Socialism is the Best Medicine

Socialism is the Best Medicine

Marxism and Women’s Oppression

March 14, 2014

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BOOK REVIEW: Lise Vogel (1983/2013) Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory (1983/2013). Introduction by S. Ferguson and D. McNally. Haymarket Books.

Can marxism guide us in our struggle against women’s oppression? In her preface to Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory, Lise Vogel acknowledges the value of marxist theory:

“I remain convinced that the revival of Marxist theory, not the construction of some socialist-feminist synthesis, offers the best chance to provide theoretical guidance in the coming battles for the liberation of women”. (p.ix)

At the same time, she argues,

“…that the socialist tradition is deeply flawed, that it has never adequately addressed the question of women…” (p.2)

These two statements reveal the strength and weakness of Vogel’s book.

The book’s strength lies in its marxist analysis of the labor necessary to reproduce the working class, the portion of that labor performed by women in the home, and the role of men in the sexual division of labor.

The book’s weakness lies in its description of how capitalism organizes reproduction as a “system of male domination.” With this description, Vogel retains the core of capitalist (bourgeois) feminism, that the liberation of women requires a cross-class women’s movement organized separately from men.

Ferguson and McNally’s 24-page Introduction supports Vogel’s concept of a “male-dominant gender-order.”

“It is not biology per se that dictates women’s oppression; but rather, capital’s dependence upon biological processes specific to women – pregnancy, childbirth, lactation – to secure the reproduction of the working class. It is this that induces capital and its state to control and regulate female reproduction and which impels them to reinforce a male-dominant gender-order. And this social fact, connected to biological difference, comprises the foundation upon which women’s oppression is organized in capitalist society.” (p. xxix)

Dishonest

To support her position, Vogel refers to the writings of 19th and early 20th century socialists. She quotes August Bebel, “women should expect as little help from the men as working men do from the capitalist class,” and Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling in The Woman Question,

“Women are the creatures of an organized tyranny of men, as the workers are the creatures of an organized tyranny of idlers.” (p. 108)

She concludes that “the idea that women’s situation parallels that of workers suggests a strategy of parallel social struggles for freedom” (p. 108).

This entire section is dishonest. Vogel ignores the fact that Bebel described privileged women and working-class women as “enemy sisters,” and his explicit recommendation against women in antagonistic classes organizing together, except for those few united-front actions that benefit all women.(1) Organizing against men is not one of those actions. It is counter-productive for working women to organize against working men whose support they need to fight the employers.

Vogel also disregards Eleanor Marx, who could not be more clear on the matter:

“For us there is no more a ‘women’s question’ from the bourgeois standpoint than there is a men’s question. Where the bourgeois women demand rights that are of help to us too, we will fight together with them, just as the men of our class did not reject the right to vote because it came from the bourgeois class. We too will not reject any benefit, gained by the bourgeois women in their own interests, which they provide us willingly or unwillingly. We accept these benefits as weapons, weapons that enable us to fight better on the side of our working-class brothers. We are not women arrayed in struggle against men but workers who are in struggle against the exploiters.”(2)

Revolutionary socialists do not counterpose women’s liberation to the needs of the revolution; the fight for women’s liberation is central to building the revolution.

Class matters

Vogel describes, but does not seem to understand, Clara Zetkin’s class-based approach to women’s liberation which is that all women are oppressed, but not all women have the same interest in ending capitalism. Women in the capitalist class are denied “free and independent control over their property,” a condition that can be remedied by legal equality under capitalism.

In the middle and professional classes, women strive for equal access to education and employment compared with the men of their class. They call on capitalism to fulfill its pledge to promote free competition in every arena, including between women and men. These women form what is commonly called the ‘bourgeois’ women’s movement because they limit their demands to legal reforms.

Working-class women also seek legal equality with the men of their class, but such equality would only mean the right to equal exploitation. The liberation of working-class women requires an end to labor exploitation, and that can be achieved only by uniting with working-class men.

Theoretically and practically, the question of women’s liberation peaked during the Russian Revolution. Vogel describes Lenin’s emphasis on the importance of freeing women from “domestic slavery” so they could participate fully in the revolutionary transformation of Russian society. Achieving this required a two-fold process: socializing domestic labor and engaging men in housework. The latter required a systematic campaign against male chauvinism. Could such a campaign succeed?

Vogel observes that the capitalist system pays men more so they can support childbearing women in individual family units. She concludes that this creates a system of male domination, or patriarchy. She writes,

“a material basis for male supremacy is constituted within the proletarian household… [providing] a continuing foundation for male supremacy in the working-class family.” (p.88)

Vogel neglects to mention that the higher male wage comes with a price. ‘Family obligations’ tie men to jobs they might otherwise leave. Men are legally bound to support women and children, even after they have left their families and formed new ones. And ‘dead-beat dads’ can be imprisoned for not paying child support.

