[I did a serious disservice to Martha Gimenez recently. In a quite
unpardonable way I subjected her to an ad hominem attack - that it was
during a heated debate was no excuse - and I refused to take her work
seriously. I am glad to take this opportunity to apologise publicly to
Martha Gimenez, who is an outstanding Marxist and feminist thinker and
activist. This latest essay of Gimenez shows why I was wrong.
We are going to be talking about gender issues in relation to the Crash.
Mark Jones]
MARXIST FEMINISM/MATERIALIST FEMINISM
It was possible, in the heady days of the Women's Liberation
Movement, to identify four main currents within feminist thought;
Liberal (concerned with attaining economic and political equality
within the context of capitalism); Radical (focused on men and
patriarchy as the main causes of the oppression of women);
Socialist (critical of capitalism and Marxism, so much so that
avoidance of Marxism's alleged reductionisms resulted in dual
systems theories postulating various forms of interaction between
capitalism and patriarchy); and Marxist Feminism (a theoretical
position held by relatively few feminists in the U. S. -- myself
included -- which sought to develop the potential of Marxist theory
to understand the capitalist sources of the oppression of women).
These are, of course, oversimplified descriptions of a rich
and complex body of literature which, however, reflected important
theoretical, political and social cleavages among women that
continue to this date. Divisions in feminist thought multiplied as
the effects of post-structuralist and post-modern theorizing merged
with grass roots challenges to a feminism perceived as the
expression of the needs and concerns of middle and upper middle
class white, "First World" women. In the process, the subject of
feminism became increasingly difficult to define, as the post-
modern critique of "woman" as an essentialist category together
with critiques grounded in racial, ethnic, sexual preference and
national origin differences resulted in a seemingly never ending
proliferation of "subject positions," "identities," and "voices."
Cultural and identity politics replaced the early focus on
capitalism and (among Marxist feminists primarily) class divisions
among women; today class has been reduced to another "ism;" i.e.,
to another form oppression which, together with gender and race
integrate a sort of mantra, something that everyone ought to
include in theorizing and research though, to my knowledge,
theorizing about it remains at the level of metaphors (e.g.,
interweaving, interaction, interconnection etc.).
It was, therefore, very interesting to me to read a call for
papers for an edited book on Materialist Feminism. The description
of Materialist Feminism put forth by the editors, Chrys Ingraham
and Rosemary Hennessy, was to me indistinguishable from Marxist
Feminism. This seemed such a promising development in feminist
theory that I proceeded to invite the editors to join me in
creating an electronic discussion list on Materialist Feminism,
MatFem. Initially, I thought that Materialist Feminism was simply
another way of referring to Marxist Feminism, but I was mistaken;
the two are, to some extent, distinct forms of feminist theorizing.
There is, however, such similarities between Materialist and
Marxist Feminist thought in some feminists' work that some degree
of confusion between the two is to be expected.
My goal, in this short introduction (short response to Andy's
question) is simply to explore the differences and the similarities
between these two important currents within feminist theory. This
is not an easy task; theorists who self-identify as materialist or
as marxist feminists differ in their understanding of what those
descriptive labels mean and, consequently, the kind of knowledges
they produce. And, depending on their theoretical allegiances and
self-understanding within the field, feminists may differ in their
classification of other feminists works, so that clear lines of
theoretical demarcation between and within these two umbrella terms
are somewhat difficult to establish. Take, for example, Lise
Vogel's work. I always considered her a Marxist Feminist because,
unlike Socialist Feminists (whose avoidance of Marx's alleged
reductionisms led them to postulate ahistorical theories of
patriarchy), she took Marxism seriously and developed her analysis
of reproduction as a basis for the oppression of women firmly
within the Marxist tradition. But her recent book's subtitle (a
collection of previously published essays), is "Essays for a
Materialist Feminism;" self-identifying as a socialist feminist,
she states that socialist feminists "sought to replace the
socialist tradition's theorizing about the woman question with a
'materialist' understanding of women's oppression" (Vogel, 1995, p.
xi). This is certainly news to me; Socialist Feminism's rejection
of Marx's and Marxism's "reductionism" lead to the deliberate
effort to ground "patriarchy" outside the mode of production and,
consequently and from the standpoint of Marxist theory, outside
history. Materialism, Vogel tells us, was used to highlight the
key role of production, including domestic production, in
understanding the conditions leading to the oppression of women.
