CAPITALIST PATRIARCHY AND THE CASE FOR SOCIALIST FEMINISM
CAPITALIST PATRIARCHY AND THE CASE FOR SOCIALIST FEMINISM
edited by Zillah R. Eisenstein
Monthly Review Press
New York
Copyright © 1979 by Zillah R. Eisenstein
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Capitalist patriarchy and the case for socialist feminism.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Feminism—United States—Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Women and socialism—Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Eisenstein, Zillah R.
HQ1426.C244 301.41′2 77-76162
ISBN: 978-0-853-45476-2
Monthly Review Press | New York
I ain’t gonna die.
I’m goin’ home like a shootin’ star.
—Sojourner Truth
For my sister Sarah Eisenstein,
who died before any of us
were ready to part with her.
CONTENTS
Developing a Theory of Capitalist Patriarchy and Socialist Feminism
Zillah Eisenstein
Some Notes on the Relations of Capitalist Patriarchy
Zillah Eisenstein
Feminist Theory and the Development of Revolutionary Strategy
Nancy Hartsock
Motherhood, Reproduction, and Male Supremacy
Mothering, Male Dominance, and Capitalism
Nancy Chodorow
The Struggle for Reproductive Freedom: Three Stages of Feminism
Linda Gordon
Socialist Feminist Historical Analysis
The Nineteenth-Century Woman Suffrage Movement and the Analysis of Women’s Oppression
Ellen DuBois
Femininity and Capitalism in Antebellum America
Mary P. Ryan
Capitalist Patriarchy and Female Work
Jean Gardiner
The Other Side of the Paycheck: Monopoly Capital and the Structure of Consumption
Batya Weinbaum and Amy Bridges
Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex
Heidi Hartmann
Woman’s Place Is at the Typewriter: The Feminization of the Clerical Labor Force
Margery Davies
Patriarchy in Revolutionary Society
Emerging from Underdevelopment: Women and Work in Cuba
Carollee Bengelsdorf and Alice Hageman
Margaret Randall
When Patriarchy Kowtows: The Significance of the Chinese Family Revolution for Feminist Theory
Judith Stacey
The Berkeley-Oakland Women’s Union Statement
The Combahee River Collective: A Black Feminist Statement
Dissolving the Hyphen: A Report on Marxist-Feminist Groups 1–5
Rosalind Petchesky
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many people to thank for helping me in the preparation of my articles and this book. Sarah Eisenstein, Ellen Wade, Jackie Fralley, Miriam Brody Kramnick, Isaac Kramnick, Rayna Reiter, and Mary Ryan have all been helpful and generous in criticizing and commenting on my articles and in making organizational suggestions for the book. Most sincere thanks to my excellent editor, Susan Lowes. Carol Stevenson typed many of the earliest drafts of my articles and Judy Humble has typed endless drafts and carried on much of the correspondence necessary for this volume.
My students at Ithaca College, especially those who have participated in the socialist feminist tutorial 1975, 1976, 1977 and graduate students at Cornell with whom I work, have been invaluable in allowing me to share and test my ideas with them. I would also like to thank the politics department of Ithaca College which has funded a Socialist Feminist Speakers series for the last three years. Several of the articles here were first delivered as papers in that series.
Final thanks to Beau Grosscup who has been intimately linked with the book in reading and assessing it. And to my parents Morris L. Eisenstein and Fannie Price Eisenstein who taught me how to use a body of ideas, while never losing the right to criticize