Unhappy Marriage: Marxism and Women

Abstract

It is probably not coincidental that when the ‘crisis of marxism’ was noted in the 1970s, feminism was increasing in theoretical stature and political influence. While marxism tried to incorporate, even domesticate, women under the ‘woman question’ label, feminism was setting its own agenda. This chapter examines the attempted ‘marriage’ between socialism and feminism after a brief retrospective of the ‘classic’ engagement with women. Socialist feminism proved not to be a sturdy hybrid, as both partners came under scrutiny by postmodernism in the 1980s. There is a case for a new postmodern feminism as a radical vehicle for women (and men too, perhaps). Marxism is not the only androcentric mode of thought but its male-centredness in so many aspects, as we shall examine, would probably be enough to disqualify it as adequate guide and programme for the construction of a new society. One aspect of this chapter which distinguishes it from the others is that for once Karl Marx is the silent partner and it is Frederick Engels who comes to the fore in an early ‘marxist’ engagement with gender. The extent to which this was successful is still debated by Marxologists.