Comparing Feminism and Marxism - Essay Example

and Section # of Comparing feminism and Marxism Marxism is a political theory, which is inspired by the work of Karl Marx and believes in the equality of mankind, without the differences of social classes. Feminism is a theory, which believes in equality of men and women. In a way, both are related, as both believes in the equality and fight against injustice. Marxism Marxism is the term used for the political philosophy and practice, which are mainly inspired by the work of the Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Today, Marxism is present in many disciplines including, media studies, history, sociology, economics, literature etc. The Marxists disagree on few things and one of those things is the scale to which they see a worker's revolution as the way of achieving human liberation and illumination and also the methods by which such revolution can occur in real. Marxism is sometimes described as 'Socialism'. According to some Marxists, the real and full Marxists principles were never implemented in any country; however, socialist countries implemented some part of Marxism. The main ideas of Marx and Engel's are given below: 1. Exploitation: According to Karl Marx, a particular class of a society exploits the other class and according to him, this attitude in the society is the result of capitalism and free market. Marx defined the profit as the difference between the value of the product made by the laborer and the actual salary or the wage, which the laborer receives. He lighted his point that in Capitalist economy, money is earned by paying fewer wage to laborers, but profit is not moderated in terms of risks vs. return. 2. Alienation: According to Marx, people are getting away from their nature and natural behavior, and he accused capitalism for this. In capitalist economy, all benefits are being transferred to the employers and employees get a very low share out of the profit. Like this, employer is actually taking the advantages, which are earned by the hardworking laborers1. According to Marx, alimentation is the situation in which a person lays in capitalism, and it is not necessary that he or she himself admit that they are alienated. 3. Base and superstructure: According to Marx, the 'base structure' explains their point that the entire relations among people with respect to 'the social production of their existence' makes the economic basis in the society. And on this economic basis, the political and legal institutions are formed finally. The other factors affecting this are the religion, philosophy and other ideas. There is always a conflict between the development of material productive forces and the relation of production. This conflict results in the change in economic basis and finally it will cause the transformation of the superstructure2. According to Marx, this relationship is not a one-way process, but both sides are involved in it. And their relationship is considered as dialectical and not a distinction. 4. Class-consciousness: this is used to refer the awareness of oneself and also of the social world around oneself where we live. The awareness about the social class helps in understanding the capacity and it should be known before the class starts a successful revolution. 5. Ideology: Marx used the term 'ideology' in a special meaning and that is to allocate the production of social reality. Engels describes ideology as, 'a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false of seeming motive forces.'3 This all happens due to the reason that the ruling class controls the resources and in this way they also controls the superstructure of society. In this way, the decisions made would be in favor of ruling class and we cannot expect that they will make any decision which will be in favor of lower class. Marx states in his The German Ideology, 'the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.4' 6. Historical materialism: Marx gave the idea of historical materialism. This term deals with the reasons of developments and changes in human societies in the way in which people make earnings and is related to economic analysis and deals with the overall economic structure of the society. 7. Political Economy: This term is used in the study of conditions, which affect the economies of the country following the capitalist system. Political economy observes the mechanism of the process, which first organize material and then the deals out with the deficit, which arises due to that. It stress upon the means of production, including the factors involve in this process. Feminism: Feminism is a belief and a phenomenon, which demands the equal rights for women as of men. Feminism involves many movements, theories, philosophies etc., which demands the equality for women. It is not an old phenomenon; the first wave of feminism was started in early nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the second wave of feminism was observed in the twentieth century, in 1960's and 1970's. The third wave was seen in 1990's, and is still going on5. Feminism begins as an enlightenment discourse and it is not imposed on anyone like other theories. There are different types of feminism and few of them are given below: Liberal feminism: It promotes feminism in a political and legal way and demands the political and legal reforms. This kind of feminism wants women to show and display their abilities and in this way gain the equal status as men. It is also known to be the individualistic form of feminism, where women maintain the equality with the help of their actions and courage. They support the personal interactions between men and women, and they believe that like this they can bring a change in the society. This kind of feminism has firm believe on the qualities of women and they are sure that women can prove them equal to men and can get the equal status in the society. The important issues for liberal feminists are the abortion rights to women, sexual harassment against women, less pays for women and health care etc. Radical Feminism: Radical feminism is another type of feminism, and is like capitalism. According to this type of feminists, women can free themselves from male dominated society, only when they come over their inherently oppressive and dominating system. It blames the society and the old systems and norms of our society, which promotes the male-dominance and thus does not allow women to have equal rights. They