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What is Socialist Feminism? Explained

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In the previous post we learned about Marxist Feminism The concept and theory of socialist feminism are defined in this post. Although it might be challenging to distinguish between Marxist and Socialist feminism, this programme aims to clarify the differences between the two while also forging connections between them.

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Marxist and Socialist Feminism: Concepts and Theories
  3. Limitations of Socialist Feminism
  4. Socialist Feminism: An alternative
  5. Summary

Introduction

The most significant arguments that took place in the 1980s revolved around socialism on both a political and intellectual level. This was more precisely attributed to how, in each given environment, the oppression of women is linked to other forms of economic and social oppression (Geetha 2007: 30). Working women in France and England started to assert their rights to be heard and taken seriously in matters of public concern during the third decade of the 19th century. Countries saw the advent of industrial capitalism by the middle of the 19th century. A number of socialist organisations developed in support of the exploited working class caused by the new economic order in response to the injustices and suffering it had brought about. The challenging circumstances capitalism imposed on employees and their families notably afflicted women workers. Socialists, especially women, noticed that social conventions and practises hampered and restricted the lives of women, and that this situation needed to be addressed. Technology had to be used to reduce household chores, kids had to be raised together, and women had to be given the freedom and leisure to take part in community activities where they lived and worked (ibid, p. 31).

Socialist feminists argued the connection between reproduction and production. Under capitalism, male employees were exploited on the basis of a competitive and self-interested ethic. This ethic in turn influenced sexual morality and family life, and if it were to be challenged, it would demand emancipation for all people as well as equality for all. Therefore, according to the socialist feminist perspective, equality does not just refer to economic equality but also to sex equality and women's freedom to love who they want. This equality also included freedom from a repressive family structure, constrained sexual preferences, mundane labour, and mandated motherhood. After the Tzar was ousted and a communist party took control in October 1917, these discussions reappeared in revolutionary Russia (Geetha 2007: 34-35).

Marxist and Socialist Feminism: Concepts and Theories

While it is possible to differentiate between traditional Marxist and socialist feminism, doing so is very challenging. The groundwork for classical Marxist feminist thought was built forth by 19th-century theorists like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others. They believe that the main factor in women's oppression—rather than sexism—is classism. Instead, socialist feminists do not believe that classism is the biggest or only adversary of women. According to them, women's status under communism is no better than it is under capitalism. Women are not treated as men's equals at home or at work, despite the fact that females have joined the productive workforce as a result of industrial capitalism. These factors have led socialist feminists to look beyond the concept of class to comprehend the subjection of women. They have made an effort to comprehend how class, sex, and other facets of identity—such as colour, ethnicity, and sexual orientation—are all intertwined in the subjection of women (Tong 2009: 96).

Marxist and socialist feminists contend that in order to comprehend the particular nature of women's oppression, it is necessary to examine the relationship between women's employment status and their self-perception. Marxist notions of class and class consciousness play a significant part in forming Marxist and Socialist feminist philosophy since these feminists view women as a collective. Despite not being a single class in the strict Marxist sense, women nonetheless share household struggles, whether they are bourgeois or proletariat, which has inspired unifying efforts like the 1970s campaign for paying women for housework (Tong 2009: 100-101). The campaign for paid household work contends that domestic work performed by women should be considered genuine or productive employment. Cooking, cleaning, and babysitting are all forms of productive work, despite the fact that wives and mothers typically work at homes they like for people they love.

A two-system explanation of women's oppression was offered by Jaggar in 1983. She believed that patriarchy affected women more than capitalism did. Patriarchy oppresses women as women, which has an impact on both their identity and their activities, in contrast to capitalism, which exploits women as workers. She was of the opinion that all women, regardless of their labour position, are alienated in ways that males are not, rejecting the traditional Marxist notion that one must directly engage in the capitalist production relations in order to be alienated. According to her, women are alienated from their bodies in the same way that they are from the end result of their reproductive labour and from the actual act of carrying out that labour. The interactive-system explanation sought to portray capitalism and patriarchy as equal partners accountable for oppressing women in a number of ways, in contrast to the two-system explanation. In order to establish the interdependence between capitalism and patriarchy in their works, socialist feminist theorists like Sylvia Walby, Heidi Hartman, and Iris Marion Young have consistently utilised terminology like patriarchal capitalism or capitalism patriarchy. Both class and patriarchy are viewed by these socialist feminist theorists as fundamental categories of analysis in the oppression of women. A sexual division of labour analysis is far superior to a simple analysis because they feel that capitalism and patriarchy are inextricably linked (Tong 2009). According to Young (1990), class and gender hierarchies are so inextricably linked that one does not come before the other. In line with Young's thesis, Hartman (1981) believed that a Marxist analysis of capitalism must be combined with a feminist study of patriarchy in order to fully comprehend the relationship between workers and capitalism as well as the relationship between women and men. Walby shares the view of Young and Hartman that capitalism and patriarchy have evolved simultaneously.

