pre-capitalist sex

[James Heartfield]

In message <3AD5ECE9.AB62676 at erols.com>, Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema
<crdbronx at erols.com> writes
>Meanwhile the bourgeoisies evolved an extreme of male dominance, with extreme
>idealization of femininity in the late bourgeois family. Conventional historical
>understanding, such as most of us picked up in school, sees this as the 
>prevailing
>pattern of gender relations in most or all of the past. In fact, pre-modern 
>European
>societies had much more complex relations between men and women, with, as
>concomitants, much less intense homophobia, less stringent marriage 
>institutions,
>much less extensive and effective Christian ideological hegemony.

That seems a bit one-sided to me. I think it is fair to say that the
sexual division of labour pre-capitalism, though stultifying, is not
oppressive, in that neither sex had rights or autonomy. The initial
sexual division of labour under capitalism, by contrast was profoundly
oppressive, taking a natural distinction and giving it a new content of
social oppression.

On the other hand, recent developments see the formal oppression of
women dismantled (universal suffrage, property rights, equal pay
legislation etc.); and furthermore, the most significant social change
in the twentieth century has to be the improvement of women's social
position. I used to be of the opinion that women's equality was
unattainable under capitalism. But it seems to me that women have a
better social standing under capitalism - at least in the developed
world - than they did under pre-capitalist social relations.

As to homosexuality, as much as its oppression was an event of
capitalism, so too has been its possibility and its liberation. There
may have been same-sex relations before capitalism, but there was not
such a thing as a homosexual identity. (see Ken Plummer, Greek
Homosexuality)


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-- 
James Heartfield