A brief reply to HarpyMarx on feminism and social totality
Two interesting posts reached the blogosphere over the past day or so, from HarpyMarx and Dave Osler. Dave laments the passing away of what he recognised, in his days as a young Trot, as feminism. “These days, feminism – if it means anything at all – seems to mean raunch culture on the one hand and the right of women to compete on equal terms on City trading desks. Progress? Maybe, but this is not the way my generation thought it was going to turn out.”
What Dave describes is a ‘feminist’ movement that has completely parted ways with the socialist project of political, cultural and economic emancipation of all people. Yet Dave also goes further than wondering if the deteriorated ‘feminist’ movement has pulled away from socialism, he openly asks whether or not Marxism and the ‘patriarchal’ theories of a certain strand of radical feminism were always destined to part company. I think a lot of what he says is very valid, though HarpyMarx disagrees.
“…the usual argument that has been thrown at me in the past is that feminism is ‘petit–bourgeois’ [...] and this reminds me of Barbara Ehrenreich when she wrote about ‘mechanical Marxists’ who ignore the totality of society and how patriarchal capitalism invades every sphere of life. [...] Yes, there are various different strands of feminism but why is it when it is debated sometimes on the Left it is belittled, disregarded, devalued and parodied by mainly men, who, to be honest view oppression in a very reductionist way. And ask yourself, why do many active and organised feminists by-pass the Left…?”
By this, Harpy, who ‘despairs’ of Dave’s post, attempts to outline her view that ‘feminism’ should not be dismissed, as it is by some sections of the Left. Yet Harpy’s attitude – or at least her article – suffers from a failure to define its own terms of enquiry. ‘Feminism’ includes many ideas which are mutually contradictory, and cannot be viewed as part of a cogent whole. Thus elements of feminism may well be petit-bourgeois (spart-speak for pro-capitalist) or at odds with Marxist historical materialism, whilst others may not.
For example, feminism – as a demand for women to have equal rights to men, the broadest possible definition – is easily accommodated within capitalism. As is any form of identity politics. To that extent, socialism and feminism can exist independently of one another. It is important to note, however, that feminist ambitions of suffrage, for example, were not achieved merely through ‘feminist’ tactics – feminism was merely one arm of the socialist move to mobilise the working classes in their own interest immediately before and after World War One.
Thus, it would appear to me, that socialism has the primacy, not feminism, in terms of understanding and changing the world. Fighting oppression of all forms is important – whether racism, sexism or homo- and trans-phobia. Not to move beyond the narrow remit of such identity politics, however, is to abandon analysis of what underpins all oppression, and thus to abandon an anti-capitalist perspective, to become precisely the type of petit-bourgeois activist the Weekly Worker might criticize.
That is why so many ‘feminists’ can by-pass the Left. They focus merely on their ‘identity’ rather than on the fact that their subjective experience is constituted by the same structural features of our world which underpin all oppression, and that these features are ultimately rooted in and reproduced by the extortion of surplus value from workers. The position of the proletarian, in Marxist thinking, is what enables the working class-for-itself to shatter the chains of private property, which ultimately fetter all identities; a feminism which ignores this both neuters itself and is incompatible with Marxism.
I doubt many feminists will be terribly upset by that idea – but this is the point; Dave Osler is right to question how well feminism sits with Marxist theories of society. Finding them lacking, from a Marxist perspective, he is right to dismiss them. This is not the same thing as dismissing the need to fight against sexism, but if our tactics flow from our understanding of what this oppression is and what causes it, then it stands to reason that the Marxist feminist and the Conservative Party-orientated feminist will have two completely different approaches.
So why shouldn’t we deride the approach of the latter?
I have in the past described myself as a feminist; I am for a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body. I am for equality between men and women. But I am a Marxist first – which means I have a particular opinion on why women are occasionally denied their right to choose, or denied equality and how we can rectify that through campaigns that dissolve identity barriers by bringing together all identities – including the ‘majority’ identities – to attack the basis for oppression and the entrenched ruling class which reproduces it anew for every generation.
This is not reductionist or mechanistic; quite the opposite – it addresses the social totality whilst identity politics manages only to address a small sphere, and that not necessarily in a manner liable to change the status-quo.
Moreover, I reserve the right to mock and belittle anyone who tells me I’m wrong – so long as I can convincingly explain why I do so.
Unlike you Dave I believe that socialism and feminism are integral. They are not separate.
