Philosophical trends in the Feminist movement (part 2) – Anuradha Ghandy
continued from part 1
3 ) ANARCHA-FEMINISM
The feminist movement has been influenced by anarchism and the anarchists have considered the radical feminists closest to their ideas. Hence the body of work called anarcha-feminism can be considered as being very much a part of the radical feminist movement. Anarchists considered all forms of Government (state) as authoritarian and private property as tyrannical. They envisaged the creation of a society which would have no government, no hierarchy and no private property. While the anarchist ideas of Bakunin, Kropotkin and other classic anarchists have been an influence, the famous American anarchist Emma Goldman has particularly been influential in the feminist movement. Emma Goldman, a Lithuanian by birth, migrated to the US in 1885 and as a worker in various garment factories came into contact with anarchist and socialist ideas. She became an active agitator, speaker and campaigner for anarchist ideas. In the contemporary feminist movement the anarchists circulated Emma Goldman’s writings and her ideas have been influential. Anarcha-feminists agree that there is no one version of anarchism, but within the anarchist tradition they share a common understanding, on (1) a criticism of existing societies, focusing on relations of power and domination, (2) a vision of an alternate, egalitarian, non-authoritarian society, along with claims about how it could be organized, and (3) a strategy for moving from one to the other.
They envisaged a society in which human freedom is ensured, but believe that human freedom and community go together. But the communities must be structured in such a way that makes freedom possible. There should be no hierarchies or authority. Their vision is different from the Marxist and liberal tradition but is closest to what the radical feminists are struggling for, the practice they are engaged in. For the anarchists believe that means must be consistent with the aims, the process by which revolution is being brought about, the structures must reflect the new society and relations that have to be created. Hence the process and the form of organisation are extremely important. According to the anarchists dominance and subordination depends on hierarchical social structures which are enforced by the State and through economic coercion (that is through control over property etc). Their critique of society is not based on classes and exploitation, or on the class nature of the State etc, but is focused on hierarchy and domination. The State defends and supports these hierarchical structures and decisions at the central level are imposed on those subordinate in the hierarchy. So for them hierarchical social structures are the roots of domination and subordination in society. This leads to ideological domination as well, because the view that is promoted and propagated is the official view, the view of those who dominate, about the structure and its processes. Anarchists are critical of Marxists because according to them revolutionaries are creating hierarchical organisations (the party) through which to bring about the change. According to them once a hierarchy is created it is impossible for people at the top to relinquish their power. Hence they believe that the process by which the change is sought to be brought about is equally important. “With in a hierarchical organization we cannot learn to act in non-authoritarian ways.” Anarchists give emphasis to “propaganda by deed” by which they mean exemplary actions, which by positive example encourage others to also join. The anarcha-feminists give examples of groups that have created various community based activities, like running a radio station or a food cooperative in the US in which non-authoritarian ways of running the organization have been developed. They have given central emphasis on small groups without hierarchy and domination.
But the functioning of such groups in practice, the hidden tyrannical leadership (Joreen) that gets created has led to many criticisms of them. The problems encountered included hidden leadership, having ‘leaders’ imposed by the media, over representation of middle class women with lots of time in their hands, of lack of task groups which women could join, hostility towards women who showed initiative or leadership.
When communists raise the question that the centralized State controlled by the imperialists needs to be overthrown they admit that their efforts are small in nature and there is a need of coordinating with others and linking up with others. But they are not willing to consider the need for a centralized revolutionary organization to overthrow the State. Basically according to their theory the capitalist state is not to be overthrown, but it has to be outgrown, (“Against the pathological state structure, perhaps the best word is to outgrow rather than overthrow ” from an anarcha-feminist manifesto – Siren 1971).
From their analysis it is clear that they differ strongly from the revolutionary perspective. They do not believe in the overthrow of the bourgeois/imperialist State as the central question and prefer to spend their energy in forming small groups involved in cooperative activities. In the era of monopoly capitalism it is an illusion to think that such activities can expand and grow and gradually engulf the entire society. They will only be tolerated in a society with excess surplus like the US as an oddity, an exotic plant. Such groups tend to get co-opted by the system in this way. Radical feminists have found these ideas suitable for their views and have been very much influenced by anarchist ideas of organization or there has been a convergence of anarchist views of organization and the radical feminist views on the same.
Another aspect of anarcha-feminist ideas is their concern for ecology and we find that eco-feminism has also grown out of anarcha-feminist views. As it is, anarchists in the Western countries are active on the environmental question.
4) ECO-FEMINISM
Eco-feminism has also got close links with cultural feminism, though eco-feminists themselves distinguish themselves. Cultural feminists like Mary Daly have taken an approach in their writing which comes close to an eco-feminist understanding. Ynestra King, Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies are among the known eco-feminists.
Cultural feminists have celebrated women’s identification with nature in art, poetry, music and communes. They identify women and nature against (male) culture. So for example they are active anti-militarists. They blame men for war and point out that masculine pre-occupation is with death defying deeds. Eco-feminists recognize that socialist feminists have emphasized the economic and class aspects of women’s oppression but criticize them for ignoring the question of the domination of nature. Eco- Feminist hold that Feminism and ecology are the revolt of nature against human domination. They demand that we re-think the relationship between humanity and the rest of nature, including our natural, embodied selves.
