and Engels, German Ideology, pp. 21, 22.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., p. 9.
16. Ibid., p. 20.
17. Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 65. Engels’ analysis in Origin of the Family differentiates three historical periods—savagery, barbarism, and civilization—in which he traces the evolution of the family.
18. Ibid., p. 66.
19. Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto.
20. See Eli Zaretsky, “Capitalism, the Family, and Personal Life,” Socialist Revolution 13–14 (January-April 1973): 69–125 and 15 (May-June 1973): 19–71 for a discussion of the historical and economic changes in the family.
21. Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 57.
22. F. Engels in The Woman Question (New York: International Publishers, 1951), p. 11.
23. Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, ed. Eleanor Leacock (New York: International Publishers. 1972), pp. 71–72.
24. Ideology is used in this paper to refer to the ruling ideas of the society. (See Marx and Engels, German Ideology.) It is seen as a distortion of reality, protective of existing power arrangements. More specifically, ideology is used to refer to the ideas that protect both male and capitalist power arrangements. Although material conditions often do create the conditions for certain ideologies, ideology and material conditions are in a dialectical relationship. They are both involved in partially defining the other. For instance, the “idea” that women are weak and passive is both a distortion of women’s capacities and a partial description of reality—a reality defined by the ruling ideology.
25. The definition of liberal feminism applies to the reformist understanding of the sexual division of labor. It is a theory which reflects a criticism of the limitations of sex roles but does not comprehend the connection between sex roles and the sexual division of labor and capitalism. Limited by the historical boundaries of the time, early liberal feminists were unable to decipher the capitalist male power structure and instead applauded values which trapped them further in it. They were bound not only by the material conditions of the time (lack of birth control, etc.) but also by a liberal ideology which presented segmented, individualistic conceptions of power.
26. For classical versions of the sexual division of labor see J. S. Mill, On the Subjection of Women (New York: Fawcett, 1971) and J. J. Rousseau, Emile (London: J. J. Dent & Sons, 1911).
27. Although radical feminism is often called bourgeois by male leftists and socialist women, I think this is simplistic. First, radical feminism itself cuts across class lines in its caste analysis and in this sense is meant to relate to the reality of all women. Hence, in terms of priorities, the theory does not distinguish between working class and bourgeois women, recognizing the inadequacy of such distinctions. Further, the theory has been developed by many women who would be termed “working class.” It is inaccurate to say that radical feminists are bourgeois women. The “bourgeois” woman has not really been identified yet in terms of a class analysis specifically pertaining to women.
28. Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1970), p. 24.
29. Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), p. 9.
30. Ibid., p. 8.
31. Some people may say that to be stronger is to be more equal, or that inequality exists biologically because men are stronger than women. But this is not Firestone’s argument. She argues that it is woman’s reproductive role that is at the root of her inequality. Historically, pregnancy made women physically vulnerable, but this is less true today. Firestone does not restrict her thesis to history; she offers it as contemporary analysis.
32. Firestone, Dialectic of Sex, p. 10.
33. It is important to know whether technological changes and innovations in birth control methods are tied only to concerns with population control in an era of overpopulation or if they reflect fundamental changes in the way women are viewed in this society. It matters whether women are still viewed as baby machines or not, because these views could come to define technological progress in birth control as nonprogressive.
34. Firestone, Dialectic of Sex, p. 8.
35. Juliet Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism (New York: Pantheon, 1974), p. 414. Within the women’s movement today there is a varied dialogue in progress on the dimensions and meaning of socialist feminism, and the appropriate questions are still being formulated.
36. Sheila Rowbotham, in Woman’s Consciousness, Man’s World (Baltimore: Penguin, 1973), p. 17, defines patriarchal authority as “based on control over the woman’s productive capacity and over her person.” Juliet Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism, pp. 407–8, sees patriarchy as defining women as exchange objects based on the exploitation of their role as propagators. Hence, she states, p. 416, that “it is not a question of changing (or ending) who has or how one has babies. It is a question of overthrowing patriarchy.”
37. Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism.
38. See Rowbotham, Women, Resistance, and Revolution, for the usage of this model of historical materialism in the study of history.
39. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York: Bantam, 1952), p. xix.
40. Ibid., p. 33.
41. Ibid., p. 54.
42. Juliet Mitchell, Women: The Longest Revolution (a Free Press pamphlet) and Woman’s Estate (New York: Pantheon, 1974).
43. Mitchell, Longest Revolution, p. 4. It has been pointed out that Mitchell herself did not fully understand women’s essential role in society as workers. She termed them a marginal or reserve labor force rather than viewing them as necessary to the economy, as domestic laborers as well as wage laborers.
44. Ibid., p. 6.
45. Mitchell, Woman’s Estate, p. 155.
46. Ibid., p. 156.
47. Mitchell, Longest Revolution, p. 28. It is interesting to note that Mitchell in Psychoanalysis and Feminism, p. 374, focuses on the relationship between families as key to understanding women in patriarchal culture. The relationship between families distinguishes human society from other primate groups. “The legally controlled exchange of women is the primary factor that distinguishes mankind from all other primates, from a cultural standpoint,” p. 372. Hence, it is socially necessary for the kinship structure to have exogamous exchange. The psychology of patriarchy that Mitchell constructs is based on the relations of the kinship structure.
48. Newsweek, 6 December 1976, p. 69.
49. See Linda Gordon, Families (a Free Press pamphlet); A. Gordon, M. J. Buhle, N. Schram, “Women in American Society,” Radical America 5 (July-August 1971); Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism; Mary Ryan, Womanhood in America (New York: Franklin Watts, 1975); R. Baxandall, L. Gordon, S. Reverby, America’s Working Women (New York: Vintage, 1976); Zaretsky, “Capitalism.”
50. Zaretsky, “Capitalism,” p. 114.
51.
