Re: MarxFem/MatFem I (fwd)

[Martha Gimenez <gimenez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 14:54:16 -0700
From: brumback@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reply-To: MatFem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: MATERIALIST FEMINISM <MatFem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: MarxFem/MatFem I

Martha and Nancy:

>> Martha defines socialist feminism as:
>>
>> "...critical of capitalism and Marxism, so much so that
>> >avoidance of Marxism's alleged reductionisms resulted in dual
>> >systems theories postulating various forms of interaction between
>> >capitalism and patriarchy."
>>
>> To my mind, the need for an understanding of how class and gender oppression
>> are related is today even greater than there was in the 70's. Since then,
>> much research has been done on the ancient gathering and hunting societies,
>
>.....snip........
>
>My statement does not imply that there is no need to understand the
>relationship between class and gender oppression.  I pointed out that
>efforts to theorize the origins of the oppresson of women independently
>from modes of production to avoid "economic determinism" and "class
>reductionism" yield theories of patriarchy that seek the origins outside
>history, in men's hormones, drive to power, intentions to control women's
>reproduction, greater physical strength, in women's reproductive role, in
>mothering, in the exchange of women, whatever.

Okay. Then I guess I don't know what you mean by "ahistorical," or "outside
history." Because I would see a difference, at least re: historical
materialism, between theories of patriarchy which are built on "intentions,"
and those which are built on biological, physiological, and ecological
factors. I agree with Marx (my understanding) that various "layers" make up
society: that the social is based on the economic, and the
psychological/ideological is based on the social. I would simply extend the
"layers" downward to include physiological, biological, and ecological factors.

The search for the first
>origins of anything, be it women's oppression or capitalism, leads
>unavoidably to ahistorical accounts which legitimize the present in
>societal requirements or inindividuals characteristics (e.g., propensity
>to barter).

Again, I don't understand your use of "ahistorical." A theory which sees
patriarchy and class as intertwined in development, and cognizant of life
conditions which are biological, physiological, and ecological, must not, to
my mind, always "legitimize the present," although it may help to explain at
least some aspects of the present. All such life conditions contribute in
the creation of the economical and social relations, I think, which in turn
change through time, but must always refer back to biology, physiology, and
ecology. This is what Marx meant when he said (my understanding) that humans
are part of nature. For example, we know that people always have to eat. The
way they go about getting their food will change, but the need for food
itself will not. For another example, scientists say that on the average,
men are stronger than women. Okay, give them that. However, the way that
this greater strength affects men's roles and prestige in a society will
change from society to society, depending on whether the society is under
pressure from war or not, whether food is easy to get or hard to get, etc.

As I understand "ahistorical," it is exactly avoidance of "first origins"
which leads to that. For example, re: economic classes, if we don't consider
their origins, then we might consider that they have always existed -- that
they are inevitable in homo sapiens culture.

>> One glaring fact (if you will) from all this challenges a basic tenet of
>> Marxism: that the history of all society is the history of "class struggle."
>> If we accept that at least some of the first societies of homo sapien were
>> egalitarian, which it seems even Engels does (i.e., his "primitive
>> communism"), then the history of all society is not the history of class
>
>I fail to understand why the existence of preclass societies invalidates
>the theoretical significance of class struggles to understand the dynamics
>of social change.

I didn't say that; I said that "the history of all society is not the
history of class struggle."
>
>> So, I would be unwilling to accept Martha's suggestion that we subsume
>> materialist-feminism within Marxist-feminism on the grounds that no
>> substantial difference exists between the two. I think the category of
>> materialist-feminism, or feminist-materialism (my preference), serves nicely
>> to embrace those theories which attempt to analyze women in terms of the
>> actual conditions of their lives, i.e., from a materialist perspective, but
>> which do not necessarily accept every point of the materialist perspective
>> of Marx.

Of course
>you and anyone who wants to can call themselves materialist feminists -
>but it is important to keep in mind that the use of the concept
>materialism is not always a euphemism for historical materialism.

You're right. My error.

It is
>possible to be a materialist who is non-marxist or anti-marxist and this
>is why the term "materialist feminism" is, in my view, problematic.
>

Okay. Then let me refer instead to historical materialist feminism, and
feminist historical materialism.

Regards,

Nancy