In eco-feminism nature is the central category of analysis – the interrelated domination of nature – psyche and sexuality, human oppression and non-human, and the social historical position of women in these. This is the starting point for eco-feminism according to Ynestra King. And in practice it has been seen, according to her, that women have been in the forefront of struggles to protect nature – the example of Chipko andolan in which village women clung to trees to prevent the contractors from cutting the trees in Tehri-Garhwal proves this point, according to them. There are many streams within eco-feminism. There are the spiritual eco-feminists who consider their spiritualism as main, while the worldly believe in active intervention to stop the destructive practices. They say that the nature-culture dichotomy must be dissolved and our oneness with nature brought out. Unless we all live more simply some of us won’t be able to live at all. According to them there is room for men too in this save the earth movement. There is one stream among eco-feminists who are against the emphasis on nature-women connection. Women must, according to them, minimize their socially constructed and ideologically reinforced special connection with nature. The present division of the world into male and female (culture and nature); men for culture building, and women for nature building (child rearing and child bearing) must be eliminated and oneness emphasized. Men must bring culture into nature and women should take nature into culture. This view has been called social constructionist eco-feminism. Thinkers like Warren believe that it is wrong to link women to nature, because both men and women are equally natural and equally cultural. Mies and Shiva combined insights from socialist feminism (role of capitalist patriarchy), with insights from global feminists who believe that women have more to do with nature in their daily work around the world, and from postmodernism which criticizes capitalism’s tendency to homogenizing the culture around the world.They believed that women around the world had enough similarity to struggle against capitalist patriarchies and the destruction it spawns. Taking examples of struggles by women against ecological destruction by industrial or military interests to preserve the basis of life they conclude that women will be in the forefront of the struggle to preserve the ecology. They advocate a subsistence perspective in which people must not produce more than that needed to satisfy human needs, and people should use nature only as much as needed, not to make money but satisfy community needs, men and women should cultivate traditional feminine virtues (caring, compassion, nurturance) and engage in subsistence production, for only such a society can “afford to live in peace with nature, and uphold peace between nations, generations, and men and women ” Women are non-violent by nature they claim and support this. They are considered as transformative eco-feminists. 
But the theoretical basis for Vandana Shiva’s argument in favor of subsistence agriculture is actually reactionary. She makes a trenchant criticism of the green revolution and its impact as a whole but from the perspective that it is a form of ”western patriarchal violence” against women and nature. She counterposes patriarchal western, rational/science with non-western wisdom. The imperialists used the developments in agro-science to force the peasantry to increase their production (to avoid a Red revolution) and to become tied to the MNC sponsored market for agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizers, pesticides.
But Shiva is rejecting agro-science altogether and uncritically defending traditional practices. She claims that traditional Indian culture with its dialectical unity of Purusha and Prakriti was superior to the Western philosophical dualism of man and nature, man and culture etc etc. Hence she claims that in this civilization where production was for subsistence, to satisfy the vital basic needs of people, women had a close connection with nature. The Green revolution broke this link between women and nature. In actual fact what Shiva is glorifying is the petty pre-capitalist peasant economy with its feudal structures and extreme inequalities. In this economy women toiled for long hours in backbreaking labor with no recognition of their work. She does not take into account the 40 condition of Dalit and other lower caste women who toiled in the fields and houses of the feudal landlords of that time, abused, sexually exploited and unpaid most of the time. Further, the subsistence life was not based on enough for all, in fact women were deprived of even the basic necessities in this glorified pre-capitalist period, they had no claim over the means of production, they were not independent either. This lack of independence is interpreted by her and Mies as the third world women’s rejection of self-determination and autonomy for they value their connection with the community. What women value as support structures when they do have any alternative before them is being projected as conscious rejection of self-determination by Shiva. In effect they are upholding the patriarchal pre-capitalist subsistence economy in the name of eco-feminism and in the name of opposing western science and technology. A false dichotomy has been created between science and tradition.
This is a form of culturalism or post-modernism that is involved in defending the traditional patriarchal cultures of third world societies and opposing development of the basic masses in the name of attacking the development paradigm of capitalism. We are opposed to the destructive and indiscriminate push given by profit hungry imperialist agri-business to agro-technology (including genetically modified seeds etc) we are not against the application of science and agro-technology to improving agricultural production. Under the present class relations even science is the handmaiden of the imperialists but under democratic/socialist system this will not be so.
It is important to retain what is positive in our tradition but to glorify it all, is anti-people. Eco-feminists idealize the relationship of women with nature and also lacks a class perspective. Women from the upper classes, whether in advanced capitalist countries or in the backward countries like India hardly show any sensitivity to nature so absorbed they are in the global, consumerist culture encouraged by imperialism. They do not think that imperialism is a worldwide system of exploitation. They have shown no willingness to change their privileges and basic lifestyle in order to reduce the destruction of the environment. For peasant women the destruction of the ecology has led to untold hardships for them in carrying out their daily chores like procuring fuel, water, and fodder for cattle. Displacement due to take over of their forests and lands for big projects also affects them badly.
