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Title: Feminism, Class and Anarchism
Author: Deirdre Hogan
Date: 2007
Language: en
Topics: class struggle, feminist
Source: Retrieved on May 7th, 2009 from http://www.anarkismo.net/article/7348
Notes: Originally published in RAG no.2, Autumn 2007. ps. Special thanks to Tamarack and José Antonio Gutiérrez for their feedback and suggestions. Related Link: http://www.ragdublin.blogspot.com

Deirdre Hogan

Feminism, Class and Anarchism

The relationship between class society and capitalism

The defining feature of capitalist society is that it is broadly divided

into two fundamental classes: the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie),

made up of large business owners, and the working class (the

proletariat), consisting more or less of everyone else — the vast

majority of people who work for a wage. There are, of course, plenty of

grey areas within this definition of class society, and the working

class itself is not made up of one homogenous group of people, but

includes, for example, unskilled labourers as well as most of what is

commonly termed the middle-class and there can, therefore, be very real

differences in income and opportunity for different sectors of this

broadly defined working class

“Middle class” is a problematic term as, although frequently used, who

exactly it refers to is rarely very clear. Usually “middle class” refers

to workers such as independent professionals, small business owners and

lower and middle management. However, these middle layers are not really

an independent class, in that they are not independent of the process of

exploitation and capital accumulation which is capitalism. They are

generally at the fringes of one of the two main classes, capitalist and

working class.[1]

The important point about looking at society as consisting of two

fundamental classes is the understanding that the economic relationship

between these two classes, the big business owners and the people who

work for them, is based on exploitation and therefore these two classes

have fundamentally opposing material interests.

Capitalism and business are, by nature, profit driven. The work an

employee does in the course of their job creates wealth. Some of this

wealth is given to the employee in their wage-packet, the rest is kept

by the boss, adding to his or her profits (if an employee were not

profitable, they would not be employed). In this way, the business owner

exploits the employee and accumulates capital. It is in the interests of

the business owner to maximise profits and to keep the cost of wages

down; it is in the interests of the employee to maximise their pay and

conditions. This conflict of interest and the exploitation of one class

of people by another minority class, is inherent to capitalist society.

Anarchists aim ultimately to abolish the capitalist class system and to

create a classless society.

The relationship between sexism and capitalism

Sexism is a source of injustice which differs from the type of class

exploitation mentioned above in a few different ways. Most women live

and work with men for at least some of their lives; they have close

relationships with men such as their father, son, brother, lover,

partner, husband or friend. Women and men do not have inherently

opposing interests; we do not want to abolish the sexes but instead to

abolish the hierarchy of power that exists between the sexes and to

create a society where women and men can live freely and equally

together.

Capitalist society depends on class exploitation. It does not though

depend on sexism and could in theory accommodate to a large extent a

similar treatment of women and men. This is obvious if we look at what

the fight for women’s liberation has achieved in many societies around

the world over the last, say, 100 years, where there has been radical

improvements in the situation of women and the underlying assumptions of

what roles are natural and right for women. Capitalism, in the mean

time, has adapted to women’s changing role and status in society.

An end to sexism therefore won’t necessarily lead to an end to

capitalism. Likewise, sexism can continue even after capitalism and

class society have been abolished. Sexism is possibly the earliest form

of oppression ever to exist, it not only pre-dates capitalism; there is

evidence that sexism also pre-dates earlier forms of class society [2].

As societies have developed the exact nature of women’s oppression, the

particular form it takes, has changed. Under capitalism the oppression

of women has its own particular character where capitalism has taken

advantage of the historical oppression of women to maximise profits.

But how realistic is the end of women’s oppression under capitalism?

There are many ways in which women are oppressed as a sex in today’s

society — economically, ideologically, physically, and so on — and it is

likely that continuing the feminist struggle will lead to further

improvements in the condition of women. However, though it is possible

to envisage many aspects of sexism eroded away in time with struggle,

there are features of capitalism that make the full economic equality of

women and men under capitalism highly unlikely. This is because

capitalism is based on the need to maximise profits and in such a system

women are at a natural disadvantage.

In capitalist society, the ability to give birth is a liability. Women’s

biological role means that (if they have children) they will have to

take at least some time off paid employment. Their biological role also

makes them ultimately responsible for any child they bear. In

consequence, paid maternity leave, single parent allowance, parental

leave, leave to care for sick children, free crèche and childcare

facilities etc. will always be especially relevant to women. For this

reason women are economically more vulnerable than men under capitalism:

attacks on gains such as crèche facilities, single-parent allowance and

so on will always affect women disproportionately more than men. And yet

without full economic equality it is hard to see an end to the unequal

power relations between women and men and the associated ideology of

sexism. Thus, although we can say that capitalism could accommodate

women’s equality with men, the reality is that the full realisation of

this equality is very unlikely to be achieved under capitalism. This is

simply because there is an economic penalty linked to women’s biology

which makes profit-driven capitalist society inherently biased against

women.

