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And that is one vital reason why all socialists must support independent movenseDt, Through the WLM's discussion and analysis of women's learning how 10р poratewomen's interests within orders 1o: our own programme, and win Gc/o increasing numbers of women 328/9 Upper to the side of revolution necessarily need to continue after the political defeat of capitalism
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 26 January, 1978, page B TE ARE ONLY beginning -under the renewed impetus of the women's movement - to sec the complexity issues raised by the questions posed in the introduction and the limitations of classical Marxist analysis of women's oppression in acknowledging some of the problems and providing answers. This is really a plea against the traditional temptation of seizing facile answers because they LIC USCOUNT ngainst an opposing point of view. and thereby transforming them to a new orthodoxy.
Of course, we cannot and should not avoid political argument — any more than we can avoid action Decause we don t fuly understand the historical, theoretical. practical relationships between women's oppression and capitalism. Bat we must, against the more soctarian traditons of the British left, try to develop our understanding by drawing into it the experiences of political practice and discussion rather than reverentially repreating the words of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky...ot by responding to criticism or awkward questions only acienve First, let'slook at some problems of some of the historical questions. Women's oppression pre-dates capitalism, But has it been a feature of all human social life? Is that what history means? Or were there matriarchal societies in the distant past among groups of people living at a level of bare subsistence before a surplus, relationships, was produced Was it the development of the carliest class societies which gave rise to the "world historic defeat of the female sex" and the increasine y unversa development of parriarchal societies, This is not just a debate between bourgeois intellectuals (rellecting a bourgeois concern to keep women out of history, along with other peoples) and socialists. It is also an important debate which has emerged from the women's movement and which, in my view, is open to much further and fuller development before ether interpretation can seem adequate These interesting. but crucial are they! How far do they help us to identify the exact relationship between patriarchy and capitalism now and to draw out the strategic implications for the struggle Tor wollen's liberation? It is not necessary to know that matriarchal societies have existed in the past in order to see that women could be liberated. For example, the argument that women's oppression is 'natural, a 'fact' of biology, can be defeated without reference to However, some extremely important issues LIL TRIC CHICO COL GETT seeins that throughout history the sexual ditlerence between male and tema c nas Doc socially and psychologically defined into distinctive sexual identities masculine, and socially and economically into a sexual division of labour. TIC PrOUSe content of these distinctions, which have been softerence as void ear by fro difference, has varied enormously society to society, from historical period to historical period. And the extent differences has varied too, endless examples from anthropological studies have shown.
But across such variations and whatever the power relationships involved, it seems that sexual identity has been stroctured into buman personality as an organising principle. It may be that in early human societies before the production of a surplus, these societies TASIEVE COLLI The sexual division of labour and the definitions of Tenuninity and masculinity may not have had specifically oppressive connorations for of patriarchy since that period is extremely ong, continuing througb the cmcrgence and Isintegration of many types of society, man systens ol exploitarion and onerosional of which have produced and reproduced their own versions of oppressive sexual relations and of femininity It seems to follow from this that — despite variations between societies - patriarchal assumptions are structured into us very deeply ar the level of personalicy and individual Identity: they draw on an exceedingly old though varying history, and they are tightly tied up with concepts of nature and biology.
We then bave to ask what happens to these particular features of patriarchy within capitalism? How do patriarchal structures and consciousness about the relations between the sexes relate to class structures and do we challenge each and both?
To take some of these questions further we have to look al what oppression of women under capitalism. The development of capitalism involved an excensive re-construction of social relationships The separation of labour and capital established the major class relationships of capilalist society, The separation of the home from general production, the preservation of the family and its transformation into a privatised domestic unit created a new basis for the sexual division of labour with the woman as. housewife labourer, Yet at the drawing women out of the domestic unit and into general production, capitaliam indicated that the sexual division of labour could become redundant.
PUBLIC SPHERE Such a possibility is blocked within capitalism, structured by the contradictory features of the relationship between the private sphere of the family and the public production. Thus questions rights, emancipation, recurrently posed through capitalim. While women have never boen totally escluded from capitalise production — and in the las 20 ycars have been drawn increasingly into it -their position in the wage labour force is in practice largely an sohere of the cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing, nursing.