(But wasn't Engels' analysis materialist? and didn't Marxist
Feminists [Margaret Benston and Peggy Morton dome to mind) explore
the ways production -- public and domestic -- oppressed and
exploited women?) Materialism was also used as "a flag," to
situate Socialist Feminism within feminist thought and within the
left; materialist feminism, consequently cannot be reduced to a
trend in cultural studies, as some literary critics would prefer
(Vogel, 1995, xii).
These brief comments about Vogel's understanding of
Materialist Feminism highlight some of its problematic aspects as
a term intended to identify a specific trend within feminist
theory. It can blur, as it does in this instance, the qualitative
differences that existed and continue to exist between Socialist
Feminism, the dominant strand of feminist thought in the U.S.
during the late 1960s and 1970s, and the marginalized Marxist
Feminism. I am not imputing such motivations to Lise Vogel; I am
pointing out the effects of such an interpretation of U.S.
Socialist Feminism which, despite the use of Marxist terms and
references to capitalism, developed, theoretically, as a sort of
feminist abstract negation of Marxism. Other feminists, for
different reasons, would also disagree with Vogel's interpretation;
for example, for Toril Moi and Janice Radway, the relationship
between Socialist Feminism and Materialist Feminism "is far from
clear" (Moi and Radway, 1994: 749). Acknowledging the problematic
nature of the term, in a special issue of The South Atlantic
Quarterly dedicated to this topic they do not offer a theory of
Materialist Feminism, nor a clear definition of the term.
Presumably, the articles included in this issue will give the
reader the elements necessary to define the term for herself
because all the authors "share a commitment to concrete historical
and cultural analysis, and to feminism understood as an
'emancipatory narrative'"(Moi and Radway, 1994:750). One of these
authors, Jennifer Wicke, defines it as follows: "a feminism that
insists on examining the material conditions under which social
arrangements, including those of gender hierarchy, develop...
materialist feminism avoids seeing this (gender hierarchy) as the
effect of a singular....patriarchy and instead gauges the web of
social and psychic relations that make up a material, historical
moment" (Wicke, 1994: 751);"...materialist feminism argues that
material conditions of all sorts play a vital role in the social
production of gender and assays the different ways in which women
collaborate and participate in these productions"... "there are
areas of material interest in the fact hat women can bear
children... Materialist feminism... is less likely than social
constructionism to be embarrassed by the occasional material
importance of sex differences.."(Wicke, 1994: 758-759).
Insistence on the importance of material conditions, the
material historical moments as a complex of social relations which
include and influence gender hierarchy, the materiality of the body
and its sexual, reproductive and other biological functions remain,
however, abstract pronouncements which unavoidably lead to an
empiricist focus on the immediately given. There is no theory of
history or of social relations or of the production of gender
hierarchies that could give guidance about the meaning of whatever
it is observed in a given "material historical moment."
Landry and MacLean, authors of MATERIALIST FEMINISMS (1993),
tell us that theirs is a book "about feminism and Marxism" in which
they examine the debates between feminism and Marxism in the U.S.
and Britain and explore the implications of those debates for
literary and cultural theory. The terrain of those early debates,
which were aimed at a possible integration or synthesis between
Marxism and feminism, shifted due to the emergence of identity
politics, concern with postcolonialism, sexuality, race,
nationalism, etc., and the impact of postmodernism and post-
structuralism. The new terrain has to do with the "construction of
a materialist analysis of culture informed by and responsive to the
concerns of women, as well as people of color and other
marginalized groups" (Landry and MacLean, 1993: ix-x). For Landry
and Maclean, Materialist Feminism is a "critical reading
practice...the critical investigation, or reading in the strong
sense, of the artifacts of culture and social history, including
literary and artistic texts, archival documents, and works of
theory... (is) a potential site of political contestation through
critique, not through the constant reiteration of home-truths"
(ibid, pp. x-xi). Theirs is a "deconstructive materialist feminist
perspective" (ibid, p. xiii). But what, precisely, does
materialist mean in this context? What theory of history and what
politics inform this critique? Although they define materialism in
a philosophical and moral sense, and bring up the difference
between mechanical or "vulgar"materialism and historical
materialism, there is no definition of what materialism means when
linked to feminism. Cultural materialism, as developed in Raymond
William's work, is presented as a remedy or supplement to Marx's
historical materialism. There is, according to Williams, an
"indissoluble connection between material production, political and
cultural institutions and activity, and consciousness ... Language
is practical consciousness, a way of thinking and acting in the
world that has material consequences (ibid, p. 5). Williams, they
point out, "strives to put human subjects as agents of culture back
into materialist debate" (ibid, p. 5).
The implications of these statements is that "humans as agents
of culture" are not present in historical materialism and that
Marx's views on the relationship between material conditions,
language, and consciousness are insufficient. But anyone familiar
with Marx's work knows that this is not the case. In fact, it is
Marx who wrote that "language is practical consciousness" and
posited language as the matter that burdens "spirit" from the very
start, for consciousness is always and from the very first a social
product (Marx, [1845-46] 1994, p.117).
Landry and Maclean present an account of the development of
feminist thought from the late 1960s to the present divided in
three moments: the encounters and debates between marxism and
feminism in Britain and the U.S.; the institutionalization and
commodification of feminism; and "deconstructive materialist
feminism." These are "three moments of materialist feminism" (ibid,
p.15), a very interesting statement that suggest that Materialist
Feminism -- a rather problematic and elusive concept which
reflects, in my view, postmodern sensibilities about culture and
about the subject of feminism -- had always been there, from the
very beginning, just waiting to be discovered. Is that really the
case? If so, what is this materialism that lurked under the
variety of feminist theories produced on both sides of the Atlantic
since the late 1960s? Does reference to "material conditions" in
general or to "the material conditions of the oppression of women"
suffice as a basis for constructing a new theoretical framework,
qualitatively different from a Marxist Feminism? If so, how? The
authors argue that feminist theories focused exclusively on gender
and dual systems theories that bring together gender and class
analysis face methodological and political problems that
"deconstructive reading practices can help solve;" they propose
"the articulation of discontinuous movements, materialism and
feminism, an articulation that takes the political claims of
deconstruction seriously... deconstruction as tool of political
critique (ibid, p. 12-13). But isn't the linking
between deconstruction and Marxism what gives it its critical edge?
It is in the conclusion that the authors, aiming to demonstrate
that materialism is not an alias for Marxism, outline the
difference between Marxist Feminism and Materialist Feminism
as follows:
"Marxist feminism holds class contradictions and class analysis
central, and has tried various ways of working an analysis of
gender oppression around this central contradiction. In addition to
class contradictions and contradictions within gender ideology...
we are arguing that materialist feminism should recognize as
material other contradictions as well. These contradictions also
have histories, operate in ideologies, and are grounded in material
bases and effects.... they should be granted material weight in
social and literary analysis calling itself materialist.... these
categories would include...ideologies of race, sexuality,
imperialism and colonialism and anthropocentrism, with their
accompanying radical critiques" (ibid, p. 229).
While this is helpful to understand what self-identified
materialist feminists mean when they refer to their framework,
it does not shed light on the meaning of material base, material
effect, material weight. The main concept, materialism, remains
undefined and references to ideologies, exploitation, imperialism,
oppression, colonialism, etc. confirm precisely that which the
authors intended to dispel: materialism would seem to be an alias
for Marxism.
Rosemary Hennessy (1993) traces the origins of Materialist
Feminism in the work of British and French feminists who preferred
the term materialist feminism to Marxist feminism because, in their
view, Marxism had to be transformed to be able to explain the
sexual division of labor (Beechey, 1977: 61, cited in Kuhn and
Wolpe, 1978: 8). In the 1970s, Hennessy states, Marxism was
inadequate to the task because of its class bias and focus on
production, while feminism was also problematic due to its
essentialist and idealist concept of woman; this is why materialist
feminism emerged as a positive alternative both to Marxism and
feminism (Hennessy, 1993: xii). The combined effects of the
postmodern critique of the empirical self and the criticisms voiced
by women who did not see themselves included in the generic woman
subject of academic feminist theorizing resulted, in the 1990s, in
materialist feminist analyses that "problematize 'woman' as an
obvious and homogeneous empirical entity in order to explore how
'woman' as a discursive category is historically constructed and
traversed by more than one differential axis" (Hennessy, 1993:
xii). Furthermore, Hennessy argues, despite the postmodern
rejection of totalities and theoretical analyses of social systems,
materialist feminists need to hold on to the critique of the
totalities which affect women's lives: patriarchy and capitalism.
Women's lives are every where affected by world capitalism and
patriarchy and it would be politically self-defeating to replace
that critique with localized, fragmented political strategies and
a perception of social reality as characterized by a logic of
contingency.
Hennessy's views on the characteristics of Materislist
Feminism emerge through her critical engagement with the works of
Laclau and Mouffe, Foucault, Kristeva and other theorists of the
postmodern. Materialist Feminism is a "way of reading" that
rejects the dominant pluralist paradigms and logics of contingency
and seeks to establish the connections between the discursively
constructed differentiated subjectivities that have replaced the
generic "woman" in feminist theorizing, and the hierarchies of
inequality that exploit and oppress women. Subjectivities, in
other words, cannot be understood in isolation from systemically
organized totalities. Materialist Feminism, as a reading
practice, is also a way of explaining or re-writing and making
sense of the world and, as such, influences reality through the
knowledges it produces about the subject and her social context.
Discourse and knowledge have materiality in their effects; one of
the material effects of discourse is the construction of the
subject but this subject is traversed by differences grounded in
hierarchies of inequality which are not local or contingent but
historical and systemic, such as patriarchy and capitalism.
Difference, consequently, is not mere plurality but inequality.
The problem of the material relationship between language,
discourse, and the social or between the discursive (feminist
theory) and the non-discursive (women's lives divided by
exploitative and oppressive social relations) can be resolved
through the conceptualization of discourse as ideology . A theory
of ideology presupposes a theory of the social and this theory,
which informs Hennessy's critical reading of postmodern theories of
the subject, discourse, positionality, language, etc., is what she
calls a "global analytic" which, in light of her references to
multinational capitalism, the international division of labor,
overdetermined economic, political and cultural practices, etc, is
at the very least a kind of postmodern Marxism. But references to
historical materialism, and Althusser's theory of ideology and the
notion of symptomatic reading are so important in the development
of her arguments that one wonders about her hesitation to name Marx
and historical materialism as the theory of the social underlying
her critique of the postmodern logic of contingency; i.e., the
theory of capitalism, the totality she so often mentions together
with patriarchy as sources of the exploitation and oppression of
women and as the basis for the "axis of differences" that traverse
the discursive category "woman." To sum up, Hennessy's version of
Materialist Feminism is a blend of post-marxism and postmodern
theories of the subject and a source of "readings" and "re-
writings" which rescue postmodern categories of analysis (subject,
discourse, difference) from the conservative limbo of contingency,
localism and pluralism to historicize them or contextualizing them
by connecting them to their systemic material basis in capitalism
and patriarchy. This is made possible by understanding discourse
as ideology and linking ideology to its material base in the
"global analytic."
