I really appreciate your effort and willingness to explore the
various factors (slavery, patriarchy, feudalism, merchant
activities) that led to the emergence of capitalism on m-fem and
pen-l. I am truly interested in these discussions and have recently
presented a paper developing some of these connections.
I agree that capitalist class relations did prompt the transition
from patriarchy to sexism as well as the transition from slave labor
to wage labor and other transformations. I also believe that these
(patriarchy, slavery, etc.) are necessary conditions for the
development of capitalism, not in the sense that each one should be
present for it to develop, but more along the lines of each being
able to, on its own, provide an environment that promotes greedy,
insensitive, exploitative, and oppressive behavior. In this vein I
believe ecofeminism has something to say here, it recognizes that
these and other advanced forms of exploitation and oppression
emerged from initial primordial separations (humans from nature,
humans from animals, humans from humans) that occurred where there
had never before been any separation -- this presented an initial
blueprint from which all imaginable exploitation and oppression
could be built.