Marxism, Radical Feminism,
and Sociology
In order to gain a stronger sense of how radical feminist theory would
fit in among the explanatory theories commonly accepted by the discipline
of sociology, I decided to seek out a normative, highly conventional overview
of sociological theories. Along the walls of the office I share with other
graduate students in my department are many textbooks for introductory classes
in sociology. Large, mainstream publishing companies tend to supply us with
free "professional copies" in hopes that we will order them for
our undergraduate classes.
An analysis of ten randomly chosen introductory sociology textbooks (Robertson 1987; Johnson 1989; Conklin 1984;
Hess, Markson and Stein, 1982; Wallace and Wallace, 1985; Goode 1984; Babbie
1980; Shepard 1984; Stokes 1984; Tichsler, Whitten and Hunter 1986)
reveals a widely used categorical system for introducing and describing
social theory. Perspectives and their originators are divided up into functionalists
(or sometimes structuralist-functionalists, or structuralists), who analyze
the whole of status quo society in terms of its analytically distinguishable
components and their functions; conflict theorists, who start with
the assumption of adversarially poised social factions and an analytically
distinguishable power relationship defining them, and then analyze social
relationships in terms of their meaning to that power struggle; and interactionist
theorists, who examine the processes by which small number of people
acting and reacting to one another are able to utilize symbols to communicate,
to establish and rely upon patterns which become roles and structures, and
so forth.
Historically, radical feminism started with the assumption that the sexes
are adversarially poised, that men have power over women, and that society
and its various social relationships can be best understood in terms of
their relationship to that situation (Eisenstein
1983). Thus, within this framework, radical feminism is a conflict theory.
For the purposes of introducing radical feminists and sociologists to each
other's theoretical domain, it seems most important to compare and contrast
radical feminism with other forms of conflict theory. The conflict theorists
most commonly cited in the textbooks are Karl Marx and Max Weber. Since
radical feminist theory was originally inspired by the political theories
of Marx, radical feminism shares with Marxism not only the intention of
transforming society rather than merely studying it, but also other related
concerns, although many of these are resolved differently. Marxism, like
radical feminism, starts with a theory of adversarially poised social factions
with a fundamental distinguishable power relationship defining them, and
then analyzes all of society in terms of that power struggle. Unlike radical
feminism, Marxism identifies its formative power relationship in
terms of material wealth, most centrally of ownership/control of the means
of production of still further material wealth, and describes two
adversarially poised classes--the working class and the class of owners
of the means of production--as the opponents in the power struggle.
In both cases, although the process of oppression is thought to be accomplished
in part by the direct and coercive application of violent force by the oppressor
category against insubordinate members of the oppressed category, it is
necessarily maintained in part by the internalization by members of the
oppressed category of a world-view that tells them that their subordination
is natural, that the sociopolitical system in which they find themselves
is a good and just one. This internalized world-view, called ideology, serves
the function of causing the members of the oppressed category to believe
that although their situation as individuals may be different from that
of individuals who belong to the other category, there is something intrinsic
and natural about the categorical distinction, rather than something socially
constructed and perhaps unfairly so.
Both Marxism and radical feminism identify, as the weak point in the systems
of oppression that they speak of, the fact that the oppressor's success
depends on not having to perpetually resort to violent force at every turn
in order to subdue the oppressed (Marx
1844; Hanisch 1970). In the case
of the Marxist analysis, the vastly superior numbers of the oppressed alone
is thought to make a violent confrontation with virtually universal participation
by class-conscious members of society a guaranteed win for the oppressed,
and therefore violent revolution by the working class has been directly
proposed within the Marxist tradition as an ideal solution to the problem
of oppression (e.g., Marx 1872).