D Family or industrialisation how the tames considerably undermined, with men, women WOrking and children However capitalism stopped short of the total fragmentation of Lie working population as it became apparcot that this was economically and technologically unnecessary. causing excessive damage to the present and future labour farce and bad ideological dangers. Working class people strove to re-establish the Tamily protection against the insecurity prenation of thel social exist. Pratany for women this meant a reclamation of a support system between female kin; for men it meant the claim for their wives to be returned to their 'proper domestic sphere" direct or indirect competition in the world of Through apparently disparate pieces o legislation, such as that limiting hours o W'OTk fOr establishing universal education; through the relation to such matters as bealth, education MOUSES elated development of socini work, the Stat has increasingly intervened to encourage and istpose an increasingly standardised forms of family life → "the bourgeois family" whar is now recognised as the 'welfare! Star nas emerged, bull around this concept of th family with its division of lahour berween the male breadwinner and the female dependent housewife and mother.
Why this State concern? What bourgeois interests were and are at scake? And how far has the warking class co-operated io its own of womei in particular in its struggles to improve the 'quality of famity life'?
From the pount of view of capital, the work of the bousewife at home is concerned with the production and repraduction of labour over on a day lo day and generational basis functious bsologically, reproduction of actual human beings, ant ideolozically "aseful and law abiding members of society the reproduction of boys and girls imbue carried our cach in her separale home. capital acknowledges the happens the important unit commodities -CUTER AS - the "domestic same time, by also appearance of but the position of women is spbere of pencral of women's continuing and bharatson are generall production.
the housewife has no extension into the public tasks of domestic labour: purchasing.
classes was production consciousness, militancy may It was consistently challenged. as a means and out of and children, and social policy and the in the in the repeoduction with the appropriate notions of their masculinity and Temininicy, to direct them anto their "proper' piace in the sexual division of labour, who will be 'free' to sell their labour power to capital as reguired, Domestic labour is private in a number of senses. It is in isolation; millions of housewives engaged in the same activities, Although it contributes to the reproduction of labour power and is therefore necewary to the production of surplus value, the work of the housewile wrodies use valuce for thi unmediate consumption of her family. Her work is not socially productive in the Marxist sense. It receives no direct recognition from capital, and has no place in the canitalisi capital a comeden we steice CAINCHCE domestic labour in three main ways: through its changing need to draw more women into general production, or to case them out again, through its recognition of the family an an for the consumption of - from plastic bread to washing powders to freezers; through the public provision of some of the tasks of domestic Labour either by capitalist cuterprisos, such as launderettes, or by the State, as with day Any social recognition of the housewife is established through the marriage contract, which acknowledges her hushand's chucy to maintain his dependants - wife and children. Thus it is the State through family law, the which gives some social recognition to the busewife while the can preserve an disinterest in the privare employees. The wage is paid to the worker, CHES LAUDE TO HIS CRE affair. Within the family, the housewile's position is that of dependence. This may be modified, though not fundamentally altered if the woman is also a wage worker, given the inequality in wages and opportunities affectine most women in There is therefore no equality of interest in or access lo the wage in the relationship of the husband/warker and the housewife. Assunting, in order to sharpen the point, that work, immediate day-to-day responsibility for making, organising the food, clothing and ecueral care of the family is the housewife's and she roquires some substantial part ofher husband's wage in order to be able to carry this our. Rue the wage is 'his'; he has "earned' it, and he is cushioned from the most immediate knowledge of the costs and work involved in domeste consumotion because that is not his sphere of responsibility.
The resultant differences in interests and consciousness are most clearly seen in strike stations, where wines berate their musband militaney and irresponsibility when the burden of their actions in the immediate sense of having to food the family will fall upon the wives. Ironically, this reactionary class position embodies an element of feminist On the other band, rallying in support of their busbands within framework of their own subordination. This lack of symmetry in the relation to the wage can only be overcome to the extent that the sexism structured into the working class is What are the pre patriarchy and capi relations and relatio Between the struggle and the struggle for to these crucial que obvious, argues MA
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could be liberated." W
*It is not necessary to know that matriarchal societies have existed in the past to see that women
*Working class people strove to re-establish the family as a means of protection against the insecurity and alienation of their social existence.'
won oppre