,Maggie Coleman wrote:
you write:
>
><< And I submit we may include in the ranks of Marxism one Freddie
Engels,
> whose work concerning 'the world historical defeat of the female sex'
> (*Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State*) discusses he
> oppression of working class women such that it reads bloody well even
now.
>
> Cheers,
> Rob. >>
>yes, and in my opinion (and other feminists as well ) also marginalizes
women.
>Essentially engels says that women entering the workforce and leaving
the home
>helps politicize them. The problem engels, marx, and the left
traditionally
>ignores is that women did enter the workforce, but they did not leave
their
>unpaid labor behind. In short, they have one foot in one world and
another in
>the other, and this double duty is routinely ignored as an added form
of
>oppression.
I agree with you. I would even say the main correction of Marxism is that we must modify it to put women's liberation on the same footing with workers' liberation. It is important to note that Engels made an important leap forward in his feminism in the Preface to _The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_, when he advanced the short formula of historical materalism from "the form of a society in any historical epoch is determined by the relations of production" to the determination of the form of society is twofold: on the one hand production of immediate life, and on the other reproduction or propagation of the species. Theoretically, this fulfills your critique above, but in classical practice, Marxism has been unbalanced as you describe.
Charles Brown
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