Hence these aspects can and have become rallying points for mobilizing them in struggles. But from this we cannot conclude that women as against men have a “natural” tendency to preserve nature. The struggle against monopoly capitalism, that is relentlessly destroying nature, is a political struggle, a people’s issue, in which the people as a whole, men and women must participate. And though the ecofeminist quote the Chipko struggle, in fact there are so many other struggles in our country in which both men and women have agitated on what can be considered as ecological issues and their rights. The Narmada agitation, the agitations of villagers in Orissa against major mining projects, and against nuclear missile project or the struggle of tribals in Bastar and Jharkhand against the destruction of forests and major steel projects are examples of this.
5) SOCIALIST FEMINISM
Socialist or Marxist women who were active in the new left, anti-Vietnam war student movement in the 1960s joined the women’s liberation movement as it spontaneously emerged. Influenced by the feminist arguments raised within the movement they raised questions about their own role within the broad democratic movement, and the analysis on the women’s question being put forward by the New Left (essentially a Trotskyite revisionist leftist trend critical of the Soviet Union and China) o f which they were a part. Though they were critical of the socialists and communists for ignoring the women’s question, unlike the radical feminist trend, they did not break with the socialist movement but concentrated their efforts on combining Marxism with radical feminist ideas. There is a wide spectrum amongst them as well.
At one end of the spectrum are a section called Marxist feminists who differentiate themselves from socialist feminist because they adhere more closely to Marx, Engels, and Lenin’s writings and have concentrated their analysis on women’s exploitation within the capitalist political economy. At the other end of the spectrum are those who have focused on how gender identity is created through child rearing practices. They have focused on the psychological processes and are influenced by Freud. They are also called psycho-analytic feminists. The term feminist is used by all of them. Some feminists who are involved in serious study and political activity from the Marxist perspective also call themselves Marxist feminists to denote both their difference from socialist feminists and their seriousness about the woman’s question. Marxist feminists like Mariarosa Dalla Costa and others from a feminist group in Italy did a theoretical analysis of housework under capitalism. Dalla Costa argued in detail that through domestic work women are reproducing the worker, a commodity. Hence according to them it is wrong to consider that only use values are created through domestic work. Domestic work also produces exchange values – the labor power. When the demand for wages for housework arose Dalla Costa supported it as a tactical move to make society realize the value of housework. Though most did not agree with their conclusion that housework creates surplus value, and supported the demand for wages for housework, yet their analysis created a great deal of discussion in feminist and Marxist circles around the world and led to a heightened awareness of how housework serves capital. Most socialist feminists were critical of the demand but it was debated at length. Initially the question of housework (early 70s) was an important part of their discussion but by the 1980s it became clear that a large proportion of women were working outside the house or for some part of their lives they worked outside the house.
By the early 1980s 45 % of the total workforce in the US was female. Then their focus of study became the situation of women in the labour force in their countries. Socialist feminists have analysed how women in the US have been discriminated against in jobs and wages. The gender segregation in jobs too (concentration of women in certain types of jobs which are low wage) has been documented in detail by them. These studies have been useful to expose the patriarchal nature of capitalism. But for the puipose of this article, only the theoretical position regarding women’s oppression and capitalism that they take will be considered by us. We will present the position put forward by Heidi Hartmann in a much circulated and debated article, “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union ” to understand the basic socialist feminist position.
According to Heidi Hartmann Marxism and feminism are two sets of systems of analysis which have been married but the marriage is unhappy because only Marxism, with its analytic power to analyse capital is dominating. But according to her while Marxism provides an analysis of historical development and of capital it has not analysed the relations of men and women. She says that the relations between men and women are also determined by a system which is patriarchal, which feminists have analysed.
Both historical materialist analysis of Marxism and patriarchy as a historical and social structure are necessary to understand the development of western capitalist society and the position of women within it, to understand how relations between men have been created and how patriarchy has shaped the course of capitalism. She is critical of Marxism on the women’s question. She says that Marxism has dealt with the women’s question only in relation to the economic system. She says women are viewed as workers, and Engels believed that sexual division of labour would be destroyed if women came into production, and all aspects of women’s life are studied only in relation to how it perpetuates the capitalist system. Even the study on housework dealt with the relation of women to capital but not to men. Though Marxists are aware of the sufferings of women they have focused on private property and capital as the source of women’s oppression. But according to her, early Marxists failed to take into account the difference in men’s and women’s experience of capitalism and considered patriarchy a left over from the earlier period. She says that Capital and private property do not oppress women as women; hence their abolition will not end women’s oppression. Engels and other Marxists do not analyse the labour of women in the family properly. Who benefits from her labour in the house she asks -not only the capitalist, but men as well. A materialist approach ought not to have ignored this crucial point. It follows that men have a material interest in perpetuating women’s subordination. Further her analysis held that though Marxism helps us to understand the capitalist production structure, its occupational structure and its dominant ideology its concepts like reserve army. Wage labourer, class are gender-blind because it makes no analysis about who will fill these empty places, that is, who will be the wage labourer, who will be the reserve army etc etc. For capitalism anyone, irrespective of gender, race, and nationality, can fill them. This, they say, is where the woman’s question suffers.
