INTRODUCTION
Socialist feminism, both as theory and in practice, is very much in the process of developing. This volume gives a statement of where socialist feminism has developed to and at the same time focuses upon what it must move toward. These articles lay a foundation, from which further socialist feminist study and activity can build. Earlier beginning points were found either within the traditions of Marxist analysis or feminist theory. This volume makes public a political and intellectual commitment to understanding the problem of woman’s oppression in terms of a real synthesis between the two. This does not mean merely adding one theory to the other but rather redefining each through the conflict that derives from and between both traditions. The synthesis must formulate the problem of woman as both mother and worker, reproducer and producer. Male supremacy and capitalism are defined as the core relations determining the oppression of women today. This volume is devoted to understanding the dynamic of power involved, which derives from both the class relations of production and the sexual hierarchical relations of society.
It is sometimes helpful to say what a book is not intended to do. This volume is not a presentation of the historical development of socialist feminism, nor is it a complete collection of socialist feminist writings to date. It is rather a collection of representative work being done by a much larger community of women than can be collected here. The articles should be read in relation to each other. Some articles stress patriarchy more than capitalism. Others focus more on socialism than feminism. This reflects the imbalanced existing scholarship most of our authors must use as a beginning point. Separately, the articles are limited by time, space, knowledge, etc.; the outlines of a socialist feminist analysis of woman’s oppression emerges from the collection of articles seen together as a whole.
At the same time that we are mapping out where we have come from, a statement of where we need to direct our energy emerges. The recognition of these needs, and a setting of priorities, is part of the development of our theory. This is what it means to say that theory and practice are in process.
Developing Socialist Feminist Questions as Theory
All of the articles in this volume have been chosen for their commitment to socialism and to feminism. Each tries to develop a fuller understanding of the relationship between patriarchy and capitalism. The three articles in this first section outline some theoretical priorities, particularly for the underdeveloped dimensions of feminism within a socialist feminist perspective. To the extent that socialist theory and practice has a more developed history than that of socialist feminism, it is particularly important to be aware of where we are in constructing the feminist dimensions of socialist feminism. Women throughout the movement have committed themselves to this task, and these first articles are only a small part of that effort. They are an outgrowth of much collective activity and of previous work by other feminists in socialist, feminist, radical feminist, lesbian, and socialist feminist theory.
My articles attempt to formulate socialist feminist questions by using the Marxist method, transformed by feminist commitments. Nancy Hartsock focuses on the transformation of politics through the feminist commitment in the personal realm. Although this argument has been reduced to defining the political solely in terms of the personal, rather than emphasizing the relations defining the connections between the two, the emphasis on the importance of everyday life is integral to a meaningful socialist feminist analysis. Hartsock is also concerned with constructing theory from reality rather than plastering one onto the other, with creating a dialectic between theory and practice rather than deriving one from the other. How can theory guide and direct action while growing out of the needs of everyday life, when everyday life embodies both real and false needs? The basic conflict that feminists must deal with is that in having everyday life define theory, theory cannot be defined in its totality by everyday life. Theory must grow out of reality, but it must be able to pose another vision of reality as well.
Much work has preceded the development of socialist feminism and was necessary for its inception. Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex (1970) presented crucial but incomplete ideas to the women’s movement about patriarchal power. Her book laid the basis for critical analyses and new developments, which were elaborated by Juliet Mitchell in Woman’s Estate (1971), an important criticism of both radical feminism and socialist theory on the woman question. We have here the beginnings of a self-aware socialist feminism. This self-awareness takes clearer form in Sheila Rowbotham’s Women, Resistance, and Revolution (1972), as well as in her Woman’s Consciousness, Man’s World (1973). At the same time, there were important developments in radical feminist analysis as presented by Ti Grace Atkinson in Amazon Odyssey (1974) and by Redstockings in Feminist Revolution (1975). The different priorities but similar commitments evident in all these works take a new turn in Juliet Mitchell’s Psychoanalysis and Feminism (1974), Sherry Ortner’s critique of this—“Oedipal Father, Mother’s Brother & the Penis …” in Feminist Studies (1975), and Gayle Rubin’s “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex,” in Toward an Anthropology of Women (1975), all of which show a commitment to understanding the universality of patriarchy through Freud and psychoanalysis. Whether there can be a meaningful synthesis of Marx and Freud depends on whether it is possible to understand how the unconscious is reproduced and maintained by the relations of the society. This part of the ongoing discussion of socialist feminism reflects the new understanding of how the system of male supremacy is reproduced through the sexual ordering of the society, both consciously and unconsciously. In this sense, and in the sense that socialist feminism proposes a synthesis between Marxist theory and radical feminism, both of which are still being defined, socialist feminist theory is still in the process of being formulated.
Related Reading
Burris, Barbara, et al., “Fourth World Manifesto,” Notes from the Third Year.
Kollias, Karen, “Class Realities: Create a New Power Base,” Quest 1, no. 3 (Winter 1975).
Lichtman, George, “Marx and Freud,” Socialist Revolution 6, no. 43 (October-December 1976): 3–57.
Magas, Branka, “Sex Politics: Class Politics,” New Left Review 66 (March-April 1971): 69–96.
Reed, Evelyn, Woman’s Evolution, from Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1975).
Sontag, Susan, “The Third World of Women,” Partisan Review (1973): 180–206.
Willis, Ellen, “Economic Reality and the Limits of Feminism,” Ms. (June 1973): 90–111.
“Women in Struggle,” NACLA Newsletter 6, no. 10 (December 1972).
“Women’s Labor,” NACLA Newsletter 9, no. 6 (September 1975).
Zaretsky, Eli, “Male Supremacy and the Unconscious,” Socialist Revolution 4, no. 21–22 (January 1975).
DEVELOPING A THEORY OF CAPITALIST PATRIARCHY AND SOCIALIST FEMINISM
Zillah Eisenstein
Introduction
Radical feminists and male leftists, in confusing socialist women and socialist feminists, fail to recognize the political distinction between being a woman and being a feminist. But the difference between socialist women and socialist feminists needs to be articulated if the ties between radical feminism and socialist feminists are to be understood. Although there are socialist women who are committed to understanding and changing the system of capitalism, socialist feminists are committed to understanding the system of power deriving from capitalist patriarchy. I choose this phrase, capitalist patriarchy, to emphasize the mutually reinforcing dialectical relationship between capitalist class structure and hierarchical sexual structuring. Understanding this interdependence of capitalism and patriarchy is essential to the socialist feminist political analysis. Although patriarchy (as male supremacy) existed before capitalism, and continues in postcapitalist societies, it is their present relationship that must be understood if the structure of oppression is to