In Hennessy's analysis, historical materialism seems like an
ever present but muted shadow, latent under terms such as totality,
systemic, and global analytic. However, in the introduction to
MATERIALIST FEMINISM: A Reader in Class, Difference and Women's
Lives (1997), written with her co-editor, Chrys Ingraham, there is
a clear, unambiguous return to historical materialism, a
recognition of its irreplaceable importance for feminist theory and
politics. This introduction, entitled "Reclaiming Anticapitalist
Feminism," is a critique of the dominant feminist concern with
culture, identity and difference considered in isolation from any
systemic understanding of the social forces that affect women's
lives, and a critique of an academic feminism that has marginalized
and disparaged the knowledges produced by the engagement of
feminists with Marxism and their contributions to feminist
scholarship and to the political mobilization of women. More
importantly, this introduction is a celebration of Marxist Feminism
whose premises and insights have been consistently "misread,
distorted, or buried under the weight of a flourishing postmodern
cultural politics" (ibid, p.5). They point out that, whatever the
name of the product of feminists efforts to grapple with historical
materialism (marxist feminism, socialist feminism or materialist
feminism), these are names that signal theoretical differences and
emphases but which together indicate the recognition of historical
materialism as the source of emancipatory knowledge required for
the success of the feminist project. In this introduction,
materialist feminism becomes a term used interchangeably with
marxist feminism, with the latter being the most prominently
displayed. The authors draw a clear line between the cultural
materialism that characterizes the work of post-marxist feminists
who, having rejected historical materialism, analyze cultural,
ideological and political practices in isolation from their
material base in capitalism, and materialist feminism (i.e.,
marxist or socialist feminism) which is firmly grounded in
historical materialism and links the success of feminist struggles
to the success of anticapitalist struggles; "unlike cultural
feminists, materialist, socialist and marxist feminists do not see
culture as the whole of social life but rather as only one arena of
social production and therefore as only one area of feminist
struggle" (ibid, p. 7). The authors differentiate materialist
feminism from marxist feminism by indicating that it is the end
result of several discourses (historical materialism, marxist and
radical feminism, and postmodern and psychoanalytic theories of
meaning and subjectivity) among which the postmodern input, in
their view, is the source of its defining characteristics.
Nevertheless, in the last paragraphs of the introduction there is
a return to the discussion of marxist feminism, its critiques of
the idealist features of postmodernism and the differences between
the postmodern and the historical materialist or marxist analyses
of representations of identity. But, they point out, theoretical
conflicts do not occur in isolation from class conflicts and the
latter affect the divisions among professional feminists and their
class allegiances. Feminists are divided in their attitudes
towards capitalism and their understanding of the material
conditions of oppression; to be a feminist is not necessarily to
be anticapitalist and to be a materialist feminist is not
equivalent to being socialist or even critical of the status quo.
In fact, "work that claims the signature "materialist feminism"
shares much in common with cultural feminism, in that it does not
set out to explain or change the material realities that link
women's oppression to class" (ibid, p.9). Marxist feminism, on the
other hand, does make the connection between the oppression of
women and capitalism and this is why the purpose of their book,
according to the authors, is "to reinsert into materialist feminism
-- especially in those overdeveloped sectors where this collection
will be most widely read -- those (untimely) marxist feminist
knowledges that the drift to cultural politics in postmodern
feminism has suppressed. It is our hope that in so doing this
project will contribute to the emergence of feminisms' third wave
and its revival as a critical force for transformative social
change (ibid, p. 9).
In light of the above, given the inherent ambiguity of the
term Materialist Feminism, shouldn't it be more theoretically
adequate and politically fruitful to return to Marxist Feminism?
Is the effort of struggling to redefine Materialist Feminism by
reinserting Marxist Feminist knowledges a worthwhile endeavor?
How important is it to broaden the notion of Materialist Feminism
to include Marxist Feminist contents? Perhaps the political
climate inside and outside the academy is one where Marxism is so
discredited that Marxist Feminists are likely to find more
acceptance and legitimacy by claiming Materialist Feminism as their
theoretical orientation. I do not in anyway impute this motivation
to Ingraham and Hennessy whose introduction to their book is openly
Marxist. In fact, after I read it and looked over the table of
contents I thought a more adequate title for the book would have
been Marxist Feminism. And anyone familiar with historical
materialism can appreciate the sophisticated Marxist foundation of
Hennessy's superbly argued book. In my view, as the ruthlessness
of the world market intensifies the exploitation of all working
people among which women are the most vulnerable and the most
oppressed, the time has come not just to retrieve the Marxist
heritage in feminist thought but to expand Marxist Feminist theory
in ways that both incorporate and transcend the contributions of
postmodern theorizing.