Some feminists have analysed women’s work using Marxist methodology but adapting it. Juliet Mitchell for example analysed woman’s work in the market, her work of reproduction, sexuality and child-rearing. According to her, the work in the market place is production, the rest is ideological. For Mitchell patriarchy operates in the realm of reproduction, sexuality and child-rearing. She did a psychoanalytical study of how gender based personalities are formed for men and women. According to Mitchell, “we are dealing with two autonomous are as: the economic mode of capitalism and the ideological mode of patriarchy . “Hartmann disagrees with Mitchell because she views patriarchy only as ideological and does not give it a material base. According to her the material base o f patriarchy is men’s control over women’s labour power. They control it by denying access to women over society’s productive resources (denying her a job with a living wage) and restricting her sexuality. This control according to her operates not only within the family but also outside at the work place. At home she serves the husband and at work she serves the boss. Here it is important to note that Hartmann makes no distinction between men of the ruling classes and other men. Hartmann concluded that there is no pure patriarchy and no pure capitalism. Production and reproduction are combined in a whole society in the way it is organized and hence we have what she calls patriarchal capitalism. According to her there is a strong partnership between patriarchy and capitalism. Marxism she feels underestimated the strength and flexibility of patriarchy and overestimated the strength of capital. Patriarchy has adapted and capital is flexible when it encounters earlier modes of production and it has adapted them to suit its needs for accumulation of capital. Women’s role in the labour market, her work at home is determined by the sexual division of labour and capitalism has utilized them to treat women as secondary workers and to divide the working class. Some other socialist feminists do not agree with Hartmann’s position that there are two autonomous systems operating, one, capitalism in the realm of production, and two, patriarchy in the realm of reproduction and ideology and they call this the dual systems theory Iris Young for example believes that Hartmann’s dual system makes patriarchy some kind of a universal phenomenon which is existing before capitalism and in every known society makes it ahistorical and prone to cultural and racial bias. Iris Young and some other socialist feminists argue that there is only one system that is capitalist patriarchy.
According to Young the concept that can help to analyse this clearly is not class, because it is gender-blind, but division of labour. She argues that the gender based division of labour is central, fundamental to the structure of the relations of production. Among the recently more influential socialist feminists are Maria Mies (she also has developed into an eco-feminist) who also focuses on division of labour –“The hierarchical division of labor between men and women and its dynamics for man integral part of dominant production relations, i .e . class relations of a particular epoch and society and of the broader national and international divisions of labour , “ According to her a materialist explanation requires us to analyse the nature of women’s and men’s interaction with nature and through it build up their human or social nature. In this context she is critical of Engels for not considering this aspect. Femaleness and maleness are defined in each historical epoch differently. Thus in earlier what she calls matristic societies women were significant for they were productive – they were active producers of life. Under capitalist conditions this has changed and they are housewives, empty of all creative and productive qualities. Women as producers of children and milk, as gatherers and agriculturists had a relation with nature which was different from that of men. M e n related to nature through tools. Male’s supremacy came not from superior economic contribution but from the fact that they invented destructive tools through which they controlled women, nature and other men. Further she adds that it was the pastoral economy in which patriarchal relations were established. Men learnt the role of the male in impregnation. Their monopoly over arms and this knowledge of the male role in reproduction led to changes in the division of labour. Women were no longer important as gatherers of food or as producers, but their role was breeding children. Thus she concludes that, “we can attribute the a symmetric division of labour between men and women to this predatory mode of production, or rather appropriation, which is based on male monopoly over means of coercion, i .e. arms and direct violence by means of which permanent relations of exploitation and dominance between the sexes was created and maintained .”
To uphold this, the family, state and religion have played an important part. Though Mies says that we should reject biological determinism, she herself veers towards it. Several of their proposals for social change, like those o f radical feminists, are directed towards transformation of man-woman relations and the responsibility of rearing children. The central concern of socialist feminists according to her is reproductive freedom. This means that women should have control over whether to have children and when to have children.
Reproductive freedom includes the right to safe birth control measures, the right to safe abortion, day care centres, a decent wage that can look after children, medical care, and housing. It also includes freedom of sexual choice; that is the right to have children outside the socio-cultural norm that children can only be brought up in a family of a woman with a man. Women outside such arrangements should also be allowed to have and bring up children. And child rearing in the long run must be transformed from a woman’s task to that o f men and women. Women should not suffer due to childlessness or due to compulsory motherhood. But they recognize that to guarantee all the above, the wage structure of society must change, women’s role must change, compulsory heterosexuality must end, the care of children must become a collective enterprise and all this is not possible within the capitalist system. The capitalist mode of production must be transformed, but not alone, both (also mode of procreation) must be transformed together.
Among later writers an important contribution has come from Gerda Lerner. In her book, The Creation of Patriarchy , she goes into a detailed explanation of the origins of patriarchy. She argues that it is a historical process that is not one moment in history, due, not to one cause, but a process that proceeded over 2500 years from about 3100 B.C. to 600 B.C. She states that Engels in his pioneering work made major contributions to our understanding of women’s position in society and history. He defined the major theoretical questions for the next hundred years. He made propositions regarding the historicity of women’s subordination but he was unable to substantiate his propositions. From her study of ancient societies and states she concludes that it was the appropriation of women’s sexual and reproductive capacity by men that lies at the foundation of private property; it preceded private property. The first states (Mesopotamia and Egypt) were organized in the form of patriarchy.
Ancient law codes institutionalized women’s sexual subordination (men control over the family) and slavery and they were enforced with the power of the state. This was done through force, economic dependency of women and class privileges to women of the upper classes. Through her study of Mesopotamia and other ancient states she traces how ideas, symbols and metaphors were developed through which patriarchal sex/gender relations were incorporated into Western civilization. Men learnt how to dominate other societies by dominating their own women. But women continued to play an important role as priestesses, healers etc as seen in goddess worship. And it was only later that women’s devaluation in religion also took place. Socialist feminists use terms like mechanical Marxists, traditional Marxists to economistic Marxists as those who uphold the Marxist theory concentrating on study and analysis of the capitalist economy and politics and differentiate themselves from them. They are criticising all Marxists for not considering the fight against women’s oppression as the central aspect of the struggle against capitalism. According to them organizing women (feminist organizing projects) should be considered as socialist political work and socialist political activity must have a feminist side to it.
Socialist-Feminist strategy for women’s liberation
After tracing the history of the relationship between the left movement and the feminist movement in the US, a history where they have walked separately, Hartmann strongly feels that the struggle against capitalism cannot be successful unless feminist issues are also taken up. She puts forward a strategy in which she says that the struggle for socialism must be an alliance with groups with different interests ( e.g. women’s interests are different from general working class interests) and secondly she says that women must not trust men to liberate them after revolution. Women must have their own 48 separate organisation and their own power base. Young too supports the formation of autonomous women’s groups but thinks that there are no issues concerning women that do not involve an attack on capitalism as well.
As far as her strategy is concerned she means that there is no need for a vanguard party to make revolution successful and that women’s groups must be independent of the socialist organisation. Jagger puts this clearly when she writes that, ” the goal of socialist feminism is to overthrow the whole social order of what some call capitalist patriarchy in which women suffer alienation in every aspect of their lives . The socialist feminist strategy is to support some ”mixed” socialist organisations . But also form independent women’s groups and ultimately an independent women s movement committed with equal dedication to the destruction of capitalism and the destruction of male dominance. The women’s movement will join in coalitions with other revolutionary movements, but it will not give up its
organizational independence.”
They have taken up agitations and propaganda on issues that are anti-capitalist and against male domination. Since they identify the mode of reproduction (procreation etc) as the basis for the oppression of women, they have included it in the Marxist concept of the base of society. So they believe that many of the issues being taken up like the struggle against rape, sexual harassment, for free abortion are both anti-capitalist and a challenge to male domination. They have supported the efforts of developing a women’s culture which encourages the collective spirit. They also support the efforts to build alternative institutions, like health care facilities and encouraged community living or some form of midway arrangement. In this they are close to radical feminists. But unlike radical feminists whose aim is that these facilities should enable women to move away from patriarchal, white culture into their own haven, socialist feminists do not believe such a retreat is possible within the framework of capitalism. In short socialist feminists see it as a means of organizing and helping women, while radical feminists see it as a goal of completely separating from men. Socialist feminists, like radical feminists believe that efforts to change the family structure, which is what they call the cornerstone of women’s oppression must start now. So they have been encouraging community living, or some sort of mid way arrangements where people try to overcome the gender division in work sharing, looking after children, where lesbians and heterosexual people can live together.
Though they are aware that this is only partial, and success cannot be achieved within a capitalist society they believe it is important to make the effort. Radical feminists assert that such arrangements are “living in revolution.” That means this act is revolution itself. Socialist feminists are aware that transformation will not come slowly, that there will be periods of upheaval, but these are preparations.
So this is their priority. Both radical feminists and socialist feminists have come under strong attack from black women for essentially ignoring the situation of black women and concentrating all their analysis on the situation of white, middle class women and theorizing from it. For example, Joseph, points out the condition of black slave women who were never considered “feminine”. In the fields and plantations , in labour and in punishment they were treated equal to men. The black family could never stabilize under conditions of slavery and black men were hardly in a condition to dominate their women, slaves that they were. Also later on, black women have had to work for their living and many of them have been domestic servants in rich white houses. The harassment they faced there, the long hours of work make their experience very different from that of white women. Hence they are not in agreement with the concepts of family being the source of oppression (for blacks it was a source of resistance to racism), on dependence of women on men (black women can hardly be dependent on black men given the high rates of unemployment among them) and the reproduction role of women (they reproduced white labour and children through their domestic employment in white houses). Racism is an all pervasive situation for them and this brings them in alliance with black men rather than with white women. Then white women themselves have been involved in perpetuating racism, about which feminists should introspect she argues. Initially black women hardly participated in the feminist movement though in the 1980s slowly a black feminist movement has developed which is trying to combine the struggle against male domination with the struggle against racism and capitalism. These and similar criticisms from women of other third world countries has given rise to a trend within feminism called global feminism. In this context post-modernism also gained a following among feminists.
Critique
Basically if we see the main theoretical writings of socialist feminists we can see that they are trying to combine Marxist theory with radical feminist theory and their emphasis is on proving that women’s oppression is the central and moving force in the struggle within society. The theoretical writings have been predominantly in Europe and the US and they are focused on the situation in advanced capitalist society. A l l their analysis is related to capitalism in their countries. Even their understanding of Marxism is limited to the study of dialectics of a capitalist economy.
There is a tendency to universalize the experience and structure of advanced capitalist countries to the whole world. For example in South Asia and China which have had a long feudal period we see that women’s oppression in that period was much more severe. The Maoist perspective on the women’s question in India also identifies patriarchy as an institution that has been the cause of women’s oppression throughout class society. But it does not identify it as a separate system with its own laws of motion. The understanding is that patriarchy takes different content and forms in different societies depending on their level of development and the specific history and condition of that particular society; that it has been and is being used by the ruling classes to serve their interests. Hence there is no separate enemy for patriarchy.
The same ruling classes, whether imperialists, capitalists, feudals and the State they control, are the enemies of women because they uphold and perpetuate the patriarchal family, gender discrimination and the patriarchal ideology within that society. They get the support of ordinary men undoubtedly who imbibe the patriarchal ideas, which are the ideas of the ruling Jasses and oppress women. But the position of ordinary men and those of the ruling classes cannot be compared. Socialist feminists by emphasizing reproduction are underplaying the importance of the role of women in social production. The crucial question is that without women having control over the means of production and over the means of producing necessities and wealth how can the subordination of women ever be ended?
This is not only an economic question, but also a question of power, a political question.
Though this can be considered in the context of the gender based division of labour in practice their emphasis is on relations within the heterosexual family and on ideology of patriarchy. On the other hand the Marxist perspective stresses women’s role in social production and her withdrawal from playing a significant role in social production has been the basis for her subordination in class society. So we are concerned with how the division of labour, relations to the means of production and labour itself in a particular society is organized to understand how the ruling classes exploited v/omen and forced their subordination. Patriarchal norms and rules helped to intensify the exploitation of women and reduce the value of their labour.
Supporting the argument given by Firestone, socialist feminists are stressing on women’s role in reproduction to build their entire argument. They take the following quotation of Engels : ” According to the materialist conception , the determining factor in history is , in the final instance , the production and reproduction of i m m e d i a t e life. This, again , is of a two fold character : on the one side , the production of the means of existence, of food , clothing and shelter and the tools necessary for that production ; on the other side , the production of human beings themselves, the propagation of the species. The social organisation under which the people of a particular epoch live is determined by both kinds of production . ” (Origin of the family. Private property and the State).
On the basis of this quotation they make the point that in their analysis and study they only concentrated on production ignoring reproduction altogether. Engels’ quote gives the basic framework of a social formation. Historical materialism, our study of history, makes it clear that any one aspect cannot be isolated or even understood without taking the other into account. The fact is that throughout history women have played an important role in social production and to ignore this and to assert that women’s role in the sphere of reproduction is the central aspect and it should be the main focus is in fact accepting the argument of the patriarchal ruling classes that women’s social role in reproduction is most important and nothing else is.
The socialist feminists also distort and render meaningless the concept of base and superstructure in their analysis. Firestone says that (and so do socialist feminists like Hartmann) reproduction is part of the base. It follows from this that all social relations connected with it must be considered as part of the base the family, other man-women relations, etc. If all the economic relations and reproductive relations are part of the base the concept of base becomes so broad that it loses its meaning altogether and it cannot be an analytic tool as it is meant to be. Gender based division of labour has been a useful tool to analyse the patriarchal bias in the economic structure of particular societies. But the socialist feminists who are putting forward the concept of gender division of labour as being more useful than private property are confusing the point, historically and analytically. The first division of labour was between men and women. And it was due to natural or biological causes — the role of women in bearing children. But this did not mean inequality between them — the domination of one sex over another.
Women’s share in the survival of the group was very important – the food gathering they did, the discovery they made of growing and tending plants, the domestication of animals was essential for the survival and advance of the group. At the same time further division of labour took place which was not sex based. The invention of new tools, knowledge of domesticating animals, of pottery, of metal work, of agriculture, all these and more contributed to making a more complex division of labour. All this has to be seen in the context of the overall society and its structure ~ the development of clan and kinship structures, of interaction and clashes with other groups and of control over the means of production that were being developed. With the generation of surplus, with wars and the subjugation of other groups who could be made to labour, the process of withdrawal of women from social production appears to have begun.
