Marxism and Feminism

by Manav Sidhu (Notes) on Monday, April 22, 2013 at

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Marxism and Feminism
Amna Shahram

Is Marxism a theory of Feminism? Is Feminism a part of the Marxist-Leninist movement? Strange, as it
may sound, I will argue against this notion.
Marx, Engels, Lenin or Stalin never used the term "Feminism". On the contrary, they used the term
"Womans' Question" to refer to the Marxist-Leninist standpoint on the question. Lenin says:

"The thesis must clearly point out that real freedom for women is possible only through communism. The
inseparable connection between the social and human position of the woman, and private property in the
means of production, must be strongly brought out. That will draw a clear and ineradicable line of
distinction between our policy and feminism. And it will also supply the basis for regarding the woman
question as a part of the social question, of the workers' problem, and so bind it firmly to the proletarian
class struggle and the revolution. The communist women's movement must itself be a mass movement, a
part of the general mass movement. Not only of the proletariat, but of all the exploited and oppressed, all
the victims of capitalism or any other mastery. In that lies its significance for the class struggles of the
proletariat and for its historical creation communist society. We can rightly be proud of the fact that in the
Party, in the Communist International, we have the flower of revolutionary woman kind. But that is not
enough. We must win over to our side the millions of working women in the towns and villages. Win them
for our struggles and in particular for the communist transformation of society. There can be no real mass
movement without women."

Therefore, Lenin says that the struggle for the emancipation of women is intricately connected to the
proletarian movement. An elementary reading of "The Origin of the Family" shows that the roots of
women's oppression lie in the emergence of private property, the defeat of matriarchy and the onslaught of
patriarchal rule and the corresponding rise of classes and the state. This must be seen in contradistinction
with feminism (not bearing in mind the various schools within feminist thought ranging from liberal
feminism to radical feminism).

Feminists divide their movement into three historical phases. The first wave of feminism ( led by
ideologues such as Voltairine de Cleyre, Margaret Sanger, Lucy Stone) primarily championed the sexual
and marital rights of women. In a conversation with Clara Zetkin, Lenin said:

"I was told that questions of sex and marriage are the main subjects dealt with in the reading and discussion
evenings of women comrades. They are the chief subject of interest, of political instruction..What a
waste!... The great social question appears as an adjunct, a part, of sexual problems. The main thing
becomes a subsidiary matter. That not only endangers clarity on that question itself, it muddles the
thoughts, the class-consciousness of proletarian women generally."

Thus, Lenin believed that even within its first wave, feminism did not address issues pertaining to the
general emancipation of the proletariat from the rule of capital. Lenin's statement that feminism "muddles
the thoughts of the class conscious proletarian women" stands true even for the second and third wave of
feminism.
The second and third wave of feminist thought, continued on their mission for the emancipation of
bourgeois women; through their struggle for sexual and marital freedoms. While some within them also
fought for women's suffrage, their primary mode of analysis remained that the emancipation of women
could be the result of political and legal reforms. While this may be true to an extent as far as the
emancipation of bourgeois women was concerned, it certainly did not address the socio-economic problems
of working class women.

Since the 1980's, the wave of post-modernist thought swept within it tide bourgeois feminism and invented
fancy theories about feminism. By now, as Lenin had foreseen, sexual freedoms had become the primary
mode of analysis for feminists. Casting aside the Marxist-Leninist conception on the woman's question as a
struggle connected with the proletarian movement, feminism had by now successfully amputated the
relationship. "All men are our enemies" and "All sex is rape" replaced the scientific slogans pushed forward
by the Leninists and a seemingly radical but by its class essence bourgeois version of the woman's question
came to the fore. Feminism regressed further into the realm of decadence, and its proponents such as
Robin Morgan argued that heterosexual pornography was a central cause of women's oppression. Anarcho-
feminists while paying lip-service to revolution, claimed that patriarchal relations were intricately
connected with heirarchical structures, and sought to fight against patriarchy by fighting against heirarchy
in general. The decadence of anarchism creeped into the movement for th emancipation of women;
anarchist thought while paying lip-service to revolution remains a thought representative of the petty
bourgeois proprietor. All notions of class struggle and historical materialist analysis were cast aside and in
its place arose a bourgeois, unscientific and `moral' theory on the woman's question. The imaginative
feminists linked women's emancipation with everything from pornography to ecology and from language to
reproduction. They were however, cautious and careful in avoiding the word class from their analysis.

I therefore believe, that we must not use the term "feminism" to refer to our position on the question. Just as
we have a stand on the national question, without labelling ourselves "nationalists", we must refer to our
position as the women's question for that is how Marxist-Leninists have referred to it. We reject all
bourgeois conceptions of the question, and must reject their incorrect and unscientific theses in order to
build a genuine working class women's movement built not in isolation from, but in connection with the
general movement for the emancipation of the proletariat from the rule of capital and private property. We
reject the liberal ideologues who claim that women's emancipation can be achieved through legal
reforms. We reject post-modernist feminists who bring to the fore idealistic and moral conceptions of the
question. We reject anarcho-feminists who claim that women's emancipation can be achieved as a result
of a struggle against hierarchy in general. while paying lip-service to revolution.

We uphold the Marxist-Leninist conception on the women's question: Women's emancipation cannot be
achieved without the general emancipation of the proletariat from private property and the rule of capital.
Women's emancipation can and will only be achieved through communism. We uphold the Communist
Party, a democratic-centralist organization of the proletariat.
"I am deeply concerned about the future of our youth. It is a part of the revolution. And if harmful
tendencies are appearing, creeping over from bourgeois society into the world of revolution as the roots
of many weeds spread it is better to combat them early. Such questions are part of the women question."
[Lenin]