Feminism: No Symmetry between Women an Men (was Re: Giggly Guys)

[Heather Boushey]

I'll jump right in here: why must feminism be allied with Marxism? Feminism is
the study of women's oppression; however, to understand women's oppression, we
must turn to not only the private relations between men and women in the home,
or the analysis of the subjugation of women's sexual needs and desires under
patriarchy, we must also understand that one of the substantive ways that women
are oppressed is through limiting their (our) access to resources--access to
jobs, property, income. Access to resources frees someone from oppression
because, if you can till your own land (own your own land) and get a decent
paying job e), then the ability to live without men increases (and thus, a woman
has the economic capacity to leave an abusive partner). Part of this is
legal--are women oppressed because they have no legal rights to live or work
without men (think Taliban) or are they oppressed because although they have the
freedom to live without men, they will not really be able to support themselves
and their children (think USA). Feminism must be allied with an analysis of the
economy--of unequal access to jobs and income--which is at the core of women's
oppression (and I'm not saying that is all that is at the core, just that
without access to self-reproduction, there can be no liberation for women).
Marxism provides the only real analysis of oppression under capitalism, and
therefore, it is the logical choice for alliance.

"William S. Lear" wrote:


> On Tuesday, March 23, 1999 at 19:53:56 (-0500) Yoshie Furuhashi writes:
> >
> >Feminism is not simply about researching and learning from women talking
> >about ourselves (though that is certainly part of our project). Feminism
> >is, more importantly, about the abolition of oppressions based upon gender
> >(and properly understood, it must be allied with Marxism). To understand
> >gender, feminists have had to research, among other things, the social
> >construction of masculinity much more so than any man has ever done.
>
> Why "must" feminism be allied with Marxism?
>
> >There is _no symmetry_ between women and men. That men do not have access
> >to women's knowledge most emphatically does not mean that its
> >opposite--women do not have access to men's understanding of themselves--is
> >true. (This is a Hegelian insight of the master-slave relationship.)
>
> What evidence do you have to support this, aside from "Hegelian
> insight"?
>
> Bill

--
Heather Boushey, Ph.D.
Research Department
NYC Housing Authority
250 Broadway, Room 711
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hboushey at csi.com