Page 187 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes Sylvia Walby in ‘Patriarchy at Work’ (1986) attempts to conceptualise. Domestic labour is a distinct
form of labour and core to patriarchal mode of production which is essential to exploitation of
women by men and is independent of exploitation of proletariats by the capitalists (Walby, 1986
: 52). Within the household women provide all kinds of services to their children, husband and
other members of the family, in other words in the patriarchal mode of production, women’s
labour is expropriated by their husbands and others who live there. The control over and
exploitation of women’s labour benefit men materially and economically. “Patriarchy is a system
of interrelated social structures through which men exploit”. She states that gender relations need
to be explained at the level of social relations and not as individuals. Within the patriarchal mode
of production, the producing class comprises of women and domestic labourer and husbands are
the non-producing and exploiting class. And domestic labourer works to replenish/ produce his/
their labour power, she is separated from the product of her labour and has no control over it,
while the husband always has control over the labour power which the wife has produced. She is
separated from if at every level, physically, in the ability to use it, legally, ideologically etc. Thus
the domestic labourer is exploited as the husband has the control over the wage he receives from
the capitalist in exchange of his labour. The relations of production in such a mode of production
are personalized relations between individuals. When the patriarchal mode of production articulates
with the capitalist mode, women are prevented from entering paid work as freely as men and are
reinforced by patriarchal state policies.
The state is a site of patriarchal relations which is necessary to patriarchy as a whole as it upholds
the oppession of women by supporting a form of household in which women provide unpaid
domestic services to male. Thus capitalism benefits from a particular form of family which ensures
cheap reproduction of labour power and the availability of women as a reserve army. Patriarchy
is also located in the social relations of reproduction and masculinity and femininity are not
biological givens but products of long historical process. Thus, socialist feminists combine both
marxist and radical approach and neither is sufficient by itself. Patriarchy is connected to both
relations of production and relations of reproduction.
Radical Feminism : Unlike the liberal and socialist traditions, radical feminists developed a
systematic theory of sexual oppression as the root of patriarchy which preceded private property.
They challenge the very notion of femininity and masculinity as mutually exclusive and biologically
determined categories. The ideology of motherhood subjugates women and perpetuates patriarchy,
which not only forces women to be mothers but also determines the conditions of their motherhood
(Bhasin, 199 : 8). It creates feminine and masculine characteristics, strengthens the divide between
public and private, restricts women’s mobility and reinforces male dominance. “While sex
differences are linked to biological differences between male and female, gender differences are
imposed socially or even politically by constructed contrasting stereotypes of masculinity and
femininity” (de Beauvoir, 1970 : 258). Simone de Beauvoir in “The Second Sex” (1970) pointed out
that women are made and not born. She believed that greater availability of abortion rights,
effective birth control and end of monogamy would increase the control over their bodies. Judith
Butler turned the sex-gender distinction on its head : by making sex the effect of gender, a
legitimization subsequently imposed in order to fix the socially contingent through recourse to an
unquestioned biology, “the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at
all”.
Eco-feminists accept women’s attitudes and values as different from men. They believe that in
certain respects women are superior to men and possess the qualities of creativity, sensitivity and
caring which men can never develop. Vandana Shiva in her conception of ecofeminism critiques
development and establishes the connection between ecological destruction and capitalist growth
as a patriarchal project.

182 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY