour women perform within the family. This labour, which sustains the current labour force and nurtures the next generation, comes at no cost to the owners of the means of production. Additionally, the responsibility of the male breadwinner to support his wife and children fetters his ability to withdraw his labour power in defence of his class interests. In so doing it helps reinforce the inequitable capitalist economic system.
As Rosemarie Tong (1989) notes in her book Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction, Marxist feminists identify how work shapes consciousness, and women’s work shapes her status and self-image. Therefore Marxist feminists are primarily concerned with the division of labour that keeps women in the domestic sphere of the family and men in the workplace.
Woman’s position within the family may help explain the problem of developing working class consciousness. As with exchange relationships in general in capitalism, underlying these seemingly equal exchange relationships are power relationships. Various relationships, such as those between males and females, relationships in the family, prostitution, surrogate mother hood, etc. may appear to express equality, but because of the underlying unequal power relations conceal great inequalities.
Toward a Feminist Synthesis
Folbre notes that there are a number of problems created by the conventional neoclassical and Marxist views.
1. Models of the economy and society are incomplete and inadequate. The conventional economic approach examines only production in the economy, devaluing the contribution of any necessary labour in the household. Measures of production such as gross national product (GNP) are misleading measures of economic activity because only certain forms of economic activity are valued.
2. Models of economic development are inadequate, because they consider only production, not reproduction and the social arrangements surrounding these. These issues are especially important for the poorer countries today. The manner in which women, family and households are affected by economic changes, and the constraints and opportunities faced by them will have a lot to do with whether and how economic development occurs in these countries.
3. Analysis of political debates and conflicts over social welfare programs may be misleading. Among the questions that need to be asked are how were these programs initially achieved, and in whose interests were they implemented? For example, excluding women from factory work during the nineteenth century is often treated as a great gain for the working class and for society. But this may have had serious long run negative effects for women. Today, when social welfare programs are under attack, who will be hurt by the decline of these? How can coalitions be developed to maintain and restore these programs?
4. In the Marxian approach, the lack of attention to unpaid household labour has led to an inadequate theory of population and labour force. There is little in the Marxist model that deals with the reasons for fertility decline, and neoclassical explanations (costs and benefits) are probably superior in that regard. As well, why women have entered the labour force in such large numbers, and why the feminist movement emerged are not adequately explained in the Marxian model.
What kind of philosophy is Marxist feminism based on
Karl Marx was a renowned socialist, reformist, thinker, and economist. He was clearly against capitalism and aimed to eliminate the class society or the hierarchy which existed at that point wherein some communities were superior (bourgeoisie) such as the industry owners and the others inferior such as the industrial workers who were exploited by the superiors. Owing to his ideologies, his theories on feminism and economics were also against the Capitalist practices and rather focused on communism i.e. collective sharing or ownership of resources. His Feminist Theory was also based on this premise. It is a social, economic as well as a political philosophy that aimed to view communism through the lens of Feminism.
The very philosophy of Marxist Feminism is that there should be no private property or private ownership because it causes greater discrimination against the women and reduces their role in society. Both men and women should be treated equally in society and for achieving this there was a need for revolution. At that point in time, there were gender-specific roles that were assigned to both men and women. While men worked outside, women used to work at home and raise their children for which they weren’t provided any wages. As a result, the males were considered superior and had the power to redistribute the income among family members. This was clearly disregarding the labour a woman carried out at her home and also led to a distinction between the bourgeoisie (Males) and the Proletariats (women). This was the concept upon which the Marxist theory was based. It aimed to lay emphasis on the recognition of women and the contributions which they used to make in society.
Limitations of Marxist feminism
The Marxist theory of feminism had a few drawbacks and certain issues which it failed to address. Due to this, it failed to cover and justify the aspects relating to women’s exploitation under the Capitalist system in an exhaustive manner. A few of the limitations are as follows:
Though the Marxist Theory involves a very exhaustive analysis of the exploitation of women under the Capitalist System, it strictly divides the industries between the public and private sectors. While in the Public sector it is possible to carry out such an analysis of the economic and the social exploitation of women but the private sector wasn’t considered worthy enough for it.