The struggle for women’s emancipation in working class movements

One of the best examples of how struggle for change can bring about real

and lasting changes in society is the great improvements in women’s

status, rights and quality of life that the struggle for women’s

liberation has achieved in many countries around the globe. Without this

struggle (which I’ll call feminism though not all those fighting against

women’s subordination would have identified as feminist), women clearly

would not have made the huge gains we have made.

Historically, the struggle for women’s emancipation was evident within

anarchist and other socialist movements. However, as a whole these

movements have tended to have a somewhat ambiguous relationship with

women’s liberation and the broader feminist struggle.

Although central to anarchism has always been an emphasis on the

abolition of all hierarchies of power, anarchism has its roots in class

struggle, in the struggle to overthrow capitalism, with its defining aim

being the creation of a classless society. Because women’s oppression is

not so intimately tied to capitalism as class struggle, women’s

liberation has historically been seen, and to a large extent continues

to be seen, as a secondary goal to the creation of a classless society,

not as important nor as fundamental as class struggle.

But to whom is feminism unimportant? Certainly for most women in

socialist movements the assumption that a profound transformation in the

power relations between women and men was part of socialism was vital.

However, there tended to be more men than women active in socialist

circles and the men played a dominant role. Women’s demands were

marginalised because of the primacy of class and also because while the

issues that affected working men also affected working women in a

similar way, the same was not true for the issues particular to the

oppression of women as a sex. Women’s social and economic equality was

sometimes seen to conflict with the material interests and comforts of

men. Women’s equality required profound changes in the division of

labour both in the home and at work as well as changes in the whole

social system of male authority. To achieve women’s equality a

re-evaluation of self-identity would also have to take place where

“men’s identity” could no longer depend on being seen as stronger or

more capable than women.

Women tended to make the connection between personal and political

emancipation, hoping that socialism would make new women and new men by

democratising all aspects of human relations. However they found it very

hard, for example, to convince their comrades that the unequal division

of labour within the home was an important political issue. In the words

of Hannah Mitchell, active as a socialist and feminist around the early

20^(th) century in England, on her double shift working both outside and

inside the home:

“Even my Sunday leisure was gone for I soon found a lot of the socialist

talk about freedom was only talk and these socialist young men expected

Sunday dinners and huge teas with home-made cakes, potted meats and pies

exactly like their reactionary fellows.”[3]

Anarchist women in Spain at the time of the social revolution in 1936

had similar complaints finding that female-male equality did not carry

over well to intimate personal relationships. Martha Ackelsberg notes in

her book Free Women of Spain that although equality for women and men

was adopted officially by the Spanish anarchist movement as early as

1872:

“Virtually all of my informants lamented that no matter how militant

even the most committed anarchists were in the streets, they expected to

be ‘masters’ in their homes — a complaint echoed in many articles

written in movement newspapers and magazines during this period.”

Sexism also occurred in the public sphere, where, for example, women

militants sometimes found they were not treated seriously nor with

respect by their male comrades. Women also faced problems in their

struggle for equality within the trade union movement in the 19^(th) and

20^(th) centuries where the unequal situation of men and women in paid

employment was an awkward issue. Men in the trade unions argued that

women lowered the wages of organised workers and some believed the

solution was to exclude women entirely from the trade and to raise the

male wage so that the men could support their families. In the

mid-19^(th) century in Britain a tailor summarised the effect of female

labour as follows:

“When I first began working at this branch [waistcoat-making], there

were but very few females employed in it. A few white waist-coats were

given to them under the idea that women would make them cleaner than men

...But since the increase of the puffing and sweating system, masters

and sweaters have sought everywhere for such hands as would do the work

below the regular ones. Hence the wife has been made to compete with the

husband, and the daughter with the wife...If the man will not reduce the

price of his labour to that of the female, why he must remain

unemployed”.[4]

The policy of excluding women from certain trade unions was often

determined by competition depressing wages rather than sexist ideology

although ideology had also a role to play. In the tobacco industry in

the early 20^(th) century in Tampa in the States, for example, an

anarcho-syndicalist union, La Resistencia, made up mostly of Cuban

émigrés, sought to organise all workers throughout the city. Over a

quarter of their membership was made up of women tobacco strippers. This

syndicalist union was denounced both as unmanly and un-American by

another trade union, the Cigar Makers’ Industrial Union which pursued

exclusionary strategies and “very reluctantly organised women workers

into a separate and secondary section of the union”.[5]

Driving force of women’s liberation has been feminism

It is generally well documented that the struggle for women’s

emancipation has not always been supported and that historically women

have faced sexism within class struggle organisations. The

unquestionable gains in women’s freedom that have taken place are thanks

to those women and men, within class struggle organisations as well as

without, who challenged sexism and fought for improvements in women’s

condition. It is the feminist movement in all its variety (middle-class,

working-class, socialist, anarchist...) that has lead the way in women’s

liberation and not movements focused on class struggle. I emphasise the

point because though today the anarchist movement as a whole does

support an end to the oppression of women, there remains a mistrust of

feminism, with anarchists and other socialists sometimes distancing

themselves from feminism because it often lacks a class analysis. Yet it

is this very feminism that we have to thank for the very real gains

women have made.

How relevant is class when it comes to sexism?

