5 Patriarchal Relations and

Sexual Division of Labour

THE CONCEPT OF ‘PATRIARCHAL RELATIONS’

The analysis of women’s subordination, has up to now been broadly

based on two contending streams of thought. Marxist feminists have
emphasised class relations within capitalism specifically as being
the root of gender inequality, especially that of subordination of
women’s labour. They regard gender/sex asymmetry as being
derivative of capitalist class relations. On the other hand, those
who use the concept of patriarchy, especially radical feminists, as a
transhistorical category, reject class analysis as being insufficient to
explain gender relations. For them, patriarchy is an independent
set of social relations from class relations.
Neither of these two positions offers a satisfactory analytical frame-
work which can be used to study the experience of women’s labour
in Korean agriculture. They do not actually encompass the com-
plexity and variation of concrete social formations, especially
considering the structure of the modern world economy which en-
tails intricate networks of intersocietal relationships. Neither the
class relations nor the patriarchy approach sufficiently explain the
divergent social constructions of gender inequality in different so-
cieties; what is needed is an analytical apparatus which explains
the dynamics of gender inequality in the context of political, social,
economic and cultural diversity.
Patriarchy, in general, implies an independent social arrangement
of domination of the female sex which transcends other political and
economic systems. The word, ‘patriarchy’ ‘reflects the sheer prevalence
of male dominated institutions across a wide range of social structures
and mode of production’ (Middleton, C., 1988, p. 42). It has been
defined by many feminist writers as an autonomous system independ-
ent from other social relations (Firestone, S., 1974; Rubin, G., 1976,
Millet, K., 1969; Redstockings, 1970; Hartmann, H., 1979). Patriarchy
is exclusive of capitalism since women’s subordination to men cannot
be explained by the analytical framework of capitalism alone (Mitchell,
J., 1975; Harrison, J., 1973; Delphy, C., 1977; Hartmann, H. 1979).

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D. S. Gills, Rural Women and Triple Exploitation in Korean Development
© Dong-Sook Shin Gills 1999
88 Patriarchal Relations and Modes of Production
The concept of universal patriarchy assents to the autonomous
existence of patriarchy while denying its own intrinsic dynamics of
operation. The assertion that patriarchy is a social relation which
transcends the boundary of modes of production, and which is not
essentially affected by social forces in historical modes of production,
is a flawed discourse, even within the terms of its own logic. Patriarchy
is certainly a historical manifestation. Analytical isolation of patriarchy
from its historical conditions, thus ignoring divergent configurations
of a multitude of social relations, results in ahistorical analysis.
The concept of patriarchy therefore falls short of its claim to be a
social relation and, thus, to talk of patriarchy in an unqualified
fashion is to reify the concept. In addition, the emphasis on autonomy
of patriarchy, and its analytical separation from capitalism, presents
limits in accounting for the complex interrelationship between gender
and class inequality. Given the fact that patriarchy is not discerned
as a natural phenomenon, the fundamental questions become that
of why and how such a social invention came to exist and be
maintained.
Marxist feminists, on the other hand, emphasise class relations
within capitalism specifically as being the root of gender inequality.
For these writers, gender/sexual asymmetry is derivative of capitalist
class relations. Because of the nature of capital (which must expand
through the appropriation of the surplus value created by labour)
capital continuously searches for the maximum control of labour
and wages. Therefore, ‘capital has seized upon pre-existing division
between men and women, and has incorporated that division
within its own workforce to its own advantage’ (Mackintosh, M., 1981,
p. 8). The process of adopting patriarchy in the capitalist mode of
production is parallel to incorporation of other pre-existing social
differentiation – for example, by race, migration, and age – into
the subsequent hierarchical structure of capitalist production. In
this regard, women’s subordinate position in the capitalist mode of
production is recounted as a pre-determined outcome of the process
of capital accumulation.
The theory of capitalist patriarchy (Eisenstein, Z., 1979; McDonagh,
R. and Harrison, R., 1978) attempts to explain sexual hierarchy
within the capitalist mode of production. The main focus of the
theory has been on two paradigms of analysis. One is the structural
domination of women by men and the other is class domination as
the fundamental social relation. Capitalist patriarchy contains a simi-
lar logical contradiction to that of the radical feminists within its