In 1868, Karl Marx stated that “Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position
of the fair sex” While usage of the term “the fair sex”
may not have aged quite as well as Marx intended, it shows that from the beginning of Marxist
theorisation there has always been an interest in supporting the emancipation of women – particularly
with Marx’s co-author to The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels.
And this support, of course, is upheld by all principled Marxists to this day.
But with that being said, there are certain differences between how Marxists conceive
of women’s oppression and how bourgeois or petty-bourgeois feminist theorists conceive
of it - particularly with regard to understanding the root cause of patriarchal oppression,
and what this means for emancipation.
So, what is the Marxist understanding of women’s oppression?
Where does this patriarchal oppression come from?
And how can emancipation from this be achieved?
Let’s find out.
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Now, patriarchy is a mode of oppression that has spanned across all forms of class society
from slave society, through feudalism, and up to the modern day in capitalism.
Patriarchal oppression is visible in virtually all aspects of society’s superstructure
from the family, to our systems of law, our cultures, and so on.
But while patriarchal oppression exists today - and its ubiquity if unfortunately taken
for granted by many – this wasn’t always the case.
In fact, for more than 95% of the time that anatomically modern human beings have been
on this planet, this institution of patriarchy simply didn’t exist.
So, what changed in this recent 5% of humanity’s existence?
How did women come to be oppressed under patriarchy?
What is the cause of this oppression?
While some erroneously attribute the root cause of women’s oppression to being some
ahistorical mystical “deficient feminine nature”, and others attempt to locate the
source of women’s oppression narrowly in biology, Catalina Adrianzen of the Movimiento
Femenino Popular offers the Marxist explanation for the source of patriarchal oppression.
According to this historical materialist perspective, “The root of women's oppression is private
property and the subjugation of women that began with it”
Private property itself, then, is the basis for the patriarchal oppression of women.
Meaning that if we truly seek the complete emancipation of women, the only way to achieve
this in its totality is to abolish the root cause of women’s oppression – private
property – in stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Now, why do we say that private property is the root cause of women’s oppression?
In order to understand this, we need to go back in time and look at the transition period
between primitive communal society and class society.
In The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Friedrich Engels refers to
these three periods as: (1) Savagery (which is primitive communist, hunter-gatherer society),
(2) Barbarism (which is the aforementioned transitional stage that introduces pastoralism
and agriculture), and (3) Civilisation (which is class society, beginning with Slave Society,
then Feudalism, and now Capitalism).
Corresponding to each stage is a different form of marriage between people and groups
of people.
In Primitive Communist Savagery, Group Marriage, among and between large groups of people,
is the norm.
There was no institutionalised form of patriarchy at this stage and no prohibitions between
who could and couldn’t have relations with one another.
In Barbarism, the transitional stage between primitive communism and class society, there’s
a move away from large-scale Group Marriage as more and more restrictions are placed on
incestuous relationships and now smaller-scale Pairing Marriage begins to dominate.
This is the stage where we begin to see the emergence of patriarchy.
Friedrich Engels states that, “In this stage, one man lives with one woman, but the relationship
is such that polygamy and occasional infidelity remain the right of the men, even though for
economic reasons polygamy is rare, while from the woman the strictest fidelity is generally
demanded throughout the time she lives with the man, and adultery on her part is cruelly
punished.
The marriage tie can, however, be easily dissolved by either partner; after separation, the children
still belong, as before, to the mother alone.”
Note that last part about children belonging to the mother when separation occurs.
This is a remnant from Primitive Communism’s group marriages wherein people would have
multiple sexual partners.
This made it often impossible to tell who the biological father of the child was – and
this wasn’t a concern in a communal environment anyway as the children were raised collectively.
The only thing that could be certain here was that the mother gave birth to the child.
Therefore, the mother was afforded what is sometimes referred to as “mother right”
due to the definite biological connection there.
Consequently, kinship was traced through the mother’s line – matrilineage – rather
than the father’s and women held higher positions in society as a result.
And this “mother right” remained in the Pairing Marriages of Barbarism, as Primitive
Communism’s Group Marriages slowly died out.
But something changed during Barbarism as class society began to emerge.
With the rise of the Pairing Marriage, we begin to see a move away from communal ownership
of property and towards private ownership.
We see the development of agriculture and pastoralism, which begin to produce a surplus
that isn’t necessarily held collectively, but often privately.
We see a division of labour emerge wherein “it was the man’s part to obtain food
and the instruments of labor necessary for the purpose.
He therefore also owned the instruments of labor, and in the event of husband and wife
separating, he took them with him, just as she retained her household goods.
Therefore, according to the social custom of the time, the man was also the owner of
the new source of subsistence, the cattle, and later of the new instruments of labor,
the slaves.
But according to the custom of the same society, his children could not inherit from him”
Cattle were breeding, and wealth was growing relatively rapidly – far beyond the needs
of those in the household.
As a result of having more food than was immediately necessary with the advent of agriculture and
pastoralism, now slaves could be taken and kept alive indefinitely.
These slaves had children and this labour-force grew.
With more food, more cattle, and more slaves - with the rise of this new surplus – men
in particular grew wealthier and their position within the family became more and more important.
But while the matrilineal “mother-right” remained, there was no way for him to pass
on his private property to the next generation.
What would become of his slaves, his cattle, and so on?
Inheritance occurred almost exclusively along the mother’s lines.
The only way for this private property to be passed down to a man’s children - to
continue to accumulate – was if mother-right was overthrown, and in its place was put a
patrilineal system.
This would facilitate inheritance based on the male-line and allow the accumulation of
private property to span across generations, eventually flourishing into full empires.
And that’s exactly what happened.
“The overthrow of mother-right was the world historical defeat of the female sex.