The feminist theory under Marxism was based on the fact that women constituted the Reserve Industrial Army. It explained the expansion and the contraction of the unemployment cycle. However, it failed to cover the aspects regarding the decline in fertility and the change in the value of labour while considering the same.
The Marxian Theory was largely economic in nature and focused on commodity production, class exploitation due to industrial labour, and other related aspects. However, it failed to take into consideration the social factors of inequality and discrimination such as race, gender, or sexual autonomy and hence doesn’t provide a systematic explanation of these.
The labour which is generally not sold to the master or the employer doesn’t hold any economic value under Marxist Feminism. As a result, at that given point the reproductive labour or the emotional labour in which the women were involved but received no wages was not to be considered. Hence it was believed that the housewives were unproductive which was certainly not the case. They played a vital role in any household and reproductive labour but which was not included in production.
These were the major limitations of the Marxist feminist theory which had to be addressed later on by the various thinkers such as Max Weber and other feminists in the future. It was suitably modified to accommodate such changes. Hence is very much relevant in the current times and has inspired a lot many feminist movements in recent times.
Applicability and significance of the Marxist feminist theory in current times
Marxist feminism was focused on empowering women by creating a classless society. This holds a lot of relevance even to this date. Several countries follow Communism defined by Karl Marx and even the Feminist movements worldwide are inspired by it. However, after the fall of the USSR in 1990, the feminist movements based on Communism haven’t been very successful. The theories stated by Karl Marx were highly generic with regard to feminism and failed to draw any relations between the variables discussed under his theory such as Patriarchy and Capitalism and how the former leads to the latter in any society.
In the current times, Marxist feminist theory acts as a tool to understand the relationship between the social order, women’s labor, and the ownership of property. His theory goes a step ahead to emphasize the consideration for the reproductive labour of women by payment of wages. In the current times, this becomes even more important because the number of working women is increasing and there is a need to facilitate their work-life balance. In the current times, the Feminist movements put forth the demands for the development of a political system under which women’s liberation, class politics, issues of gender identity, and sexual preferences are given paramount importance. This is what Marxist Feminism directly emphasizes.
In India, Marxist feminism holds a lot of relevance for removing this perception of the gender-specific roles given to the male and the females in society. It reduces the employment opportunities available to women in the labor market. However, Marxist feminism focuses on the identification of Reproductive labor but nowhere did Marx mention how to achieve it. Still, in India, women’s work at home is considered inferior and they have no economic independence. They are dependent on the income of their husband and would be treated at their Husband’s whims and fancies. Yet in several other countries, the influence of this theory has been quite positive such as in Ukraine, Russia, the USA, etc.
Conclusion
Marxist feminist Theory, despite all its drawbacks proved to be vital in igniting a sense of revolt among the women to fight for their rights. It gave a direction to feminist movements and if not all, questioned certain aspects of capitalism to hold the system prevailing at that point of time accountable. Now what remains to be seen is the effectiveness of Marxist Theory in the coming years towards the growth of feminism and feminist movements at large.
Work Cited:
- Stefano, Christine Di . "Marxist Feminism ." Wiley Online Library . 14 Sep. 2014. doi.org/10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0653. Accessed 5 Nov. 2022.
- Verma, Parth. "Marxist Feminism ." iPleaders . 6 July 2022. blog.ipleaders.in/marxist-feminism/?amp=1. Accessed 5 Nov. 2022.
- Thompson , Chris . "Marxist feminists ." sociologytwynham.com. 1 July 2013. sociologytwynham.com/2013/07/01/marxist-feminists/. Accessed 5 Nov. 2022.
- Gingrich, Paul. "Feminist Critique of the Marxian Approach." Sociology 304. 10 Mar. 1998. uregina.ca/~gingrich/mar1098.htm. Accessed 5 Nov. 2022.
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