Page 186 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 9: Gender and Stratification

monogamous marriage, economic and political dominance by men and their control over female Notes
sexuality which led to patriarchy. However, the Marxist feminists have been criticized for
differentiating working class women and bourgeois women and also for the focus on economic
factors to explain subordination of women. Recent socialist feminists critique traditional Marxist
feminists as the later emphasize only on economic origins of gender inequality and state that
female subordination occurs also in pre-capitalist and socialist systems (Mandell, 1995 : 10). In fact
socialist feminists accuse Marxists feminists of being ‘sex blind’ and only adding women to their
existing critique of capitalism (Hartmann, 1979).
Socialist Feminism : Unlike the liberal feminists, socialist feminist argue that women do not
simply face political and legal disadvantages which can be solved by equal legal rights and
opportunities but the relationship between sexes is rooted in the social and economic structure
itself. Therefore women can only be emancipated after social revolution brings about structural
change. Socialist feminists deny the necessary and logical link between sex and gender differences.
They argue that the link between child bearing and child rearing is cultural rather than biological
and have challenged that biology is destiny by drawing a sharp distinction between ‘sex and
gender’. Therefore, while liberal feminist takes women’s equality with men as their major political
goal, socialist feminism aim at transforming basic structural arrangements of society so that
categories of class, gender, sexuality and race no longer act as barriers to share equal resources
(Mandell, 1995 : 9). Gerda Lerner’s (1986) explains how control over female sexuality is central to
women’s subordination. She argues that it is important to understand how production as well as
reproduction was organized. The appropriation and commodification of women’s sexual and
reproductive capacity by men lies at the foundation of private property, institutionalization of
slavery, women’s sexual subordination and economic dependency on male.
Most socialist feminists agree that the confinement of women to the domestic sphere of housework
and motherhood serves the economic interests of capitalism. Women relieve men of the burden of
housework and child rearing, and allow them to concentrate on productive employment. Thus
unpaid domestic labour contributes to the health and efficiency of capitalist economy and also
accounts for the low social status and economic dependence of women on men. But, unlike the
Marxist feminists, socialist feminists look at both relations of production as well as relations of
reproduction to understand patriarchy. Unlike orthodox Marxists who have prioritized class politics
over sexual politics, modern socialist feminists give importance to the later. They believe that
socialism in itself will not end patriarchy as it has cultural and ideological roots.
Maria Mies, in her paper “The Social Origins of the Sexual Division of Labour” refers to women’s
labour as ‘shadow work’. She suggests that we should no longer look at the sexual division of
labour as a problem related to the family, but rather as a structural problem of a whole society.
The hierarchical division of labour between men and women and its dynamics form an 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. She argues that the asymmetric division
of labour by sex, once established by means of violence was upheld by such institutions as the
family and the state and also by the powerful ideological systems. The patriarchal religions have
defined women as part of nature which has to be controlled and dominated by man.
Thus, socialist feminists have advanced theoretical boundaries by analyzing the ways class and
gender relations intersect. Economic class relations are important in determining women’s status
but gender relations are equally significant and therefore eradicating social class inequality alone
will not necessarily eliminate sexism. Patriarchy existed before capitalism and continued to exist
in both capitalism and other political-economic systems (Mandell, 1995 : 11). However, patriarchy
and capitalism are concretely intertwined and mutually supportive system of oppressions. Women’s
subordination within capitalism results from their economic exploitation as wage labourers and
their patriarchal oppression as mothers, consumers and domestic labourers.

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