problematic character of socialism, but of the negative way in which it impacts
upon women’s lives.
Radical feminist critique
Radicals are sceptical that the problems facing women are simply to do with
capitalism. It is true that some socialist feminists have argued that there is a dual
system that oppresses women – capitalism andpatriarchy. Capitalism may reward
men as ‘breadwinners’ thereby creating a division of labour that disadvantages
women, and writers like Ann Ferguson see patriarchy as semi-autonomous – sexual
oppression exists alongside class oppression and is not ‘reducible’ to it (Bryson,
1992: 243–5). Radicals feel that this argument merely serves to deepen the
theoretical crisis faced by socialist feminists, since there is no reason to believe that
pornography, prostitution and male chauvinist attitudes are specifically linked to a
particular mode of production.
Indeed, many radical feminists developed their position as a result of experience
in socialist movements where they were expected to take menial and ‘feminine’ roles
by socialist men. Attempts to introduce the concept of patriarchy alongside the
analysis of capitalism fail to get to grips with the fact that the former is wholly
independent of the latter, and that when Marx treats the relations between men
and women as natural, this is symptomatic of an inadequate methodology that
cannot be rectified by simply tacking a critique of sexism onto Marxism or socialism.
Catherine MacKinnon, in a much-quoted comment, argues that ‘sexuality is to
feminism, what work is to Marxism’ (Humm, 1992: 117). The logics of the two
are quite different, and any attempt to ‘synthesise’ Marxism and feminism, or
feminism with socialism more generally, is bound to fail.
Black feminist and philosophical feminist critique
Black feminists believe that socialist emphasis upon class is as abstract as liberal
emphasis upon the individual. Socialist feminism does not take the question of
ethnicity seriously: it suffers from the problem of abstract universalism that means
that it unthinkingly privileges a particular group or culture.
Feminist empiricists see in socialism the problem of ideological bias, and although
some standpoint feminists like Nancy Hartsock are sympathetic to Marxism,
standpoint feminism in general is unhappy with any privileging of class. After all,
women experience oppression as women, and Gilligan argues in In a Different Voice
(1992) that because women are socialised differently from men, they grow up with
quite different notions of morality and relationships. This occurs in both working-
class and bourgeois homes.
As for postmodern feminists, socialism has what they call an emancipatory ‘meta -
narrative’ – particularly strident in Marxism – that stems from the Enlightenment
and expresses an absolutist prejudice. The belief in progress, equality and autonomy,
though different from the views of liberal feminists, still reflects a belief in a
‘philosophy of history’ that is ultimately arbitrary and implausible.
Chapter 14 Feminism 321