Secondly, you remind me of when Margaret Thatcher said that society doesn’t exist. Well, it does. Similarly to patriarchy. You can’t exactly see it but it has a whole set of features. It has a distinct pattern of behaviour like other forms of social phenomena that is replicated historically. There is a relationship between patriarchy and capitalism. Marriage pre-dates capitalism, it is based on patriarchal norms it has definely changed under capitalism but it still exists. Dave, you are kinda coming across like one of those ‘mechanical Marxists’ that Barbara Ehrenreich mentioned.
The reason I despaired about Dave Osler’s post is that it didn’t debate feminism in a comradely manner, the post, essentially was based on caricature. I have no problem with debating the theories and ideas of feminism, and names he mentions such as Bea Campbell (who I have many criticisms of) and Andrea Dworkin (I certainly don’t believe you can have a purely patriarchal analysis without an understanding of capitalism) but leave the caricatures and stereotypes out. It’s insulting. Feminism deserves honest, political and open debate not something that could be mistaken for Viz. You wouldn’t reduce any other political debate to this level so why is feminism seen like this. That is what despair me, debate the issues don’t reduce it to caricature.
Louise, I am attempting to debate the issues.
The core one being that ’socialism’ and ‘feminism’ are separate – which they clearly are, since you felt the need to designate yourself a ’socialist feminist’, not just a feminist. Only a certain strand of feminism is encompassed by or allied to socialism.
As for the Thatcher-societ, me-patriarchy analogy, that’s a tad offensive. You can’t simply declare that patriarchy exists and get a bit offended when people scoff at the idea. Moreover the concept of patriarchy, as with the concept of capitalism as racist – a closely held belief of many Trotskyists of my acquaintance – ignores the adaptability of the capitalist system.
Basically what I’m saying is that patriarchy can come or go; it is contingent, not central to capitalism, and can thus be dispensed with, without changing the fundamental inequality between the owners of capital and the sellers of labour.
Just as an addendum, though, I directly address the real meat of what you said in your own article directed against what Dave said. That is, I would’ve thought, addressing the issue – and you haven’t really done me the same courtesy. Simply labelling me ‘reductionist’ or ‘mechanistic’ does not mean I’m wrong.
Oh, yes, we remember how sympathetic to feminists and feminism Dave Osler was.
I’ve heard so much lip-service and theorising from blokes in the left about feminism only to be gob smacked — literally in once instance — by what they do in practise.
“You can’t simply declare that patriarchy exists and get a bit offended when people scoff at the idea.”
Yes, shut up Harpy, and make the tea. There may be a wealth of literature and research out there saying there is such a thing as patriarchy and that it exists in the real world and, oh by the way, here are a few examples, but what do you know?
“That is why so many ‘feminists’ can by-pass the Left.”
Nothing to do with being used as a doormat on the left, then. Verbose high-functioning sexists. Mmmm, just my kind of chaps.
The behaviour of the entire Left, I can’t speak to. Perhaps I have led a sheltered life, or perhaps not being a woman, I have not seen what men on the Left are like when in relationships. But I reject this bollocks caricature of my own position as telling Louise to shut up and make the tea.
On the substantial points, I didn’t notice any examples of ‘patriarchy’ being given. That marriage has existed throughout written history is true enough, and it is true that it was used as a tool for men and property transmission, but the norm for liberal-democratic capitalism is to tolerate a wealthy of competing cultural practices. From forced marriage to never marrying, ever.
Is this not evidence of the contingency of patriarchy?
As for your glib response to my thesis on why so many feminists can by pass the Left, what rubbish. It may be the case that feminists have been used as doormats for the Left. But they’re hardly treated any better by other political distinctions. “The Left” is far too large a group to stereotype in such a way surely?
“Is this not evidence of the contingency of patriarchy?”
Marriage is a patriarchal norm that has adapted and transformed under capitalism. Patriarchy and capitalism are intertwined, the function to create power relationships between men and women.
And what Madam Miaow argued is not glib at all but the experience of many many women and if you don’t want to confront the sexism that exists on the left then you will continuely lose many women. And feminists don’t ‘bypass’ the left precisely due to hostility and defensiveness they encounter. You also need to understand the material experiences of many women who indeed bypass the left because of the inherent sexism.
“But they’re hardly treated any better by other political distinctions.”
