by Ava Wood
On 24th October, Iceland’s women left their workplaces and went on strike, protesting the 10.2% gender pay gap in the country. The movement is inspirational for those of us who come from countries where mobilisation on this scale is unthinkable, and puzzling in the context of the country’s status as the most gender equal in the world (Barry, 2023). What this strike has highlighted is that clearly our feminism is missing a few things, if such an equal society still has such inherent gender inequality. Importantly, the pay-gap issue is complex and relates to many other time and economic based divisions in our society. Feminist understanding does not recognise the economic system as a key factor in this mess, and Marxists sometimes fail to recognise that women are exploited and oppressed in a different way than men. The key, then, to a broader and more comprehensive understanding of how women are oppressed and how to fix it, requires recognising that oppression works in complex ways. A holistic approach is needed, and therefore socialist feminist theory provides us with just the intersectional view and critical framework that we need.
In Eisenstein’s view, the limitation of classical Marxist theory is that Marx and Engles theorised oppression primarily based upon class – with the proletariat’s exploitation being their oppression. Whilst they considered gender, acknowledging that labour was primarily divided for the reproduction of children (Marx & Engles, 1932), they saw the oppression of the husband and wife as differing but both arising from capitalist society. In this way, the “relations of reproduction [became] subsumed under the relations of production” (Eisenstein, 1979, 15), and women’s unique situation was concealed.
Socialist feminists do not throw away Marxist approaches but seek to use Marx’s method of focusing on historical materialism by expanding on it to incorporate personal relations (Holmstrom, 2003). This allows nuances to be drawn between exploitation, which speaks to the economic reality of capitalist class relations, and oppression, which reflects the hierarchical division of labour on sexual and racial grounds (Eisenstein, 1979). Ehrenreich calls this socialist internationalist antiracist, anti-heterosexist feminism (2005). I would also add intersectional and anti-colonial, but we can also simply call it Socialist Feminism.
Whilst there are different variations of socialist feminism (Dual systems theory, single systems theory, social reproduction theory, etc.) we will focus on the general approach and what it can teach us (although, if you wish to appreciate the academic nuance of these, Eisenstein is a great place to start). The basic disagreement regards how we theorise the framework and relationships of oppression; acting together, acting separately, acting under capitalism, or through reproduction. However, whilst these approaches differ, they agree that an intersectional approach to theorising oppression is essential and that it is often centred on the gendered division of labour.
The benefit of the theory is that it highlights many issues and examples of oppression that are otherwise disguised or not fully understood through other approaches. For example, the causes and effects of unwaged domestic labour. Within this issue, Socialist Feminism draws on Engle’s (1884) theorising regarding how the family unit can prevent women from engaging in capitalist production but expands this identification of unequal labour distribution to understand that women’s domestic labour is not simply unremunerated and time-consuming. It is itself also a producer of “use values for the reproduction and maintenance of the male labourer and his family,” (Brenner & Holmstrom, 2017, 48). In this example, women’s reproductive labour is exploited under capitalism, in the home where unwaged care work is conducted, and also through contributing to the functioning of society in a way that capitalism does not deem recognisable nor remunerable. As Brenner states, “A society of ‘freely contracting’ male citizens relies on the prior existence of the non contractual relationships of the family.”(2000, 103).
Women bear the double burden, or the second shift, and this is necessitated by the economic system, which relies on it for its existence. A hierarchy is created that expands the unequal relationships within the family outwards until it becomes systemic, and enforced through exploitation of intersecting characteristics of class, gender, and race. Davis (1983) highlights that whilst white women have historically faced oppression through being forced into domestic labour, women of colour have always carried “the double burden of wage labour and housework” (132), in order to support their communities – in a similar way to working-class women in general. We have to therefore fuse our understandings of different forms of oppression to understand how women are oppressed in particular.
Based upon this understanding, Davis is also able to offer a solution in the form of the socialisation of housework. Domestic tasks can be incorporated into the industrial economy and do not have to be confined to the private sphere. This could mean increased spending on public care and a shift of focus of the economy onto the home. Federici (1975) highlights that wages for housework would make invisible unpaid labour visible, but that capitalising on domestic work in the long term would maintain the oppressive relationships of capitalism but in a different form. Therefore, a careful approach is needed, considering all intersections.
Through this fused approach, Socialist Feminism goes far beyond an ordinary Marxist or feminist analysis and can understand the totality yet individuality of oppression facing women within society. It allows the exploitation of women’s labour to be better understood as being caused by both patriarchal and capitalist oppression, furthered by other individual characteristics, and intertwined. Marx provided us with an enduring framework, and many feminists have highlighted their own viewpoint. Together, an approach has formed that shows that women are oppressed systematically and multilaterally, to a degree that only socialist feminism can highlight.
If you are intrigued or inspired by this article, I would recommend also considering the sexual division of waged labour (which was not able to fit here). Ehrenreich, Eisenstein, Johanna Brenna and Angela Davis have accomplished works on socialist feminism. Or, for more digestible works, Laura Bates (particularly Fix the system not the women) and Caroline Craido Perez (Invisible Women) have great insights.
Bibliography
Barry, A. (November 11, 2023) Iceland’s women just went on strike. How is the rest of Europe doing on the gender pay gap?, euronews.net https://euronews.com/next/2023/11/09/icelands-women-just-went-on-strike-how-is-the-rest-of-europe-doing-on-the-gender-pay-gap.
Brenner, J., & Holmstrom, N. (2017). Social Reproduction Theory: Then and Now. In T. Bhattacharya (Ed.), Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression. Pluto Press.
De Beauvoir, S. (1949) The Second Sex.
Davis, A. Y. (1983). Women, Race & Class. Vintage Books.
Ehrenreich, B. (2005, July). What Is Socialist Feminism? Monthly Review, 57(3). https://doi.org/10.14452/MR-057-03-2005-07_4
Eisenstein, Z. R. (1979). Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism. Monthly Review Press.
Engels, F. (1884). The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Retrieved from Marxists Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm
Federici, S. (1975) Wages Against Housework.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1846). The German Ideology. Retrieved from Marxists Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/
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