Socialist feminists came to the conclusion that a new theory was required to comprehend the mechanisms of capitalism and its ongoing reproduction because it was not the primary cause of male dominance. The autonomous structures of gender, race, and class were viewed by socialist feminism as contributing to the creation of inequality and exploitation. They broadened the Marxist definition of exploitation to encompass additional relationships in which some individuals benefited from the labour of others, such as domestic and child care work (Gordon 2013: 22). The socialist feminist perspective opposed hierarchical leadership structures and advocated for participatory democracy, which required that citizens actively participate in public discourse and the formulation of public policy. They consider capitalist patriarchy to be a particularly repressive coupled system and see patriarchy as an issue that is on par with capitalism (Eisenstein and Douglas 1980). Although capitalism and patriarchy influence and support one another, this does not entail that they were both created at the same time or that they would definitely stop when capitalism did (ibid.).

The unique contribution of socialist feminism to our knowledge of human nature is the insight that gender distinctions are not pre-social givens but rather socially produced and changeable. While a radical feminist perspective holds that the fight for women's liberation should take precedence over all other types of liberation struggle, orthodox Marxism's political theory has led to the position that the fight for feminism should be subordinated to the fight for class. Socialist feminism, however, rejects this conundrum. However, it holds that capitalism, sexism, racism, and imperialism are inseparably linked and cannot be separated. As a result, eliminating one of these dominance systems would necessitate eliminating them all (Jaggar 1983).

A few socialist feminist writers have argued that the experience of women in modern society is the epitome of alienation, drawing on the radical feminist rhetoric. Socialist feminist investigations have shown that women experience alienation as wives, mothers, and sexual beings. Ann Foreman, a socialist feminist, claims that alienation is a fundamental aspect of femininity. Whether or whether they choose to be the object of sexual attraction, women are constantly the target of sexual assault and harassment. Women become estranged from themselves as a result of the manner in which men manage their sexuality. According to the socialist feminist understanding of women's oppression, feminism must ultimately be abolished in order for women to be freed from all forms of exploitation and organised labour. The eradication of class, but not gender, has been a central tenet of traditional Marxist views. Contrarily, socialist feminist ideologies are firmly committed to the elimination of both class and gender (Jaggar 1983).

Limitations of Socialist Feminism

Emphasizing democracy is one characteristic of socialist feminism. It has been argued that women's voices are underrepresented in both conventional Marxist organisations and liberal politics. Socialist feminism has not properly demonstrated how more sincere democratic practises may be implemented, notwithstanding these reasons. The call of socialist feminists for the democratisation of reproduction also has the potential to infringe on so-called "women's rights to their own bodies." While procreation is a private matter in modern society, socialist feminists have not spelled out precisely what democratisation of procreation would entail in actuality (Jaggar 1983).

As with their idea of procreative democracy, the socialist feminist conception of organisational democracy is flawed. They have harshly criticised centralised political groups, claiming that they reproduce social divisions like sexuality and others throughout society at large. They have experimented with smaller networks and other transient organisations set up to carry out particular tasks as alternatives to centralism. However, the 'tyranny of structurelessness' can only result from the absence of any organisational structure (Jaggar 1983: 342).

However, they have also failed to come up with alternatives that are wholly acceptable. Socialist feminists have shown a variety of shortcomings in their modern ideas of democracy. Studies demonstrate that these feminisms also downplay the importance of economic exploitation. It is said that socialist feminism is neither revolutionary nor radical enough to end the social and economic enslavement of women.

Socialist Feminism: An alternative

Because capitalism cannot continue in its current form for very long, socialist feminism is not just desirable but also necessary. This does not, however, imply that a society will inevitably transition to socialism. An alternative is a fascist or brutal government. The strength of groups battling for alternatives will decide the system that will replace capitalism. Capitalism and sexism influence one another and can reinforce one another. Through the process of creating a base of power for women through a mass movement unified around pursuing our own self-interest, the socialist feminist strategy seeks to realign power relations.