Other variations on Marxist theory point more to the inability of the system
of oppressors and oppressed to continue to function if the oppressors are
forced either to accept the need to negotiate for the voluntary cooperation
of the formerly oppressed or to resort to time-consuming and energy-consuming
violent coercion at every turn (e.g., Marx
1888). Within feminist analyses, the numerical advantage of the oppressed
category (women) is slight and does not imply a superiority of physical
strength, and a call to arms and violent revolution is not a seriously considered
tactic, but again the system of oppressors and oppressed is thought to be
unable to survive a successful piercing of ideology and the raising of consciousness
on the part of the oppressed so that the individuals in the oppressed category
(women) no longer conspire in their own oppression.
Analytically, radical feminism can be distinguished from feminism that is
not called "radical" according to the degree to which this particular
power struggle and situation--patriarchy, the rule by men, in which
women are the oppressed category--is understood to be the root of all further
inequalities, oppressions, and injustices. This perspective is widely, but
not universally, shared by feminists whether they make fine distinctions
between types of feminism or not. The individual woman who perceives that
society is unfair to and exploitative of women may not be philosophically
inclined to see this social problem as "the root of all further oppression"
without necessarily having thought about and rejected it as a theoretical
possibility. The term "liberal feminism" is often used to designate
feminism that does not concern itself with society and its institutions
except in terms of gender parity (Jaggar
and Rothenberg 1984). Presumably a liberal feminist could have a critical
perspective on matters such as housing for the homeless in New York, child
sexual abuse in California, or despotism in China--but if so, they are not
likely to be feminist perspectives any more than they are anti-racism perspectives.
In the sense of being able to provide an analytical framework through which
to view society, liberal feminism is not, therefore, a major social theory.
(It is, in fact, an application of an ethical perspective called "liberalism",
a product of the enlightenment that opposes automatic social privilege on
the basis of caste, status, class, and other categories that should not
logically be associated with distinctions in privilege. Some feminists do
argue that, when applied to sex / gender, liberalism is a radical tactic,
but liberal feminism itself does not include that assertion.)
The other major category of feminist thought from which radical feminism
is usefully distinguished is Marxist feminism. This is a trickier distinction,
because Marxists have a tendency to abrogate the term "radical"
for themselves (Eichler 1980).
Many of the modern American women's liberation movement's early theorists
were young women associated with Marx-inspired male-dominated groups such
as the Students for a Democratic Society, and as they became tired of their
feminized, marginal status within these leftist groups, female activists
utilized Marxist theory to critique those practices and address women's
political situation in capitalist society. Some theorists, irritated and
disillusioned with the limitations of Marxism, especially its political
practice by the "male left" (Morgan
1978), took the process a step further and began to wonder if sexual
inequality could be a more fundamental key to oppression than class and
the dialectic of materialism, and thus radical feminism started to emerge.
Marxist theory was often used by early radical feminist thinkers of the
women's movement as a sort of theoretical template-thus, some early radical
feminism such as that of Firestone (1970)
tends to have a "cut and paste" feel to it, as if "class"
were replaced with "sex", "production" with "reproduction",
and so forth in order to see if it would provide the growing movement with
its own manifesto. Soon there was a body of papers and books that developed
radical feminist theory in directions and forms of its own. Radical feminism,
for instance, did not center upon a single and specific theoretical equivalent
to material wealth and what it represents in Marxism: the Thing that the
opponents are fighting over. Instead, men are more often perceived as oppressing
women for ultimately unnecessary reasons (Morgan
1982) or at least pathologically irrational ones (Daly
1978). Similarly, since there is no Thing concerning which radical feminism
finds a power struggle to be inevitable, feminist theorists have often regarded
the valuing of power over other people as theoretically problematic, whereas
Marxism tends more towards an implicit acceptance of this type of power
as desirable, explaining oppression in terms of opportunity to oppress.
This becomes an important theoretical distinction.
Meanwhile, because determined and committed feminists had at their disposal
two conflict theories that attempted to explain how to end women's oppression,
they used them both and developed both of them further. The women who continued
to work mainly within a Marxist framework to critique the limited Marxist
perspectives and oppressive tendencies of the male left developed Marxist
feminism, which was a furthering of dialectical materialist conceptualizations
of women's oppression (a previously acknowledged but long-neglected topic
in Marxist literature-Morgan 1982).
