Marxist roots of feminism

For those interested in the Marxist underpinnings of feminism, this article helps to connect the dots, though it is ponderous and difficult. Suffice to to say that feminism is best understood as the last step of the dialectic, though they seldom reveal this dimension of their strategy to the public at-large. Remember, the proletariat (producers) were to attack those who owned the means of production to create the workers paradise? Well, after that, there was another stage in which the women (re-producers) were to attack the men (who controlled the means of re-production) in order to bring about an androgynous society without sexual inhibitions. That's the part of the struggle we're "enjoying" now. Without understanding the philosophy, it's hard to get a real handle on what radical feminists want. It also explains their blind eye towards leftist dictatorships (which often harbor total sexual liberty, abortion, etc.) and fierceness towards right-wing dictatorships (which often maintain traditional male-female differences).

In reality, though, comunism/socialism is always a bust. What has it gained for women who thought it was their salvation?

Communism was men's nightmare and women's dream, or so the left wing version goes. In reality it was a gender-neutral hell. Women under communism were, indeed, encouraged to participate in the labour force. An array of conveniences facilitated their participation: day care centres, kindergarten, daylong schools, abortion clinics. They had their quota in parliament. They climbed to the top of some professions ... But this - as most other things in communism - was a mere simulacrum.

Reality was much drearier. Women, however mettlesome, groaned under the "triple burden" - work, marital expectations cum childrearing chores and party activism. They succumbed to the lure and demands of the (stressful and boastful) image of the communist "super-woman". This martyrdom - now threatened by the dual Western imports, capitalism and feminism - served as a fountain of self-esteem and a source of self-worth in otherwise gloomy circumstances.

Now, sadly post-communism, those without an understanding of the true complimentarity of male-female relations are horrified that they may slip back into the dark days before the communist experiment, with its own host of abuses and confinements.

Indeed, in feminist lore and theory, both nationalism and capitalism are "patriarchal". Nationalism allocates distinct and mutually exclusive roles to men and women. The latter are supposed to act as homemakers and have babies. Capitalism encourages the formation of impregnable male elites, disseminates new technologies mainly to male monopolies, eliminates menial and low skilled (women's) jobs and puts emphasis on masculine traits such as aggression and competitiveness. No wonder female political representation in parliaments and governments diminished dramatically since 1989.

This scenario is why we must counter the misunderstandings in the academy and on the street about authentic femininity, and spread the good news about what the Gospel offers women. This is our mission, ladies. We are the good news.

Comments

[Terry LaForest Lynch]

Back in the pre Roe days, I fancied myself a feminist. I attended "conciousness raising" meetings in both a blue-collar town(Saginaw) and in Ann Arbor (no description needed). The emphasis then was not entirely placed on abortion. Changing rape laws was one of the big issues. One other big issue had to do with language. Replacing "man" with person was essential until the ridiculus nature of the language got too much even for them-fireperson, mailperson then postal person because mail sounds like male. But the underlying agenda was not abandoned. The people I heard and read were quite open about their plan. All the secular issues were frosting. The meat and potatoes was to affect the Church. Everyone admitted that women in the pews who heard "man" or "brothers" understand that this included them. The first step was to convince those women that they were being excluded. Another part of the plan was to attack fatherhood. The final goal was to replace the worship of God with the worship of a goddess. The women involved made no attempt to hide this, they spoke openly of it in meetings and wrote of it in articles and books directed to each other. To outsiders, they maintained the deception of "equal rights". For this reason and because of the equating of freedom with abortion, I am one of the many women who will never identify with feminism again.

[Teresa]

Thank you for this article. I had long thought that modern day feminism had its roots in Marxism, which actually seeks to androgynize culture.

Terry, you bring up great points and ones I've recently had to deal with within my church. All of my mothers, (mother, grandmothers aunts, teachers, etc.), when teaching from Scripture always used the language of Scripture and had a great love for our Father and His Son. It was understood that we had equally dignity and an equal share in the Kingdom. Nothing in what they taught diminished me in any way. I cannot have a relationship with an "it" god, God must be a "person," and teaching from the beginning has always taught that God is He.

And then came my recent experiences of the replacement of "man" and "Father" in biblical text. I see this as an invitation to be angry when I read the Bible or participate in Mass. This cannot be good or right. I see it as the primordial invitation by Satan himself to Eve, "You can be like gods." Two deceptions occurred here: #1. That God the Father is a liar. #2. That you can be like Him (since, He was the only god she knew, she rejected her own unique grace of womanhood). Adam is not off the hook. Where was he? They were separated from one another -- in a word, divorced. His response was a rejection of his grace in manhood... he was impotent! Men are called potent or impotent (and God OMNIPOTENT!), women are called fertile or infertile.

So of course it makes sense that the Redeemer came through a woman, the "new" Eve. He could have just plopped from the sky, but he required her cooperation, her acceptance of her grace as woman, to participate in the redemption of us all.

[Jim Kalb]

If you look at radical feminists you'll think feminism is Marxist, but then it's hard to understand why it was accepted so quickly and easily by all major American institutions.

I think feminism is at least as capitalist as Marxist. The world of capitalism has profit-seeking producers and gratification-seeking consumers. If you're a producer you try to expand markets and organize production rationally. It expands markets if people buy childcare and McDonalds hamburgers instead of providing for themselves at home, and it helps organize production rationally if employees are interchangeable and don't have interests or connections apart from their careers and money. If you're a consumer seeking gratification you'll play along with that so you'll make more money, and you'll look at life as a matter of fun and personal choice.

All those things cut against sex roles, family connections, and principles and loyalties of any kind. They turn us into interchangeable and manipulable human resources on the one hand, and endlessly appetitive consumers on the other. And that's what capitalism in and of itself wants. It seems to me the problem is less Marxism or capitalism than the hedonistic and materialistic view of the world both share. To escape from that you have to put non-economic values first, and we don't do that in American public life.

[grateful_catholic]

insert "www" after "http://" to make the link in the original remarks work. The entire link is then http://www.globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=694&cid=12&sid=53

[Dale O'Leary]

Radical Feminists were not economic Marxists, but social Marxists. Building on a few lines from Engels they dreamed of a sex class revolution where women would gain control of the means of reproduction overthrow the ruling class (men) and establish a sex classless society. Shulamith Firestone's book The Dialectic of Sex explained the entire agenda.