What are the common approaches to feminism by class-struggle anarchists

today? On the extreme end of reaction against feminism is the complete

class-reductionist point of view: Only class matters. This dogmatic

viewpoint tends to see feminism as divisive [surely sexism is more

divisive than feminism?] and a distraction from class struggle and holds

that any sexism that does exist will disappear automatically with the

end of capitalism and class society.

However, a more common anarchist approach to feminism is the acceptance

that sexism does exist, will not automatically fade away with the end of

capitalism and needs to be fought against in the here and now.

Nevertheless, as previously mentioned, anarchists are often at pains to

distance themselves from “mainstream” feminism because of its lack of

class analysis. Instead, it is stressed that the experience of sexism is

differentiated by class and that therefore women’s oppression is a class

issue. It is certainly true that wealth mitigates to some extent the

effect of sexism: It is less difficult, for example, to obtain an

abortion if you do not have to worry about raising the money for the

trip abroad; issues of who does the bulk of the housework and childcare

become less important if you can afford to pay someone else to help.

Also, depending on your socio-economic background you will have

different priorities.

However, in constantly stressing that experience of sexism is

differentiated by class, anarchists can seem to gloss over or ignore

that which is also true: that experience of class is differentiated by

sex. The problem, the injustice, of sexism is that there are unequal

relations between women and men within the working class and indeed in

the whole of society. Women are always at a disadvantage to men of their

respective class.

To a greater or lesser extent sexism affects women of all classes; yet a

feminist analysis that does not emphasise class is the often target of

criticism. But is class relevant to all aspects of sexism? How is class

relevant to sexual violence, for example? Class is certainly not always

the most important point in any case. Sometimes there is an insistence

on tacking on a class analysis to every feminist position as if this is

needed to give feminism credibility, to validate it as a worthy struggle

for class-struggle anarchists. But this stance misses the main point

which is, surely, that we are against sexism, whatever its guise,

whosoever it is affecting?

If a person is beaten to death in a racist attack, do we need to know

the class of the victim before expressing outrage? Are we unconcerned

about racism if it turns out the victim is a paid-up member of the

ruling class? Similarly, if someone is discriminated against in work on

the grounds of race, sex or sexuality, whether that person is a cleaner

or a university professor, surely in both cases it is wrong and it is

wrong for the same reasons? Clearly, women’s liberation in its own right

is worth fighting for as, in general, oppression and injustice are worth

fighting against, regardless of the class of the oppressed.

Women and men of the world unite against sexism?

Given that one thing women have in common across classes and cultures is

their oppression, to some degree, as a sex can we then call for women

(and men) of the world to unite against sexism? Or are there opposing

class interests that would make such a strategy futile?

Conflicts of interest can certainly arise between working-class and

wealthy middle-class or ruling-class women. For example, in France at a

feminist conference in 1900 the delegates split on the issue of a

minimum wage for domestic servants, which would have hurt the pockets of

those who could afford servants. Today, calls for paid paternity leave

or free crèche facilities will face opposition from business owners who

do not want to see profits cut. Feminism is not always good for

short-term profit-making. Struggles for economic equality with men in

capitalist society will necessarily involve ongoing and continuous

struggle for concessions — essentially a class struggle.

Thus, differing class interests can sometimes pose obstacles to feminist

unity at a practical level. It is however much more important for

anarchists to stress links with the broader feminist movement than to

emphasise differences. After all, the ruling class are in a minority and

the vast majority of women in society share a common interest in gaining

economic equality with men. In addition, many feminist issues are not

affected by such class-based conflicts of interest but concern all women

to varying degrees. When it comes to reproductive rights, for example,

anarchists in Ireland have been and continue to be involved in

pro-choice groups alongside capitalist parties without compromising our

politics because, when it comes to fighting the sexism that denies women

control over their own bodies, this is the best tactic. Finally, it is

also worth noting that often the dismissal of “middle-class feminism”

comes from the same anarchists/socialists who embrace the Marxist

definition of class (given at the start of this article) which would put

most middle-class people firmly with the ranks of the broad working

class.

Reforms, not reformism

There are two approaches we can take to feminism: we can distance

ourselves from other feminists by focusing on criticising reformist

feminism or we can fully support the struggle for feminist reforms while

all the while saying we want more!! This is important especially if we

want to make anarchism more attractive to women (a recent Irish Times

poll showed that feminism is important to over 50% of Irish women). In

the anarchist-communist vision of future society with its guiding

principle, to each according to need, from each according to ability,

there is no institutional bias against women as there is in capitalism.

As well as the benefits for both women and men anarchism has a lot to

offer women in particular, in terms of sexual, economic and personal

freedom that goes deeper and offers more than any precarious equality

that can be achieved under capitalism.

[1] This description of the middle class is borrowed from Wayne Price.

See Why the working class? on anarkismo.net

www.anarkismo.net

[2] See for example the articles in Toward an Anthropology of Women,

edited by Rayna R. Reiter.

[3] Hannah Mitchell quote taken from Women in Movement (page 135) by

Sheila Rowbotham.

[4] quote taken from Women and the Politics of Class (page 24) by

Johanna Brenner.

[5] ibid, page 93