Oh, so that’s ok Dave then is it? Women are treated like crap by other ‘political distinctions’. And there was I believing that the Left was a place where the oppressed could organise and be treated equally. Must be some mistake on my part obviously.
I’m not arguing with you, Harpy, that marriage is not a ‘patriarchal norm’ – I think it is too. But it no longer occupies the central position it once did, even under capitalism. So my point is that ‘patriarchy’ and capitalism can be disentangled without ever challenging the nature of capitalism.
You still haven’t actually addressed a lot of what I’ve said though, and now the argument is being sidetracked as we move to what people say in comments rather than what was said in our respective articles.
If I come across as defensive, it’s because I don’t like your tone – or that of Madam Miaow. I feel like I personally am being ‘got at’ here. Such as this ridiculous reading of my comment that other political distinctions don’t treat women / feminists any better. My point is not to normalise the behaviour, it’s to eliminate the issue as grounds for choosing a political allegiance.
I am suggesting that by focusing on how badly the Left treats its feminists, and saying that this is a reason for them to go elsewhere, you neglect to mention that no other political distinction treats them better – so how is this grounds for choosing to bypass the Left? It isn’t; I would submit there are other more productive areas to look for the reasons why some feminists bypass the Left. Their class position, for example. Their cultural background perhaps.
“As for your glib response to my thesis …”
Ooh, is that what it is?
Let me first say I’m way out of my depth on this subject, but Harpymarx is one of the few blogs I bother to read (and of course this one).
As is usual in Socialist/Marxist circles, the controversy often ends up with on where to put the emphasis: the structural material causes of conflict inherent in the Capitalist economic system or do the general condition(s) of a particular struggle, this one gender, have their basis in the economic polity but also reveal non-economic exogenous features that must be addressed in an ongoing tensile struggle between economics and other identifiable social modalities such as culture, family, law or whatever.
My own particular view is that the feminist struggle, in this case, can’t be divorced from the economic polity of the current Capitalist economic system. Maybe Harpymarx could add a few more brush strokes to exogenous factors if she indeed thinks this is the case?
[Obs: if a structuralist Marxist position is truely comprehensive, could this discussion even occur? I think it's too simplistic to argue that someone fails to understand Marxist analysis when Marx didn't finish his analysis, and when the Hegelian philosophical underpinnings inherently state that different humans will perceive the world in different ways.]
Can a male be a feminist? Yes and no, imo. Yes a male can sympathise with a female’s views on current conditions, sharing whatever common ground is identifiable, but I do wonder if the male can really know the actual reality of the female, and vice versa. As a male, I believe the correct course of action is: first to listen, second to engage, third to synthesize the dialogue into tactics and strategies that lead to transformative change. The female, due to her unique reality, takes the lead on this issue but within a dialogue. In my view, this struggle takes many forms, hence a non-structural interpretation of strictly Marxist analysis, and will probably continue in different guises and forms for some time to come.
I take this stance from personal experience. Hailing from six counties in Ireland, I was very niave in my understanding of my Southern counterpart’s analysis of the conflict. While these counterparts did, and still do, take a highly moralistic viewpoint, that all violence is immoral (leaving aside their acceptance of the Shannon stop over and support for the arms industry), they could not know and do not know how the reality of six counties shape viewpoints. They did not know, nor do most of them care to know, what the individual realities were but instead were informed by the MSM which had its own axe to grind. Not being able to understand the “reality” of six counties, my Southern counterparties could never affect change. It is telling that two nationalists jump-started the peace processs and were villified by the Southern Irish Press for doing so. Yet, the two nationalist realities, based on actual experience, was the only means to institute change. So, I think must the reality of the female take the lead in this struggle and we must be informed by this reality to affect Socialist change.
(Apologies for the choppy jumps in arguments but I’m trying to keep it short, and I’m lazy.)
Let me make a tentative attempt at cutting across early what I know is likely to become a raging debate between two positions where a third voice is unlikely to be heard later.
Necessarily, I simplify, but there are two positions here:
1) The struggle between labour and capital must have primacy over the struggle for the liberation of women;
2) The liberation of women is absolutely integral to the struggle between labour and capital.
Now I can grasp the difference between these conceptualisations of the overall struggle, but I wonder whether they actually need to matter that much in practice.