The justification for using Materialist Feminism rather than
Marxist Feminism is the alleged insufficiency of Marxist Theory for
adequately explaining the oppression of women. Lurking behind the
repeated statements about the the shortcomings of Marxism there is
an economistic and undialectical understanding of Marx and Marxist
theory. That Marx may not have addressed issues that 20th century
feminists consider important is not a sufficient condition to
invalidate Marx's methodology as well as the potential of his
theory of capitalism to help us understand the conditions that
oppress women. But regardless of those pronouncements, it is
fascinating, in retrospect, to read the theory produced by self-
defined Materialist Feminists and realize that they are actually
using and developing Marxist theory in ways that belie statements
about its inherent shortcomings. And it is important to know how
Kuhn and Wolpe, authors of FEMINISM AND MATERIALISM (1978) define
the term materialism; they adopted Engels' definition of the term:
"According to the materialist conception, the determining
factor in history is, in the final instance, the production
and reproduction of immediate life. This, again, is of a
twofold character: on the one side, the production of the
means of existence, of food, clothing and shelter and the
tools necessary for that production; on the other side,
the production of human beings themselves, the propagation
of the species" (Engels, [1883] 1972, p.71)(Kuhn and Wolpe,
1978: 7).
Kuhn, Wolpe and the contributors to their book in various ways
expanded the scope of historical materialism to produce new
knowledges about the oppression of women under capitalism. But
materialist feminism, a term which may have been useful in the past
might have lost its effectivity today. How useful is it to broaden
the meaning of Materialist Feminism today to encompass Marxist
Feminism if, at the same time, the term is claimed by cultural
materialists whose views are profoundly anti-marxist? How will the
new generations learn about the theoretical and political
importance of historical materialism for women if historical
materialist analysis is subsumed under the Materialist Feminist
label? Doesn't this situation contribute to the marginalization of
scholars who continue to self-identify as Marxist Feminists? I
understand Marxist Feminism as the body of theory produced by
feminists who, adopting the logic of analysis of historical
materialism, expand the scope of the theory while critically
incorporating useful insights and knowledges from non-marxist
theorizing, just as Marx grappled with the discoveries of the
classical economists and their shortcomings. Why should this
theoretical enterprise present itself under a different name,
especially one likely to elicit some degree of confusion among the
younger generations of feminists? Furthermore, the political cost
of doing, essentially, Marxist theorizing under the banner of
Materialist Feminism is likely to be exceedingly high. Why?
Because, by overstressing the "materialist" aspect in historical
materialism it can contribute justify the dominant stereotypes
about Marxism: its materialism, meaning its alleged anti-agency,
anti-human, deterministic, reductionist limitations.
The answers to these questions are political and will come
from feminists practices and dialogue and from the effects of the
intensification of capitalist rule upon both first and third world
peoples. In the meantime, it is important to know that Marxist and
some works within Materialist Feminism share fundamental
theoretical assumptions and political goals.
References
Rosemary Hennessy, MATERIALIST FEMINISM AND THE POLITICS OF
DISCOURSE. Routledge, 1993.
Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, eds., MATERIALIST FEMINISM.
A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives. Routledge,
1997.
Annette Kuhn and AnnMarie Wolpe, eds., FEMINISM AND MATERIALISM.
Women and Modes of Production. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.
Donna Landry and Gerald Maclean, MATERIALIST FEMINISMS. Blackwell,
1993.
Karl Marx, SELECTED WRITINGS (L. H. Simon, ed.). Hackett Publishing
Co., 1995.
Toril Moi and Janice Radway, "Editors' Note." The South Atlantic
Quarterly (Fall, 1994): 749.
Lise Vogel, WOMAN QUESTIONS. Essays for a Materialist Feminism.
Routledge, 1995.
Jennifer Wicke, "Celebrety Material: Materialist Feminism and the
Culture of Celebrety." The South Atlantic Quarterly (Fall,
1994): 751-78.
Martha E. Gimenez
Department of Sociology
University of Colorado at Boulder
http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/
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