“In capitalism, sex can exist but only as a productive force at the service of procreation and the regeneration of the waged/male working and as a mean of social appeasement and compensation for the misery of everyday existence.”
“Typical of the new bourgeois sexual morality was Martin Luther’s injunction to the nuns to leave the convents and get married, as marriage and the production of an abundant prole was in his view women’s fulfillment of God’s will and their ‘highest vocation.’ “Let them bear children to death,” he apparently declared. “They are created for that.”
No sixteenth-century political or religious authority expressed this sentiment as crudely as Luther, but the restriction of women’s sexuality to marriage and procreation, together with wifely unconditional obedience, was instituted.”
- Silvia Federici
Women are not commodities. We cannot be reduced to slurs. We cannot be reduced to objects. We refuse to be reduced to background images.
Any language, culture, person, or ideology that attempts to reduce us must be dismantled by force and without sympathy. We owe no one our bodies, time, or lives.
You are not entitled to any woman.
Feel like there’s not a lot of knowledge around marxist feminism even in left circles so its cool to see it getting brought up. Probably an intentional political act of the ruling class to divorce material analysis from progressive gender politics. We can’t really discuss labor without addressing reproductive labor as well
Feel like there’s not a lot of knowledge around marxist feminism even in left circles so its cool to see it getting brought up.
This is a significant issue even in many leftist circles. It’s the consequence of class reductionism and cishet male patriarchy.
Men often gain class consciousness from alienation around not “receiving” the partner “they were promised” by the ruling class. It results in resentment and violence against women in their communities and orgs.
Probably an intentional political act of the ruling class to divorce material analysis from progressive gender politics
Liberalism is very good at coopting any threat to the growth of its ideology. Women’s liberation requires examining the roles the patriarchy attempts to lock us into. This existed before the class system and even contributed to its creation.
We can’t really discuss labor without addressing reproductive labor as well
Exactly. Reproductive labour + the multitude of silent domestic labour women are still expected to pick up in addition to participating in conventional waged labour.
This applies to all women, both those assigned their gender at birth and our sisters who have embraced and claimed their womanhood.
I say this because we have not yet executed all TERFs. If you are a TERF, then you are a traitor.
Good post. The left as a whole needs to educate and talk more about this. The entitlement of the ruling class and the patriarchy in general is astonishing.
This is a good ass post and I'd contribute more if I wasn't feeling super out of it today. idk go read Kollontai youlibs. She's got an excellent critique of sex and romantic roles from a materialist perspective and especially attacks liberal bourgeois nonsense like the stuff mentioned in the quoted text in the OP as a bourgeois product of the passing of property rights. Also focusing solely on productive labor rather than also including reproductive labor is just carrying water for the exploiting class that benefits from getting by on not even paying for the reproductive labor necessary to prop up their economic system. You gotta do both folks
I appreciate the comments you’ve already made. When discussing women’s liberation, I also include “domestic” labour in addition to reproductive labour.
Not all women will conventionally reproduce, but all of us are expected by patriarchy to maintain homes and live in servitude to men.
I've always understood domestic labor as one and the same with reproductive labor as its the labor necessary to reproduce the workforce so that includes things like child rearing and meal preparation. But that could be an outdated definition
It’s correct when discussing with others who understand feminism, but I’ve seen it lead to assumptions when I do not differentiate around those unfamiliar with the concepts. It’s likely more of a distinction I make personally.
Fair enough and good point. I should start making that distinction as well
Shout out to my dad who always did the housework when my mum was out at her work.
Mowed the lawn the other day cos he had a migraine but was threatening to do it anyway.