Surely socialist practice can only properly flourish if the legitimate aspirations of half of the world’s population are taken seriously on board, including but not restricted to the fact that in labour terms women are explioted by capitalism through its discursive articulation of concepts such as ‘women’s work’/'family life’ and if the processes of socialism (in parties etc.) seek genuinely to accommodate half the world’s population.
Equally, surely feminist practice can only properly flourish if it is conceptualised a class-based liberation movement, where poor women get liberated as well as rich (as with ‘girl power’ and such modern mediatized concepts).
As one current example, the current Leeds bin strike has at its root the fact that the local authority seeks to use equal pay legislation to ‘equal down’ the pay of a workforce (through the reomval of bonuses that workers have had conceded) rather than ‘equal it up’ by increasing the pay of women in similar work up to the negotyared pay settlement of the bin workers.
Where does/should the feminist struggle/socialist struggle being/end here?
Perhaps I’m missing something conceptually, but I just don’t get the big problem if we move towards what needs to be done in terms of effective tactics. That doesn’t mean that it has been done right – MM and HM are right to say that in the labour movement that there continues to be a horrendous continuation of patriachal attitudes, and some of the stuff I’ve witnessed locally would make their hair stand on end. But, I do thinks it’s a tad unfair to impute those attitudes to Dave S, who has simply written a post seeking to explore the concpetual issues.
It’s actually Dave O I worry about more. The general tone of his post seems to me just a bit defeatist, putting over the notion that while some of the thinking in the 1980s might have been a bit lame, at least it’s better than we get now. I’m more positive, and think that debates like this – robust certainly – augur well for the future of feminist socialism/feminist socialism.
Sorry, was going to do another ‘where’s the socialism/feminism dividing line example, but pressed send.
Why the outcry over the move towards all nurses having degrees? An example of deeply ingrained attitudes about a largely female workforce and their relationship to the hierarchically) male medical profession?
Or a class issue about the way the NHS has institutionally, and as a legacy of ‘clawback’ on the ideals of the welfare state in the last minute negotiations with consultants in the ’40s, used divide and rule tactics in association with the Royal College of Nursing to the extent that the new ‘manual’ nurses (health care assistants’) don’t get to be called nurses at all and are treated like shite.
tgmac: “My own particular view is that the feminist struggle, in this case, can’t be divorced from the economic polity of the current Capitalist economic system.”
Quick response this but I believe that patriarchy and capitalism are intertwined, indeed it can’t be divorced from the economic system. That is why I fundamentally disagree with radical feminism that takes a purely patriarchal analysis of understanding women’s oppression. That is why I am a Socialist feminist, socialism and feminism are integral in creating a more equitable society.
Oh, and thanks for reading my blog tgmac
Re: Dave Osler and defeatist posts – I think the ship may have sailed on that one.
As for the substantive issues here – Dave S is right to say that capitalism is adaptable, and maybe it’s possible to envisage a type of capitalism in which patriarchy played no role, but I don’t really see how that kind of capitalism would ever come into being. The ways patriarchy and capitalism work in practice are so closely intertwined that the means of defeating them and creating a new kind of society are pretty similar, and if you were able to organise a force that could defeat patriarchy, I don’t see that capitalism would be able to withstand it either. Similarly if we want a true socialism rather than replacing capitalism with another exploitative system, we need to defeat patriarchy too.
Capitalism requires divisions between workers (and especially that some workers are complicit in the exploitation of other workers), it requires hierarchies, it requires groups of workers who are easy to exploit – and patriarchy creates the conditions for all those requirements. It is just too convenient for capitalism to happily adapt to doing without.
Having said that, I’m fully aware that I have read none – absolutely zero – of the books on Janine’s list, linked to in the comments on Dave O’s post, so I perhaps ought not to pontificate without actually reading them first.
Tim F: that kind of capitalism could come into being in the same way that women got the vote, or homosexuality became much more acceptable (to the point where the ruling class has its own strain of homosexual-friendly narrative a la Alan Duncan). Through class struggle, or particularly the failure of class struggle – as with the post-World War movements, or the 1980s movements.
Yet even acknowledging that link between class struggle and identity politics requires us to pull back and look at the methods that were used to pursue such identity politics – something that Paul frequently does here – and to critique those people who pursue methods that deny the link between class struggle and feminism (for example), as many feminists do.