This led to the concentration of the means of production and the surplus in the hands of clan heads/ tribe heads begun which became manifest as male domination. Whether this control of the means of production remained communal in form, or whether it developed in the form of private property, whether by then class formation took place fully or not is different in different societies. We have to study the particular facts of specific societies. Based on the information available in his time, Engels traced the process in Western Europe in ancient times, it is for us to trace this process in our respective societies. The full fledged institutionalization of patriarchy could only come later, that is the defence of or the ideological justification for the withdrawal of women from social production and their role being limited to reproduction in monogamous relationships, could only come after the full development of class society and the emergence of the State.
Hence the mere fact of gender division of labour does not explain the inequality. To assert that gender based division of labour is the basis of women’s oppression rather than class still begs the question. If we do not find some social, material reasons for the inequality we are forced into accepting the argument that men have an innate drive for power and domination. Such an argument is self-defeating because it means there is no point in struggling for equality. It can never be realized. The task of bearing children by itself cannot be the reason for this inequality, for as we have said earlier it was a role that was lauded and welcomed in primitive society. Other material reasons had to arise that v/as the cause, which the radical and socialist feminists are not probing. In the realm of ideology socialist feminists have done detailed analyses exposing the patriarchal culture in their society, e.g. the myth of motherhood.
But the one-sided emphasis by some of them who focus only on ideological and psychological factors makes them loose sight of the wider socio-economic structure on which this ideology and psychology is based. In organizational questions the socialist feminists are trailing the radical feminists and anarcha-feminists. They have clearly placed their strategy but this is not a strategy for socialist revolution. It is a completely reformist strategy because it does not address the question of how socialism can be brought about. If, as they believe, socialist/ communist parties should not do it then the women’s groups should bring forth a strategy of how they will overthrow the male of the monopoly bourgeoisie. They are restricting their practical activities to small group organizing, building alternative communities, of general propaganda and mobilizing around specific demands. This is a form of economistic practice. These activities in themselves are useful to organize people at the basic level but they are not enough, to overthrow capitalism and to take the process of women’s liberation ahead. This entails a major organising work involving confrontation with the State — its intelligence and armed power.
Socialist feminists have left this question aside, in a sense left it to the very revisionist and revolutionary parties whom they criticize. Hence their entire orientation is reformist, to undertake limited organizing and propaganda within the present system. A large number of the theoreticians of the radical feminist and socialist feminist trend have been absorbed in high paying, middle class jobs esp. in the universities and colleges and this is reflected in the elitism that has crept into their writing and their distance from the mass movement. It is also reflected in the realm of theory One Marxist feminist states, ” By the 1980s however many socialist and Marxist feminists working in or near universities and colleges not only had been thoroughly integrated into the professional middle class but had also abandoned historical materialism’s class analysis…”
6) POST-MODERNISM AND FEMINISM
The criticism of feminists from non-white women led a section of feminists to move in the direction of multi-culturalism and postmodernism. Taking off from the existentialist writer Simone de Beauvoir they consider that woman is the “other” (opposed to the dominant culture prevailing, e.g. dalits. adivadis, women, etc). Post-modemist feminists are glorifying the position of the “Other” because it is supposed to give insights into the dominant culture of which she is not a part. Women can therefore be critical of the norms, values and practices imposed on everyone by the dominant culture. They believe that studies should be oriented from the values of those who are being studied, the subalterns, who have been dominated. Post-modernism has been popular among academics. They believe that no fixed category exists, in this case, woman. The self is fragmented by various identities – by sex, class, caste, ethnic community, race. These various identities have a value in themselves. Thus this becomes one form of cultural relativism.
Hence, for example, in reality no category of only woman exists. Woman can be one of the identities of the self there are others too. There will be a dalit woman, a dalit woman prostitute, an upper caste woman, and such like. Since each identity has a value in itself, no significance is given to values towards which all can strive. Looked at in this way there is no scope to find common ground for collective political activity. The concept woman, helped to bring women together and act collectively. But this kind of identity politics divides more than it unites. The unity is on the most narrow basis.
Post-modernists celebrate difference and identity and they criticize Marxism for focusing on one “totality” – class. Further post-modernism does not believe that language (western languages atleast) reflects reality. They believe that identities are “constructed” through “discourse”. Thus, in their understanding, language constructs reality. Therefore many of them have focused on “deconstruction” of language, hi effect this leaves a person with nothing – there is no material reality about which we can be certain. This is a form of extreme subjectivism. Post-modemist feminists have focused on psychology and language. Post-modernism, in agreement with the famous French philosopher Foucault, are against what they call “relations of power”. But this concept of power is diffused and it is not clearly defined.
