Heidi Hartmann discusses the difficulties of using a theory, such as Marxist
theory that so often ignores differences of
gender within their analysis. Though Marxist theory has always been embedded in political and cultural history and world systems, it has ignored the gender imbalance found within those systems. However, Feminism can learn something from Marxist theory, for though it has been deeply committed to the systemic character of male/female relations, it has ignored historical trajectory or economic power structures. In her essay, Hartmann examines ways in which Marxism and Feminism might learn from and draw from each other. She starts off by looking at what she terms as three different categories of Marxists. The
Early Marxists, The Every Day Life School, and Marxist Feminism. The Early Marxists, such as Engels, argued that
women were not oppressed iwthin the proletariat. Women’s participation in the labor force was key to their emancipation, so once women became capital producers as opposed to domestic workers, they would become emancipated. This early perspective was naïve in the ways of gender imbalance and male/female traditional relationships in the West, and that, according to Feminist theory, men had a vested interest in the subjugation of women. The Everyday Life School studies how
capitalism effects every part of daily society. Zaretsky argued that women work for the capitalist system and not for men. Therefore women became slaves of capitalism and not subjects of
male dominated society. The separation of home from the workplace and the privatization of housework makes it appear like women are working for their male counterparts when in actuality, they are all a part of the capitalist system working for capitalist society. Therefore, the end of capitalism would cause the end of oppression of both men and women. This view completely ignores the inequality existing between men and women in the work force and refuses to acknowledge how women are being oppressed by the system of inequality versus the system of capitalism. She then describes how many Feminists have ignored Marxist theory, and how they need to find ways to work through these issues to develop more complex theoretical frames for both genres. By looking at the partnership of patriarchy and capital and strategies of a more progressive union between the two fields, Hartmann draws parallels and comparisons that would be equally fruitful for both.
More summaries about the The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism