Marxist Feminism DOCX

Title	Marxist Feminism
Author	Rita Silva
Pages	6
File Size	23 KB
File Type	DOCX
Total Downloads	780
Total Views	816

Summary

Page |1 Rita Silva GWS 301 – Feminism Theories Dr. Sheena Malhotra Marxist Feminism As opposed to liberal feminism who is concerned with attaining economic and political equality within the context of capitalism and radical feminism, who focus on men and patriarchy as the main causes of the oppressi...

Description

P a g e " 1 Rita Silva GWS 301 – Feminism Theories Dr. Sheena Malhotra Marxist Feminism As opposed to liberal feminism who is concerned with ataining economic and politcal equality within the context of capitalism and radical feminism, who focus on men and patriarchy as the main causes of the oppression of women, Marxist Feminism argues that class, not gender or sex is the cause of women's oppression and that public and domestc producton exploits women. What is important to Marxists is the "relatonship between women to the economic system, rather than the relatonship between women to men" (The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism", Heidi J. Hartmann 173). According to Marxist Feminists, ruling class relegates women to second-class citienship in society and within the family. Whereas the ruling class family has historically functoned as an insttuton through which to pass on inheritance to future generatons, with the rise of capitalism, the working class family took on the functon of providing the system with a plentful supply of labor. In his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1942), Engel examined the rise of women's oppression as a product of the rise of class society and of the nuclear family. He discusses how women became men's frst property, and as such how men created the frst division of class. This inequality changed the family form to a patriarchal one where women, become property of their husbands and their fathers. As men separate family household from commodity producton, they solidify the male control over women. As a result,...