Later, as radical feminism deepened and broadened its scope, feminists and
theoreticians who appreciated aspects of both perspectives made efforts
to unify the two conflict theories in such a way as to provide a better
world-view than either theory could provide alone, and this project, along
with the resultant hybridized theories, is often called socialist feminism
(Jaggar and Rothenberg 1984; Stacey and Thorne 1985).
Both "Marxist feminism" and "socialist feminism" are
terms which imply the inclusion of specifically feminist perspectives and
theories along with the Marxist perspective, thus giving the impression
that these perspectives provide one with as much of a feminist analysis
as is likely to be useful in understanding society. But instead what usually
happens is that the two theories are reconciled by placing feminist subject
matter into a specifically Marxist framework of analysis. Thus, a socialist
feminist complains of "Marxist feminism"--
The marriage of marxism and feminism has been like the marriage of husband
and wife depicted in English common law: marxism and feminism are one, and
that one is marxism.
(Hartman 1981, p. 2)
--but similar complaints have been lodged against "socialist feminism".
Radical feminists who are not particularly impressed with Marxism
as an equal theoretical partner have had difficulty asserting the distinctive
existence of their theory independent from Marxism and its feminism-incorporative
stepchildren. Although socialist feminists continually claim that they are
trying to unite the theories as equally relevant and important social paradigms,
it remains largely true that feminist perspectives are shoved into Marxist
frameworks and called socialist feminism, but when the opposite reconciliation
is proposed, the results is invariably called radical feminism instead.
For instance, the following passage would not be likely to be introduced
as socialist feminism:
[An article supporting the socialist feminist project, titled] "The
Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism" attempts to expose the interrelations
between patriarchy and capitalism but fails in one important respect. It
accepts uncritically, and from the outset, the widely-held belief that patriarchy
and capitalism, although interrelated, are conceptually (or ideologically)
independentSuch a view of patriarchy and capitalism does not reach the heart
of the matter...
Conceptually, capitalism is an advanced stage of patriarchy. Given that
framework, the assessment of marxism and its relationship to feminism, patriarchy
and capitalism emerges with surprising clarity. Strategically, then, the
struggle against capitalism, racism, imperialism and any other product of
man's attempt at domination of the Other must be based on an understanding
of their basic patriarchal nature, and must be therefore regarded as part
and parcel of the feminist struggle.
(Al-Hibri 1981, pp. 166-7, 190)
Stacey and Thorne (1985) charge
that feminism becomes "ghettoized" (p. 302) in sociology within
presentations of Marxist conflict theory. The perspective of feminists on
education, for instance, or the economic system or nationalism, are simply
not provided alongside of Marxist perspectives, even if the individual feminists
have been called (or call themselves) socialist feminists. Publications,
conferences, literature, and courses in the socialist-feminist theoretical
format abound, but they are organized, presented, and attended by women
almost exclusively; meanwhile, the overall presentation of the conflict
perspective on such-and-such an issue-the stuff that the men teach, attend,
read, pay attention to, learn about, and make mandatory for incoming students
of the field-remains untouched. The underlying assumption is that "feminist
theory" means women's stuff, i.e., feminine subject matter,
rather than a different major theory of society in general.
Feminists have a tradition of disinterest in divisions and barriers and
boundaries if those distinctions serve to separate women from women, and
many feminists therefore have come to resent or reject the overuse of these
analytical distinctions between types of feminism (Eisenstein 1983). At
the same time, there definitely seems to be a specifically feminist conceptual
framework, which is not reducible to or easily deduced from Marxism or any
other extant theoretical perspective, and which explains the world from
a beginning cut of the analytical knife along the gender axis rather than
explaining women's oppression or the relationship of the sexes in terms
of something else. It is this that I refer to as radical feminism.
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