Or the link between class struggle and LGBTQ freedom, as many people who self-define as one of those do. Which is my point; for those people, and here is the crux of Dave O’s lament, feminism has become detached from socialism. It can always exist detached from socialist theory or practice. Our goal, as ’socialist feminists’ (or, as I prefer, just plain Marxists) is to reintegrate the prosecution of what is viewed as the ‘economic’ class struggle – i.e. on the picket lines – with, as Paul points out, the battles against the narratives, culture and practices of organised sexism.
Yet we must always realise that the only opposition capitalism cannot contain, given time, is the opposition between labour and capital.
I think we have to be careful with the term “identity politics”, as class politics are essentially a form of identity politics.
I’m not convinced that the fact women got the vote means a form of capitalism that didn’t make use of patriarchy could evolve. Capitalism has made many concessions to the working class following class struggle, but that doesn’t change the fundamental relation of labour to capital.
Concessions to the working class do upset the relationship between labour and capital. Which is why we push for further concessions, as immediate reforms which can be enacted – in the knowledge that even by agitating for these, we’re waking the working class up to its own interests as a class for itself. Which is the ground necessary for the ‘irreversible’ change.
Concessions to women, on the other hand, might upset the ‘patriarchal’ nature of some particular societies or systems – but it does not fundamentally change the relationship between capital and labour. Which is why there is always a ‘progressive’ element to capitalist democracy supporting existing property relations, but opposing the subjugation of women, or homosexuals or other colours and so on.
Is it possible that such a bourgeois element might ‘win’ this concession on the back of a powerful socialist movement, without actually overthrowing capitalism? I don’t truthfully know for sure – but I would argue yes. In any case, this is only one point of the issue at stake.
What is indisputable is that certain kinds of feminism exist outside socialism, and are less valid for that – the most successful feminist movements have been one of several ’shock battalions’ thrown against capitalism during sporadic outbreaks of mass working class militancy. Thus when people mock these other strands of ‘feminism’, I think it’s a valid expression of political opinion which does not necessarily denote sexism.
Mainly just to say I’m actively following all this.
Feminism/Socialism are inextrinctably linked in that neither can succeed without the other. Neither is more important than the other for that matter. Both can exist without the other but not be able to realize their fullest potential. I share HarpyMarx’s despair. The left needs to take feminism far more seriously than flippant posts. Somehow it’s different mocking the likes of new labour as its capitalist, bourgeous threat seems to be taken far more seriously by socialists.
Steph
Steph, I think plenty of socialists take feminism very seriously. Maybe I have different experiences, coming from a region of the UK where abortion is still not legal, but there as many men who would fight hard for many of the immediate feminist goals – especially sexual liberation.
I don’t think the formula that neither socialism nor feminism can succeed without the other is the best phrasing though; I prefer to think that a correct socialism will necessarily and naturally accommodate all forms of identity and their liberation.
But beyond that, being flippant does not indicate that one doesn’t take feminism seriously, any more than deep gravity in ones writing indicates that one is correct in one’s orientation.
Many thanks for that Steph,
I agree that neither socialism or feminism can succeed without the other.
I am also glad you share my despair.
and your solidarity.
I can quite understand why some feminists parted company with Marxism when I read statements like ‘the only opposition capitalism cannot contain, given time, is the opposition between labour and capital’. They rightly sought to escape an economic reductionism that downgrades other forms of oppression to ‘byproducts’ – your word – of class conflict in an explicit hierarchy.
If feminism is seen as a sideshow to the main event, class struggle, then your easy elision of ’socialist’ and ‘feminist’ into one big Marxist tent is no comradely welcome, but a smothering, silencing embrace.
Also, I think you should be careful rendering feminism, anti-racism and anti-heterosexism as ‘identity politics’. For a moment I thought I was on Iain Dale…
Except, some2199, comments like that aren’t – in the main – why feminists parted company with Marxism or with socialism. The deradicalisation of feminism has been part of a broader trend brought on by the defeat of the industrial working class.
I’ve never said feminism is a sideshow to the ‘main event’ – a ‘real’ feminism is in fact an integral part of properly prosecuted class struggle. How, for example, can you ‘liberate’ just half the workforce without necessarily liberating women? It can’t be done. How can we restructure the entire economy to provide for social leisure if women are still chained to domestic servitude? It can’t happen.
That is not to say that all the demands of every type of feminism outside of socialist feminism cannot be accommodated by capitalism. I am arguing that they can. And if it is only socialist feminism which presents a threat to capitalism, then really what we’re talking about is just plain socialism, from the point of view of semantics.