The key question is whether putting men in a financially-dominant position requires them to personally dominate their homes. The one does not automatically follow from the other. A superior financial position does not create male domination in the family, it only creates the opportunity for it.

Individual men can choose what to believe and how to treat others. Some men take advantage of their financial position to dominate women and children. Others do not. Consequently, the sexual division of labor under capitalism does not qualify as a system of male domination over women that can be compared to the system of capitalist domination over workers. The antagonism between women and men can be eliminated by reorganizing society. The antagonism between capital and labor is irreconcilable. As long as capital exists, labor will be exploited.

Patriarchy

Some socialists argue that “the current use of the term patriarchy…merely describes a system of sexism.”(3) Women are systematically paid less than men, are denied control over our reproductive functions, and lack social support for child rearing and other domestic duties. However, it should be emphasized that the men in our lives have no control over these forms of oppression.

The term ‘patriarchy’ literally means a system of domination by men and implies that all men benefit from the oppression of women. If this were true, then women would need to organize separately from men. However, the majority of women and men are working class, and the only way they can counter their oppression as workers is to unite against the capitalist class.

Failure to identify the shared class interests of most women and men lies at the heart of the debate over whether men benefit from women’s oppression and whether women should organize separately from men.

Working-class men cannot achieve their liberation from capitalist rule unless the majority of women are on board. At the same time, the system of women’s oppression gives individual men the opportunity to take advantage of women. Some men embrace this opportunity; others reject it.

Capitalism encourages all workers to abandon their class interests for the promise of personal gain. White workers can take advantage of Black oppression to advance themselves, or they can choose to fight racism. Individual workers can accept management bribes to get ahead, or they can choose to join a union, and so on.

Male superiority is the booby prize that capitalism offers men to sweeten the bitter taste of class exploitation. As Vogel notes,

“The ruling class, in order to stabilize the reproduction of labor power as well as to keep the amount of necessary labor at acceptable levels, encourages male supremacy within the exploited class. “(p.153)

While capitalism “encourages male supremacy,” many men reject this role because it hurts the women they love and blocks them from enjoying egalitarian, cooperative relationships.

The individual man has no choice about whether or not the women in his life are oppressed; capitalism ensures that they are. However, individual men can choose to take advantage of women’s oppression or to share their burdens and join the fight to socialize domestic labor.

Class comes first

The socialist challenge is to convince working-class men to put their class interests first, to convince them that whatever benefits they think they gain from women’s oppression pale in comparison with the benefits they could have by fighting alongside women to end capitalism and all of its oppressions.

In contrast, Vogel, Ferguson, and McNally offer a pseudo-marxist argument for a cross-class movement of women organized separately from men.

Any mixed-class movement of women must betray its working-class members. When working-class women demand socialized childcare, their privileged sisters moan about paying higher taxes. When working-class women demand more pay, their privileged sisters oppose the rising cost of hired help. The only ‘feminism’ that can liberate all classes of women is the ‘feminism’ that is based on the goals of the working class.

As Lenin argued with the Jewish Bund, advocating the right of oppressed groups to organize independently is different from promoting independent organization on principle. As a tactic, independent organization can advance the struggle against oppression within the working-class. As a principle, the independent organization of women deepens antagonisms between men and women and undermines working-class unity.

If the goal of this book was “to provide theoretical guidance in the coming battles for the liberation of women,” then it takes us down the wrong road. To argue that women must organize separately from men is pessimistic and self-defeating. As Vogel documents, both women’s oppression and men’s role in this oppression are rooted in capitalism. Therefore, only a united working-class fight can uproot it.

There is nothing flawed or lacking in the socialist tradition of women’s liberation; it simply does not  meet the needs of privileged women who seek to end their own oppression without destroying the class system that enslaves their working-class sisters.

The value of Vogel’s book lies in her confirmation that the sexual division of labor, male-female relations, and existing family structures are not based on biology but on the particular historical form that capitalism has chosen in order to ensure the reproduction of the working class. While not original, this is a hopeful message.

No biological barriers prevent women, men, and the gender diverse from working together to reshape the world to meet their needs. Only capitalism stands in the way.

Notes

1. Cited in Draper, H. (2011). Women and Class: Towards a Socialist Feminism. Center for Socialist History, pp.234-5.
2. Cited in Draper, H. (2011). Women and Class: Towards a Socialist Feminism. Center for Socialist History, pp.287.
3. Marxism, feminism and women’s liberation, Sharon Smith, Socialist Worker, January 31, 2013.

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