Marxist feminism

Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a way of liberating women. 


Marxist feminism states that private property, which gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, political confusion, and ultimately unhealthy social relations between men and women, is the root of women's oppression in the current social context.


Marxist feminism's foundation is laid by Engels in his analysis of gender oppression in The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State. He claims that a woman's subordination is not a result of her biologic disposition but of social relations, and that the institution of family as it exists is a complex system in which men command women's services.


According to Marxist theory, the individual is heavily influenced by the structure of society, which in all modern societies means a class structure; that is, people's opportunities, wants, and interests are seen to be shaped by the mode of production that characterizes the society they inhabit. 


Marxist feminists see contemporary gender inequality as determined ultimately by the capitalist mode of production. Gender oppression is class oppression and the relationship between man and woman in society is similar to the relations between proletariat and bourgeoise. Women's subordination is seen as a form of class oppression, which is maintained (like racism) because it serves the interests of capital and the ruling class. Marxist feminists have extended traditional Marxist analysis by looking at domestic labour as well as wage work.


Radical Women, a major Marxist-feminist organization, bases its theory on Marx' and Engels' analysis that the enslavement of women was the first building block of an economic system based on private property. They contend that elimination of the capitalist profit-driven economy will remove the motivation for sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression.[1]
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both Clara Zetkin and Eleanor Marx were against the demonization of men and supported a proletarian revolution that would overcome as many male–female inequalities as possible.[2] As their movement already had the most radical demands in women's equality, most Marxist leaders, including Clara Zetkin[3][4] and Alexandra Kollontai,counterposed Marxism against bourgeois feminism, rather than trying to combine them.


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