Who wields the power? According to Foucault it is only at the local level, so resistance to power can only be local. Is this not the basis of NGO functioning which unites people against some local corrupt power and make adjustments with the power above, the central and state govts. In effect post-modernism is extremely divisive because it promotes fragmentation between people and gives relative importance to identities without any theoretical framework to understand the historical reasons for identity formation and to link the various identities. So we can have a gathering of NGOs like WSF where everyone celebrates their identity – women, prostitutes, gays, lesbians, tribals, dalits etc etc., but there is no theory bringing them under an overall understanding, a common strategy. Each group will resist its own oppressors, as it perceives them. With such an argument, logically, there can be no organization, at best it can be spontaneous organisation at the local level and temporary coalitions. To advocate organisation according to their understanding means to reproduce power – hierarchy, oppression. Essentially they leave the individual to resist for himself or herself, and are against consistent organized resistance and armed resistance.
Carole Stabile, a Marxist feminist has put it well when she says, ” Anti-organisational bias is part and parcel of the post – modernist package . To organize any but the most provisional and spontaneous coalitions is , for post- modernist social theorists and feminists alike , to reproduce oppression , hierarchies , and forms of intractable dominance. The fact that capitalism is extremely organized makes little difference , because one resists against a multivalent diffuse form of power. Nor, as Joreen pointed out over two decades ago, does it seem to matter that structurelessness produces its own forms of tyranny. Thus,in place of any organized politics, postmodernist social theory offers us variations on pluralism , individualism , individualized agency, and ultimately individualized solutions that have never – and will never – be capable of resolving structural problems.” (1997)
It is not surprising that for the postmodernists, capitalism, imperialism etc do not mean anything more than one more form of power. While post-modernism in its developed form may not to be found in a semi-colonial society like India, yet many bourgeois feminists have been influenced by it. Their vehement criticism of revolutionary and revisionist organisations on grounds of bureaucracy and hierarchy also reflects the influence of postmodernism in recent times.
SUMMING UP
We have presented in brief, the main theoretical trends in the feminist movements as they have developed in the West in the contemporary period. While the debate with Marxism and within Marxism dominated the 1970s, in the 1980s cultural feminism with its separatist agenda and focus on the cultural aspects of women’s oppression came to the fore. Issues of sexual choice and reproductive role of women came to dominate the debate and discussions in feminist circles. Many socialist feminists too have given significance to these questions though not in the extreme form that cultural feminists have. Transformation of the heterosexual family became the main call of the bourgeois feminist movement and the more active sections among them tried to bring it into practice as well. Though many of them may have envisaged a change in the entire social system in this way in fact it became a reformist approach which they have tried to theorize.
Postmodernism made its influence felt in the 1990s. Yet in the late 1990s Marxism is again becoming an important theory within feminist analysis. This critical overview of the way the feminist movement (particularly the radical feminist and socialist feminist trends) theoretically analysed women’s oppression, the solutions they have offered and strategies they evolved to take the movement forward we can say that flaws in their theory have led to advocating solutions which have taken the movement into a dead end. Inspite of the tremendous interest generated by the movement and wide support from women who were seeking to understand their own dissatisfactions and problems the movement could not develop into a consistent broad based movement including not only the middle classes but also women from the working class and ethnically oppressed sections.
The main weaknesses in their theory and strategies were:
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Seeking roots of women’s oppression in her reproductive role. Since women’s role in reproduction is determined by biology, it is something that cannot be changed. Instead of determining the material, social causes for origin o f women’s oppression they focused on a biologically given factor thereby falling into the trap of biological determinism.
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In relation with her biological role focusing on the patriarchal nuclear family as the basic structure in society in which her oppression is rooted. Thus their emphasis was on opposing the heterosexual family as the main basis of women’s oppression. As a result the wider socio-economic structure in which the family exists and which shapes the family was ignored.
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Making the contradiction between men and women as the main contradiction. Concentrating their attention on changing the sex/gender system – the gender roles that men and women are trained to play. This meant concentrating on the cultural, psychological aspects of social life ignoring the wider political and economic forces that give rise to and defend patriarchal culture.
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Emphasising the psychological/personality differences between men and women as biological and advocating separatism for women. Overemphasis on sexual liberation for women Separate groups, separate live-in arrangements and lesbianism. Essentially this meant that this section of the women’s movement confined itself to small groups and could not appeal to or mobilize the mass of women.
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Falling into the trap of imperialism and its promotion of 58 pornography, sex-tourism etc by emphasizing the need for liberating women from sexual repression. Or in the name of equal opportunities supporting women’s recruitment into the US Army before the Iraq War (2003).
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Organizational emphasis on opposition to hierarchy and domination and focus on small consciousness raising groups and alternative activity, which is self-determined. Opposing the mobilization and organizing of large mass o f oppressed women.
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Ignoring or being biased against the contributions made by the socialist movements and socialist revolutions in Russia, China etc in bringing about a change in the condition of large sections of women.
How incorrect theoretical analysis and wrong strategies can affect a movement can be clearly seen in the case of the feminist movement. Not understanding women’s oppression as linked to the wider exploitative socio-economic and political structure, to imperialism, they have sought solutions within the imperialist system itself These solutions have at best benefited a section of middle class women but left the vast mass of oppressed and exploited women far from liberation. The struggle for women’s liberation cannot be successful in isolation from the struggle to overthrow the imperialist system itself . 