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Overview

Background to Marxist/Socialist
Feminism

Overview of Marxist/Socialist Feminism

Heidi Hartmann
Background to Marxists/Socialists

Karl Marx
– 1818- 1883
– German philosopher and socialist

Socialism- various economic and
political theories advocating collective or
governmental ownership and
administration of the means of
production and distribution of goods
Background

We have moved from societies that produced
good based on
– Kinship (Families handled the production of goods
for use in their own homes) to
– Capitalism (creation of goods by many different
people for other people for profit)

Different classes created
– Capitalist class who own the means of production
– Proletariat- those who sell their labor

Materialism- change in production leads to
changes in work and family
Marxist/Socialist Feminists

Began to look at how women were
oppressed in the economic sphere
through:
– Low pay for jobs
– Segregation into particular female jobs like
teaching, nursing, secretarial, cleaning (low
pay, low status)
– Became a surplus labor force
– Unpaid labor in home- caretaking,
childrearing
– Created an economic dependence on men
Marxist/Socialist Feminists

Thinkers: Heidi Hartmann, Michele Barrett,
Nancy Hartstock

Description of Problem:
– Women’s oppression lies in the economic
realm
– Exploitation in paid labor
– No pay for home labor

Analysis:
– Patriarchy and capitalism are intertwined
and mutually supporting
Marxist/Socialist Feminists

Remedies:
– Government-subsidized maternal and child health
care, child care, education
– Waged work for women in home
– Comparable worth programs to equalize salaries
of men’s and women’s work

Contributions:
– Gender analysis of women as paid and unpaid
workers
– Making visible the necessity and worth of women’s
unpaid work in the home
– Connected women’s labor in home to the
functioning of capitalism (women provided the
future workers)
Marxist/Socialist Feminists

Shortcomings:
– In communist countries, women have not
been freed from men’s control in the home
or in the public sphere
– State control of work, child care, etc. can
still be patriarchal
– Women are still seen as primarily wives
and mothers
– Capitalism is growing
Heidi Hartmann

While Marxists looked at women’s
relationship to economics, they did not look at
women’s inequality with men
– Marxism cannot explain why women are
subordinate inside and outside the family

Interrelationship between patriarchy and
capitalism

“the family wage”
– Paid women less- supplemental
– “man should be able to support the family on one
wage”
Heidi Hartmann

“the family wage” continued
– Women are a surplus labor force
– Necessitates the economic dependence of
women on men
• Guarantees their compliance with patriarchy
• Continues today
– Appropriate work for women related to their
domestic duties
– Part-time work- no benefits
– Struggle is against patriarchy and
capitalism