sometimes talk about total reconstruction of society, so that these things can be removed. Though, it is not a practical idea. Black feminism: It states that sexism, class oppression and racism are connected together. This type of feminism wants to end the discrimination against different races and racial discrimination also affects women most. Black women strongly support this kind of feminism, because they suffer two kinds of discrimination, gender and race, hence are more oppressed. Comparing feminism and Marxism "To alter the position of woman at the root is possible only if all the conditions of social, family, and domestic existence are altered." (Trotsky, Women and the Family, p. 45.) Writers like Virginia Woolf and Mary Wollstencraf, discussed the issues of modern politics discourses and also the rights, freedom and equality in their writings. They highlighted the concepts and policies, which victimized women more than anyone else in the society, such as full citizenship and sovereignty etc. Virginia Woolf, raised an issue (Three Guineas, 1938), that is it possible to extend a women a system whose very premises or boundary engage the naming of feminity as irrational and the elimination of women from its structures. She once blames liberal modernity for downgrading women to the demesne of domesticity and denies them of a political voice while requiring that men identify with a communication of wisdom6, which splits off and ignores the importance of feeling. If we look at the feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, feminists in the era of 1970's finally realized the difficulties, which they faced while talking about the identity of women in the society. It is believed that there could be no simple legitimation or rule for feminists in throwing off 'false consciousness' and enlightening a 'true' but deeply covered female self and if this 'female self' was actually already a creation of patriarchy. If feminists are serious in developing an effective politics in the world, they cannot afford simply to stay away from the concepts of rights, of sovereign subjectivity, agency and universal justice for this would surely be to destabilize its usefulness as an emancipatory politics. Marxism and feminism differs in many ways, as for Marxists, the main problem or the main reason of many problems is the division in our society, which results in different social classes. One of the social classes dominates the other classes and hence gets more benefits and opportunities, which means fewer opportunities for the other class. On the other hand, feminists believe that the oppression of women is rooted in the nature of men in every part of the world and it is like something natural. And when they that it is in all men, no matter in which society they live, from which class do they belong, then it becomes a biological phenomenon instead of social. This point of view of feminists is unscientific as well as undialectical, thus cannot be proved, and rather a pessimistic approach. If this is what they have concluded, then it is not possible for anyone to solve this problem, as it is naturally built in a man, then how can someone change it. So it can be assumed and concluded that women are facing oppression and discrimination from the beginning, as this is in the nature of man, and thus will suffer it till the end, there is no solution for this. If we see the stand of Marxism, it does not believe on this. It mainly talks about the different classes of our society and the whether the right of private ownership of property should be given to the people or the state should hold the property. They believe that inequality for women and oppression against women is as old as the division of society in different classes. And they say that if we remove and finish the class differences in our society, then this will help to end the gender difference and inequality for women. Though, it does not mean that it will automatically abolish the oppression of women, but it means that when social classes will abolish and all people in the society will become equal, then there is a possibility that men and women will build a real human relationship between them instead of the relationship of master and slave. According to Marxists, it can be done only when people reject the capitalism, eliminate the class differences and go for Marxism. It is not easy to achieve Marxism, people have to get up for this purpose and have to bring a socialist revolution. And only middle calls and the working class can bring the revolution and this will result in elimination of the discrimination or differences on the basis of language, nationality, race, religion and sex. The Marxists believe that they have to fight against the inequalities and same is the case with feminists. They are also fighting against the discrimination and inequality. But on the other hand, Marxists do not support the feminists who belong to the higher class of the society and enjoy all the facilities and joys of their life, but stand for feminism only because they want fame or attention of society. Marxists do not support those feminists, whose major conflict is with men not with the class differences in the society. This attitude of Marxists is because of the reason that the women of oppressed class basically started all feminists' movements, which were started in history. Actually those are the women who suffer more than any other and the women from upper class of the society hijack the movement and use it for their own selfish purposes. And it was observed that the women of upper class suppressed women of lower class. In order to eliminate the inequality against women, first the class differences should be eliminated. In this way, women will not be oppressed by their own gender and this is what Marxism believes about Feminists. Works Cited Engels: Letter to Franz Mehring, (London July 14, 1893), transl. by Donna Torr, in Marx and Engels Correspondence, International Publishers 1968 Karl Marx, The German Ideology Krolokke, Charlotte; Anne Scott Sorensen "Three Waves of Feminism: From Suffragettes to Grrls", Gender Communication Theories and Analyses:From Silence to Performance. Sage, 24. 2005 Edited by Philip Rice & Patricia Waugh Modern Literary Theory 4th edition, See Marx: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Preface, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, with some notes by R. Rojas, and Engels: Anti-Dhring (1877), Introduction Genera Read More