The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude,
she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children.”
The patriarchal family was thus born with the successful subjugation of women.
In order to ensure that the children who would inherit private property were biologically
connected to the father, the Pairing Marriage transformed into the Monogamous Marriage.
This brings us to the beginning of class society, from Barbarism to the beginnings of Civilisation,
to Slave-Society.
All in the name of the accumulation of private property.
“[Monogamous Marriage] is based on the supremacy of the man, the express purpose being to produce
children of undisputed paternity; such paternity is demanded because these children are later
to come into their father’s property as his natural heirs.
It is distinguished from pairing marriage by the much greater strength of the marriage
tie, which can no longer be dissolved at either partner’s wish.
As a rule, it is now only the man who can dissolve it, and put away his wife.”
This Monogamous Marriage, the permanent patriarchal form which facilitates the accumulation of
property, is seen clearly in Ancient Greek Slave Society, developing in intensity and
becoming more and more generalised geographically as the centuries pass.
And this, of course, could only be facilitated and generalised with the development of the
Slave-State, which enforced private property relations and male supremacy, violently punishing
all those who challenged it in any way.
This continued with the Feudal State, and continues today with the Capitalist State,
each form of state of course manifesting with its own unique characteristics.
Patriarchy and the patriarchal family exist to this day to facilitate inheritance and
the accumulation of capital, as well as for the reproduction of labour.
In other words, to protect and grow private property, and to ensure that people are able
to labour with that private property in order to further accumulate capital for the ruling
class.
Anyone who impedes this process is punished accordingly.
And the two groups that are incentivised most to fight back against this – the two groups
whose freedom is inherently at odds with this state of affairs – are women and LGBT+ people.
Hence, it’s important to note that patriarchy is a two-pronged mode of oppression, affecting
not only women, but also LGBT+ people.
So, with this understanding of private property, and its accumulation, as the basis for patriarchal
oppression, what is the position of the communist movement on – to use some old-fashioned
language - the women’s question?
Mao voiced the communist position of absolute and unwavering support for women’s emancipation
when he stated that “The emancipation of women is an integral part of the liberation
of the proletariat”, but also specifically that “Genuine equality between the sexes
can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.”
This in no way should be misinterpreted to mean that we shouldn’t address the daily
demands of women and others suffering under patriarchal oppression in the here and now.
Instead, it’s a recognition that the only way to achieve complete and total emancipation
is by transitioning to stateless, classless, moneyless society and abolishing the private
property from which patriarchal oppression flows.
To this end, the women’s movement has to be integrated into the wider struggle to abolish
class society, led by the most politically advanced proletarian women.
As Lenin stated, “We say that the emancipation of the workers must be brought about by the
workers themselves, and similarly, the emancipation of women workers must be brought about by
the women workers themselves.”
On that point, it’s necessary to emphasise that communist support for the complete emancipation
of women necessarily includes both cis and trans women – rejecting bourgeois anti-Marxist
biological determinism and metaphysical materialist conceptions of what constitutes womanhood.
As Catalina Adrianzen states, “For Marxism, women, as much as men, are but a set of social
relations, historically adapted and changing as a function of the changes of society in
its development process.”
Today we’ve taken a look at the Marxist understanding of women’s oppression and
emancipation.
We began by delineating the Marxist basis for patriarchal oppression: private property.
We then looked at how the accumulation of private property historically necessitated
the establishment of patriarchy, with the patriarchal monogamous family, in order to
facilitate inheritance patrilineally.
Understanding this root cause of the patriarchal mode of oppression, which oppresses women
and LGBT+ people, we then proceeded to explain the communist position of complete support
for the emancipation from patriarchy.
Emancipation can only be fully achieved when the root cause of patriarchal oppression,
private property, is abolished.
Therefore, the women’s movement must be fully integrated with the proletarian movement
for stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Now, it’s one thing for communists to support women’s emancipation in theory, but it’s
another thing entirely to actually put that into practice.
Unfortunately, the communist movement has too often failed to protect women and LGBT+
people from patriarchal violence and oppression, even within the ranks of communist organisations
themselves.
This has to be rectified immediately and unequivocally.
To that end, I’m giving you homework: Read “On Standards of Feminist Conduct” from
the Center for Marxist-Leninist-Maoist studies.
Do it now right after this video – it’s only a short article and it’s easy to read.
Circulate it widely in your organisations.
Ideally, hold a study session where you and your comrades read through this article together,
discussing and analysing it, and – most importantly – working out how to apply this
to your own organisational practice in adherence with Proletarian Feminist standards.
If you’re still unsure what Proletarian Feminism is exactly, read the article “What
is Proletarian Feminism” for a concise, up-to-date overview – again, organise study
groups in your organisations to flesh this out and apply it to your own context.
Now these are both recent texts dealing very much with the modern world, but there are
another few texts that I’d also recommend diving into to develop your theoretical and
historical understanding of proletarian feminism.
First in this regard, I strongly recommend Anuradha Ghandy’s Philosophical Trends in
the Feminist Movement, which provides useful criticisms of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois
class-collaborationist strands of feminism like “liberal feminism” and so-called
“radical feminism”.
Second, Catalina Adrianzen’s Marxism, Mariategui and the Women's Movement, provides a fantastic
overview of the women’s movement from the Marxist perspective.
It draws heavily on Friedrich Engels’ On the Origins of the Family, Private Property
and the State – another absolutely essential text for understanding the historical roots
of patriarchy.
Other important works include Alexandra Kollontai’s The Social Basis of the Woman Question, as
well as Clara Zetkin’s Lenin on the Women’s Question.
All are linked in the description box below, as well as further useful resources such as
podcasts, blogs, articles, and more.
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Cheers everyone, agus slán go fóill.
Go read that article.