Feminist Thought
Socialist Feminists
b. July 3, 1860;
d. August 17, 1935 (suicide; breast cancer)
"There is
no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex.
Might as well
speak of a female liver".
In addition to
her socialist idea, she used ideas drawn from Darwinism
Women had to
use their sexual assets to assure them the best mates
Socialist Feminists assert:
1. Sexism has a life of its
own. It has existed throughout human history, under every economic system
(in other words, Engels was wrong!!)
2. Capitalism determines
the particular forms of sexism in a capitalist society
3. The subjugation of women
contributes to capitalists’ domination of society
Reading: Excerpt from “Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation
between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution”
Central Question?
What is the relation of
woman to work, money, life, status?
In Marxist terms, to labor,
the division of labor, the means of production?
Women are not economically
independent, but rather dependent upon or interdependent with their husbands
So much that they derive
their class status from their occupation
How can women’s share in the
earnings and property of her husband be justified?
As his “partner”
NO, she’s not his business
partner
As the one who serves his
domestic needs?
If so, then all women would
earn only a maid’s salary, no more
As the mother of his
children?
This makes motherhood an
exchangeable commodity, one that women give in order to obtain clothing and
food
What about good vs. bad
mothers? Can you adjust for
quality of mothering in this scheme?
What about women who do not
bear children? Should they be cast
into the street?
What’s the point of this
discussion? Why is she considering
all these motives and explanations?
To show that women are in a
unique position; there is a separate set of social distinctions and rules for
them that Marxist concept of class cannot accommodate
Chpt. XIV
Argues for married people
to create a home together FREE from DOMESTIC labor
NO KITCHENS
The basis for marriage
should be mutual affection not economic dependence of women upon men; nor
domestic exploitation of women or dependence of men upon women
b. 1945
A Second Wave Feminist
Founder of NY Radical
Feminists
Excerpt from “The Dialectic
of Sex: A Case for Feminist
Revolution”
Synthesized the
ideas of Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and Simone
de Beauvoir into a radical feminist theory of politics
Why do we need
a “dialectic of sex?”
Sex, sexism so deeply embedded, central to our existence, people act like you’re
crazy if you even bring it up
It’s so deep…we
need a REVOLUTION
So, she borrow
the method of dialectics from Marx/Engels
Historical
materialism is a powerful analytic
But it misses a
whole “sexual substratum”
Engels tried,
failed to account for women’s status in strictly economic terms
So, she
proposes instead a “materialist view of history based on sex itself (225)
She says only
Simone de Beauvoir comes close to doing this, but ends up on the existential
side of things
She argues
instead, for an analysis rooted in the BIOLOGICAL FAMILY as “the basic
reproductive unit of male/female/infant
Characterized
by these fundamental facts
1. women before
birth control at the mercy of their reproductive biology
2. infant long
term dependency
3. mother/child
interdependency
4. reproductive
difference led to the first division of labor
i.e. a division
of labor based on SEX
All other
economic and cultural distinctions grow out of this one
Discuss
True, not true,
what do you think?
If it is true,
what is the remedy? How do we
escape the gender division of labor?
Technology!! Artificial
reproduction, completely gender neutral roles in all aspects of life will
follow