[Fwd: MarxFem/MatFem II]

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: MarxFem/MatFem II
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 13:21:58 -0600 (MDT)
From: Martha Gimenez <gimenez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: M-Fem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: A place for marxist-feminists to hang out <M-Fem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

     These brief comments about Vogel's understanding of
Materialist Feminism highlight some of its problematic aspects  as
a term intended to identify a specific trend within feminist
theory.  It can blur, as it does in this instance,  the qualitative
differences that existed and continue to exist between Socialist
Feminism, the dominant strand of feminist thought in the U.S.
during the late 1960s and 1970s, and the marginalized Marxist
Feminism.  I am not imputing such motivations to Lise Vogel;  I am
pointing out the effects of such an interpretation of U.S.
Socialist Feminism which, despite the use of Marxist terms and
references to capitalism, developed, theoretically, as a sort of
feminist abstract negation of Marxism.  Other feminists, for
different reasons, would also disagree with Vogel's interpretation;
for example, for Toril Moi and Janice Radway, the relationship
between Socialist Feminism and Materialist Feminism "is far from
clear" (Moi and Radway, 1994: 749).  Acknowledging the problematic
nature of the term, in a special issue of The South Atlantic
Quarterly dedicated to this topic they do not offer a theory of
Materialist Feminism, nor a clear definition of the term.
Presumably, the articles included in this issue will give the
reader the elements necessary to define the term for herself
because all the authors "share a commitment to concrete historical
and cultural analysis, and to feminism understood as an
'emancipatory narrative'"(Moi and Radway, 1994:750).  One of these
authors, Jennifer Wicke, defines it as follows: "a feminism that
insists on examining the material conditions under which social
arrangements, including those of gender hierarchy, develop...
materialist 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" (Wicke, 1994: 751);"...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"... "there are
areas of material interest in the fact hat women can bear
children... Materialist feminism... is less likely than social
constructionism to be embarrassed by the occasional material
importance of sex differences.."(Wicke, 1994: 758-759).

     Insistence on the importance of material conditions, the
material historical moments as a complex of social relations which
include and influence gender hierarchy, the materiality of the body
and its sexual, reproductive and other biological functions remain,
however, abstract pronouncements which unavoidably lead to an
empiricist focus on the immediately given.  There is no theory of
history or of social relations or of the production of gender
hierarchies that could give guidance about the meaning of whatever
it is observed in a given "material historical moment."

     Landry and MacLean, authors of MATERIALIST FEMINISMS (1993),
tell us that theirs is a book "about feminism and Marxism" in which
they examine the debates between feminism and Marxism in the U.S.
and Britain and explore the implications of those debates for
literary and cultural theory.  The terrain of those early debates,
which were aimed at a possible integration or synthesis between
Marxism and feminism, shifted due to the emergence of identity
politics,  concern with postcolonialism, sexuality, race,
nationalism, etc.,  and the impact of postmodernism and post-
structuralism. The new terrain has to do with the "construction of
a materialist analysis of culture informed by and responsive to the
concerns of women, as well as people of color and other
marginalized groups" (Landry and MacLean, 1993: ix-x).  For Landry
and Maclean, Materialist Feminism is a "critical reading
practice...the critical investigation, or reading in the strong
sense, of the artifacts of culture and social history, including
literary and artistic texts, archival documents, and works of
theory... (is) a potential site of political contestation through
critique, not through the constant reiteration of home-truths"
(ibid, pp. x-xi).  Theirs is a "deconstructive materialist feminist
perspective" (ibid, p. xiii).  But what, precisely, does
materialist mean in this context?  What theory of history and what
politics inform this critique?  Although they define materialism in
a philosophical and moral sense, and bring up the difference
between mechanical or "vulgar"materialism and historical
materialism, there is no definition of what materialism means when
linked to feminism.  Cultural materialism, as developed in Raymond
William's work, is presented as a remedy or supplement to Marx's
historical materialism. There is, according to Williams, an
"indissoluble connection between material production, political and
cultural institutions and activity, and consciousness ... Language
is practical consciousness, a way of thinking and acting in the
world that has material consequences (ibid, p. 5). Williams, they
point out, "strives to put human subjects as agents of culture back
into materialist debate" (ibid, p. 5).

     The implications of these statements is that "humans as agents
of culture" are not present in historical materialism and that
Marx's views on the relationship between material conditions,
language, and consciousness are insufficient.  But anyone familiar
with Marx's work knows that this is not the case.  In fact, it is
Marx who wrote that "language is practical consciousness" and
posited language as the matter that burdens "spirit" from the very
start, for consciousness is always and from the very first a social
product (Marx, [1845-46] 1994, p.117).

     Landry and Maclean present an account of the development of
feminist thought from the late 1960s to the present divided in
three moments:  the encounters and debates between marxism and
feminism in Britain and the U.S.; the institutionalization and
commodification of feminism; and "deconstructive materialist
feminism." These are "three moments of materialist feminism" (ibid,
p.15), a very interesting statement that suggest that Materialist
Feminism -- a rather problematic and elusive concept which
reflects, in my view, postmodern sensibilities about culture and
about the subject of feminism -- had always been there, from the
very beginning, just waiting to be discovered.  Is that really the
case?  If so,  what is this materialism that lurked under the
variety of feminist theories produced on both sides of the Atlantic
since the late 1960s?  Does reference to "material conditions" in
general or to "the material conditions of the oppression of women"
suffice as a basis for constructing a new theoretical framework,
qualitatively different from a Marxist Feminism? If so, how?  The
authors argue that feminist theories focused exclusively on gender
and dual systems theories that bring together gender and class
analysis face methodological and political problems that
"deconstructive reading practices can help solve;" they propose
"the articulation of discontinuous movements, materialism and
feminism, an articulation that takes the political claims of
deconstruction seriously... deconstruction as tool of political
critique (ibid, p. 12-13).  But isn't the linking
between deconstruction and Marxism what gives it its critical edge?
It is in the conclusion that the authors, aiming to demonstrate
that materialism is not an alias for Marxism,  outline the
difference between Marxist Feminism and Materialist Feminism
as follows:

"Marxist feminism holds class contradictions and class analysis
central, and has tried various ways of working an analysis of
gender oppression around this central contradiction. In addition to
class contradictions and contradictions within gender ideology...
we are arguing that materialist feminism should recognize as
material other contradictions as well. These contradictions also
have histories, operate in ideologies, and are grounded in material
bases and effects.... they should be granted material weight in
social and literary analysis calling itself materialist.... these
categories would include...ideologies of race, sexuality,
imperialism and colonialism and anthropocentrism, with their
accompanying radical critiques" (ibid, p. 229).

     While this is helpful to understand what self-identified
materialist feminists mean when they refer to their framework,
it does not shed light on the meaning of material base, material
effect, material weight.  The main concept, materialism, remains
undefined and references to ideologies, exploitation, imperialism,
oppression, colonialism, etc. confirm precisely that which the
authors intended to dispel:  materialism would seem to be an alias
for Marxism.

Martha E. Gimenez
Department of Sociology
University of Colorado at Boulder
http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/