marxian feminism

[Lisa Rogers <eqwq.lrogers@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> Adam Rose <adam@xxxxxxxx>  2/22/96, 03:22am >>>
What's "marxian feminism" ?
***

Well, that's a great question.  First let me point out, in case it's
not clear by now, that I do not know everything about the various
strands of feminist thought or its history.  Like most feminists, and
most marxists, it didn't take me a lot of book-learning in order to
get a clue, or to get an attitude against oppression.

Rosemarie Tong (1989) says that marxist feminism differs from other
feminisms in emphasizing the role of class in accounting for
differences between various women's status and functions, and it
analyzes women's oppression as "the product of the political, social,
and economic structures associated with capitalism."

The way I think of it is that once informed with a marxian way of
thinking about everything, this can be applied to anything one puts
one's mind to.

Unfortunately, some self-titled Marxists, in all their variations,
have not been interested in applying their minds to the fact that
their analyses, programs and prescriptions do not affect women the
same way that they do men, and do not inform or activate the working
class power of women as they do men.

This means that the subversion of capitalism is not being explored
and pursued as fully as it might be, and that women are not gaining
or likely to gain as much as men from any shorter-term changes,
either.

It's the familiar divide and conquer, just like many other
fragmentations of the working class.

Marxian feminism is also a movement within feminism, to radicalize,
improve and enlarge the understanding and the activity of
anti-sexism.  It's a movement toward unification, to an attack upon
the "real enemy," which is opression, alienation, exploitation, in
all its various/interrelated forms.

IMHO

Lisa

Power to the sisters and therefore to the class - Selma James, 1972



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