Examining socialism and feminism independently can help you grasp socialist feminism logically. It is crucial to consider how a Marxist views the world differently or similarly to a feminist. Marxism and feminism share a lot of similarities. The first acknowledged truth is that they both adopt critical worldviews. Both force us to reframe our perspective on experience by dispelling prevalent misconceptions and conventional wisdom. Both attempt to view the world in terms of conflicts. Marxism destroys the delusions of democracy and its plurality, exposing a forcibly exploitative class-based system of governance. Feminism exposes masculine domination as the rule of force and dispels misconceptions about instinct and romantic love. Both analyses force us to consider a basic unfairness. Marxism and feminism can be combined, and the result is sometimes referred to as "socialist feminism" (Ehrenreich 1976).

Traditional Marxist viewpoints that viewed capitalism's economic processes as gender-neutral gave rise to socialist feminism. While gender is studied from an agency perspective that posits purposeful actors, the theory of gender inequality views capitalism as a structure or a system. Arguments made by socialist feminists have included presumptions about structure and agency. Socialist feminists support a dual-systems approach to gender segregation that aims to combine both perspectives—one that adopts an agency view of theory and the other that adopts a structural position—in order to address the issue. According to Hartman (1981), this illustrates how capitalism and patriarchy work together. For instance, she argues that patriarchal dynamics dictate whether men or women will fill the roles within the labour division since capitalist economic processes create those positions. Therefore, patriarchy is a bond amongst men that allows them to rule over women through the use of their labour. Therefore, socialism-feminism combines structural viewpoints and agency approaches with a theory of patriarchy that emphasises the agency and consciousness of the gendered actors (Wharton 1991).

Due to some of these unique characteristics, socialist feminism can be considered as a complete approach to comprehending the oppression and subordination of women that are sustained by capitalism and patriarchy.

Summary

The goal of this blog was to introduce and clarify the idea of socialist feminism. The history of Socialist feminism's origin and advancement was outlined in this essay. It demonstrated how the socialist idea emerged in reaction to the systemic injustices cultivated by industrial capitalism. Many socialist feminists claimed that these structural and gender inequities needed to be addressed in order to improve the lives of women. They proposed the demand for pay for housework and suggested that reproduction and productivity may be linked. This essay has made an effort to distinguish between Marxist feminism and Socialist feminism, despite the difficulty of the task. Socialist feminists have looked beyond class to explain how women are subordinate, in contrast to Marxist feminists who consider capitalism as the only means of oppressing women. Socialist feminists contend that male supremacy and women's subjugation are not primarily the result of capitalism. Socialist feminists have called for the development of a new theory to comprehend the underlying causes of inequality and exploitation due to the shortcomings of Marxist feminist theory. They observed how the autonomous systems of gender, race, and class contributed to oppression and injustice. The socialist feminist perspective is the one that includes both gender and class oppression as equal factors to women's subordination, despite the fact that many critiques of this perspective have evolved in reaction to the theory on gender and class. Class, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation are all interconnected in the socialist feminist perspective.

Reference

  1. Booth, Heather, Day Creamer, Susan Davis, Deb Dobbin, Robin Kaufman, and Tobey Klass. 1972. ‘Socialist Feminism: a strategy for the women’s movement’, Hyde park Chapter, Chicago Women’s Liberation Union 
  2. Eisenstein, Zillah and Carol Anne Douglas. 1980. ‘Capitalist patriarchy and the rise of socialist feminism’, Off our backs, 10(2): 14 
  3. Ehrenreich, Barbara. 1976. ‘What Is Socialist Feminism?’,Win, pp. 4–7 
  4. Foreman, Ann. 1977. Femininity as Alienation: Women and the Family in Marxism and Psychoanalysis. London: Pluto Press 
  5. Gordon, Linda. 2013. ‘Socialist Feminism: The legacy of the “Second Wave”’, New labour forum, 22(3): 20-28 
  6. Hartmann, Heidi I. 1981. ‘The Family as the Locus of Gender, Class, and Political Struggle:The Example of Housework.’ Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6 (3): 366–394. 
  7. Jaggar, Alison M. 1983. Feminist Politics and Human Nature. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld
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