Feminism, Socialist Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Socialist feminism is a system of analysis of gender oppression as well as a strategy for political change. While it has been defined and practiced in many ways, there are central tenants that link the socialist feminism movement together. Socialist feminism focuses on the intersection between capitalism and patriarchy. It examines the ideological construction of femininity within patriarchal capitalism. Socialist feminism draws attention to issues such as sexuality, reproduction, domestic and paid labor, gender socialization, class conflict, sexism, and classism. Socialist feminism recognizes oppression based on gender and social class. Its focus most often does not extend to subordination based on ethnicity, sexuality, age, and able-bodiless.

Theorists In Socialist Feminism

The socialist movement has traditionally been attributed to the contributions of the nineteenth-century writers Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. From the earliest days of European socialism, however, women have played a significant, although somewhat invisible, role within the socialist movement. They have challenged men’s definitions of socialism and have struggled for analyses and programs that better reflect the interests and needs of women. Some significant theoretical and political contributions to the socialist movement have been made by women such as Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxemburg, and Alexandra Kollontai.

Engels’s classic work of 1884, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, is a significant text within the socialist feminist movement. It asserts that women’s liberation could come only with women’s entry into the paid/public workforce. As many socialist feminist scholars have suggested, women’s work within the domestic/private sphere serves to support not only individual families but the interests of the capitalist economic system as well. The family serves to reproduce societal values and norms that perpetuate the existence of capitalism. As Nancy Hartmann asserted, the nuclear family in North America should be considered the principal site of women’s subordination.

Emma Goldman, an early twentieth-century writer, drew attention to the role of capitalism in shaping sexuality and sex roles. Much of her theoretical work laid the foundation for contemporary socialist feminist scholars such as Nancy Hartmann, Pat Armstrong, Hugh Armstrong, and Meg Luxton.

Juliet Mitchell, writing in the 1970s and 1980s, outlined four central points of a socialist feminist analysis. She emphasized the need to restructure (1) the production of goods and services, to meet human needs; (2) the organization and control of sexuality; (3) the practices surrounding childbearing as well as women’s responsibility for the emotional, physical, and psychological needs of family members; and (4) the organization of gender socialization. Mitchell stressed that all potential egalitarian solutions with regard to any of these central issues must be explored in relation to one another to prevent one system’s solutions becoming another’s problems.

Defining Socialist Feminism

Socialist feminism combines Marxist feminism, which attributes women’s subordination to the class oppression of capitalism, with radical feminism, which attributes women’s oppression to patriarchy. Socialist feminists assert that the root of gender subordination is the combination of capitalism and patriarchal ideology. Women are thus seen as casualties of both classism and sexism. The elimination of gender inequality from a socialist feminist perspective can be achieved only by the eradication of both capitalism and patriarchy.

Socialist feminism has been considered by some scholars to be synonymous with Marxist feminism. While it is rooted heavily in Marxist feminist writings, there are several differences between these two paradigms that should be noted. For Marxist feminists, gender inequality is a product of the inequality between classes. Ending women’s oppression, within this view, would thus require the elimination of economic oppression. Socialist feminism, however, does not postulate that gender oppression can be reduced to economic exploitation. Instead, socialist feminists suggest that gender subordination is a social phenomenon in and of itself, requiring recognition and analysis. Socialist feminists have critiqued Marxist feminists for their concentration on class, accusing them of discounting the effects of gender.

A central issue for socialist feminist writers is the collectivity of oppression. The organization of social class is considered to be inseparable from gender: the rich exploit and oppress the poor just as men exploit and oppress women. This is not to suggest that women’s subordination can be attributed to one man, however. Socialist feminists assert that women’s oppression is a result of the collective oppression of all women by all men, within a world organized by class.

Resistance And Theoretical Developments

Some social feminists claim that women’s experience, culture, and practice can provide a basis for a feminist resistance to patriarchal ideologies. Nancy Hartsock (The Feminist Standpoint Revisited and Other Essays, 1983) claims that “the feminist standpoint,” rooted in women’s particular experiences and perspectives, is necessary for developing a critique of patriarchal ideology and practice. The feminist standpoint is also crucial for the expansion of discussions surrounding theory and practice and how both can be forwarded in alternate, and perhaps more progressive, directions.

Contemporary socialist feminist scholars are moving beyond the traditional constructions of gender, feminism, and politics and have begun exploring them within a contemporary context. Donna Haraway’s work investigates the complexity of women’s identity within the context of the rapidly changing world of technology. She examines male bias within a culture of science and technology. Clara Fraser examines the connection between sexism and racism as well the issues surrounding women’s involvement within the contemporary socialist movement. Socialist feminism is a developing and ongoing theoretical and political project.

Bibliography:

Engels, Frederick. The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. New York: 1972.
Fraser, Clara. Revolution, She Wrote. Seattle, Wash.: Red Letter, 1998.
Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Holdstrom, Nancy, ed. The Socialist Feminist Project: A Contemporary Reader in Theory and Politics. New York: Monthly Review, 2002.
Radical Women Organization. The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program and Organizational Structure. Seattle, Wash.: Red Letter, 2001.