Beyond Sexless Class and Classless Sex: Towards Feminist Marxism

In: Studies in political economy: SPE ; a socialist review, Band 10, S. 7-43

Abstract

Building on & profiting from a wide range of feminist & Marxist analyses, ways are suggested to move beyond the classless sex of most feminist writing & the sexless SC of most Marxist works to a political economy that recognizes sexual divisions as integral to theoretical development & to capitalism. Recognizing that many aspects of the sexual DofL predate capitalism, it is argued that there is a sexual DofL particular to capitalist society. Because capitalism is premised on free wage labor & separation of most aspects of worker's reproduction from the production process, women's reproductive capacities separate them from the production process for childbearing work. This establishes the basis for an elaboration of sex differences, ie, for a sexual DofL that subordinates women & pervades all levels of activity under capitalism. Such segregation also fundamentally divides SCs. To recognize the differences in F & M reproductive capacities, eg, that women have babies & that this fact must be integrated at all levels of theoretical abstraction, is not to resort to a biological explanation of women's subordination or to call for an elimination of women's childbearing responsibilities. Physical capacities do not exist autonomously from power structures & productive processes; nor are they beyond human control & manipulation. The reworking of theory required must include an analysis of biology that is historical, materialist, & dialectical. It must recognize that the Wc comes in two sexes. Modified AA.