Document One.
[I pulled the following text from an unsent post for another list in my Drafts folder. I had copied and reformatted an earlier post but never got around to responding. (I have suppressed the names of the original writers.) As it stands it is a dialogue of three speakers. A statement by "M," a response by "Q," and a final comment by "D."
Subject: Re: Specificities of Marxist-Feminist Analysis (was racism and genderoppression)] Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 11:15:03 -0500 From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
M: Just as an example, consider the British Empire. Was it a sexist system or was it not? I will venture to assert that it was. But who reigned over this empire at its height? Who was the super alpha male? Queen Victoria. And who got the empire going? Elizabeth. But it was still a sexist system, severely exploitative of biological women even more than of biological men, and headed up by a series of monarchs, two of whom happened to be women.
Q: Nobody here is claiming that imperialism has not been sexist. What we are questioning is as follows:
1. the claim that sexism _causes_ imperialism;
2. the claim that women _of all classes_, by virtue of our gender, have been more oppressed than men _of all classes_.
Neither 1 nor 2 is true. With regard to 2, a sensible claim is that women are more oppressed than men _of the same class_. Bourgeois women are oppressed by bourgeois men, but bourgeois women (especially now that bourgeois women can _own private property_ independently of men, unlike at the beginning of capitalism) have power over _both_ men and women of the working class. As for 1, while it may have been true that the sexual division of labor was at the origin of all divisions of labor (as both classical Marxists & radical feminists argue), this fact tells us little about _which_ social relation exercises the primary influence upon all other social relations & _shapes them according to the requirements of its reproduction_.
D: I think we do have a lot of evidence suggesting which social relation has been more fundamental and powerful. In any conflicts or struggles that occurred throughout history, whether the source of the oppression emanated from patriarchy (father right) or what you call sexism (Mies' patriarchy), women always seem to get the short end. When clan wealth became plentiful enough to accumulate, it ended up in the hands of men. When Medieval merchants left family assets to their widows, the assets still ultimately ended up in the hands of men. When the "most" exploitable labor was needed during the various stages of capital accumulation, it was the women who had to crawl through the coal mine tunnels humiliatingly naked or were imprisoned in the present day sweat shops in developing countries.
So while it is true that bourgeois women are oppressed by bourgeois men, and some bourgeois women have power over both men and women of the working class, when one examines the seemingly heterogeneous nature of our present day hierarchical structure it is quite clear that at either extreme we find no heterogeneity - men are at the very tip top and women at the very bottom. This in my opinion has plenty to say about which social relation is fundamental (although steadily weakening) even today as we speak.
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Document Two:
[The following posts marked my sudden departure from the A-List (as indicated in the second of the three posts below). The first post was, abstractly considered, unduly brusque. But in the light of the joke in A.W.'s reply (third post below) no response could have been too rude.]
Subject: Re: [A-List] JP Morgan's *$23tn* derivative bust? Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 22:21:29 -0600 From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu
Anne Williamson wrote: <<"hedonic measures" which are to economics what eubonics are to linguistics.>>
And just what do you know about _either_ linguistics or ebonics (NOT "eubonics" -- your inability to get the word right does not suggest undue familiarity with the thing). Most linguists take ebonics verys seriously indeed. Almost all the public clamor about ebonics was by ignoramuses or deliberate liars. Carrol ~ ~ ~ ~ Subject: Unsubscribed from "A-List" mailing list Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 08:50:26 -0700 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu To: cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thank you for being with A-List. - Mark Jones - Listowner ~ ~ ~ ~ Subject: Re: [A-List] JP Morgan's *$23tn* derivative bust? Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 05:43:22 -0500 From: Anne Williamson <annewilliamson at msn.con> To: a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu
No doubt you are correct; linguists on public grants would take ebonics seriously; others laughed up their sleeve as I recall. Anyway, I don't have a dog in this fight, it was just a joke. But maybe you can answer a question for me. Why didn't they have a Miss Ebonics beauty contest? I heard it was because nobody wanted to be Miss Idaho. - Your chastened ignoramus, A.
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Document Three
[The following post marked by abrupt separation from the Marxism list. The list had been indulging in a general bashing of women's liberation under the code-name of "bourgeois feminism," a false equation given some substance by the poster in response to whom this post was written.]
Subject: Re: feminism and black nationalism (was bourgeoisie feminism?) Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 23:38:02 -0500 From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: marxism at lists.panix.com
nancybrumback at cs.com wrote: <<gender and class, the old conundrum will never go away until it is dealt with in a manner satisfactory to women.>>
First, you are correct that this list is crippled by a total failure of the main posters on it to have even an inkling of the importance of women to the proletarian struggle. It is a poisonously male-supremacist list, and to that extent is a scab list.
And Stan was correct to quit the list in nausea at this poisonous atmosphere.
BUT your way of stating the problem, "gender and class," is itself fatal to the cause of both women and working-class women & men. Clear strategy does not flow from stupid analysis. To argue about "class and race" is as stupid as it would be for mathematicians to argue about whether the denominator or the numerator was more important. Thick-headed. The attitudes you are objecting to are themselves based on this way of posing the problem.
Actual discussion of this issue has never even begun on this list mostly because of this phrase "class and gender."
[nancybrumback ] << It will not go away just by saying, oh you have to wait until after the revolution.>>
Now you are disgracing yourself. If you want to argue intelligently you have to argue against serious positions seriously held, and no one any more goes around squeaking "oh you have to wait until after the revolution." If that is your idea of serious marxism, then you aren't worth discussing the point with either.
Stop throwing stupid slogans around and do some learning and thinking instead.
There are two great barriers to working-class unity, barriers from which all other barriers are derivative: racism (i.e., the ideology that rationalizes and legitimizes the oppression of Americans of African descent) and sexism (the ideology that rationalizes and legitimizes the objective oppression of women).
Moral arguments against racism and sexism are so much spitting into the wind. The point is that when marxists use the cliche "bourgeois feminism" to put down the struggles of women, they are being scabs, not that they are being immoral.
I'm not going to waste any more time discussing the "woman question" on this list. Stan is right. But if you want a reading list of really basic marxist analyses of male supremacy, post me off list and I'll send you a list.
Carrol