Women, Labor, and Marxist Feminism

Abstract

Contemporary feminist currents can be integrated into three categories: the first category consists of radical feminism lacking liberation theory; the second category encompasses socialist feminism with liberation theory but biases; the third category, Marxist feminism, possesses both liberation theory and a female perspective, capable of analyzing the suppression of women in a more comprehensive manner. The characteristics of Marxist feminism determine the specificity and reconstructive nature of the viewpoints it contains compared to the first two categories. In terms of specificity, it advocates for the dialectical analysis of social structures, rather than isolated analyses of major elements. In doing so, it distinguishes the dialectical relationship between the family and the market, production and reproduction, patriarchy, and capitalism. In terms of reconstructive nature, it introduces the concept of domestic labor and reshapes the meaning of reproduction, revealing the material basis of the ideological oppression of women. This includes male ownership of female domestic labor in the realm of sexual domination and male ownership of female reproductive labor in the realm of class domination.