Why does feminism keep getting compared to Marxism?

TheJollySatan · 2015-05-24T17:08:32+00:00

That's because the Marxism and Feminism construct their theories in a similar manner. They are both conflict theories.

Marxism's and Feminism's primary focus is on conflict between differing groups in society. Class for Marxism, gender for feminism. They then analyse society along the lines of these segmented groups and all the differences between them to produce models which attempt to isolate the root cause of these differences, eg patriarchy.

There are a other social theories that use a different strategy when analyzing society. Struct functionalism is one where rather than focusing on power struggles, it focuses on how the large scale structures in society keep functioning, how they support social cohesion. The perspective makes it a more forgiving view of society than a conflict theory.

There are a heap more, systems theory(feed back loops) symbolic internationalism(micro scale), macro micro integration, this last one lets you model the small and large scale parts of a society and how they effect each other.

At the risk of pissing of my sociologist peers evo psych needs to be thrown in there too.

Feminism is blinkered compared to a combination of these tools and this makes it so dangerous when it sets social policy! A conflict based theory alone cannot come close to modelling all the causes and purposes of societies gender binary.

*Edit grammar

girlwriteswhat · 2015-05-25T04:45:48+00:00

Feminism describes gender relations as a privileged class (bourgeoisie/male) and an oppressed/exploited class (proletariat/female). Both philosophies have described the family as an institution of oppression/exploitation and something to be abolished. (which is ironic, since families operate according to communist values--you give your baby as much breastmilk as it needs, not as much as it has earned)

Of course, then there's some second wavers like McKinnon and Morgan who openly stated that marxism/communism and feminism are one and the same.

jnr_77 · 2015-05-24T16:34:17+00:00

Because feminism, like Marxism, is based on "equal outcomes."

ThirdUnderstudy · 2015-05-24T18:33:55+00:00

Conservatives' allegation is that the Frankfurt School set out to undermine and fragment traditional western society so that it won't stand united against another attempt at Marxism. I don't know how much of this I buy, but here are a couple of excerpts from Lind's "Who Stole Our Culture?":

Led by Adorno, the Frankfurt School initially opposed the culture industry, which they thought “commodified” culture. Then, they started to listen to Walter Benjamin, a close friend of Horkheimer and Adorno, who argued that cultural Marxism could make powerful use of tools like radio, film and later television to psychologically condition the public. Benjamin’s view prevailed, and Horkheimer and Adorno spent the World War II years in Hollywood. It is no accident that the entertainment industry is now cultural Marxism’s most powerful weapon[....]

In the early 1930s, Horkheimer had left open the question of who would replace the working class as the agent of Marxist revolution. In the 1950s, Marcuse answered the question, saying it would be a coalition of students, blacks, feminist women and homosexuals – the core of the student rebellion of the 1960s, and the sacred “victims groups” of political correctness today. Marcuse further took one of political correctness’s favorite words, “tolerance,” and gave it a new meaning. He defined “liberating tolerance” as tolerance for all ideas and movements coming from the left, and intolerance for all ideas and movements coming from the right. When you hear the cultural Marxists today call for “tolerance,” they mean Marcuse’s “liberating tolerance” (just as when they call for “diversity,” they mean uniformity of belief in their ideology).

Xipe_T0tec · 2015-05-24T16:35:50+00:00

academic feminists are mostly marxists because marxism is about the redistribution of wealth.

[deleted] · 2015-05-24T17:02:14+00:00

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Nitzi · 2015-05-24T17:21:55+00:00

Social marxism vs economical marxism

KrisK_lvin · 2015-05-24T17:50:05+00:00

Feminism isn't one thing so it's probably more accurate to talk about Feminisms first of all. That said, many of the original second wave feminists of the 60s and 70s were actively involved in countercultural groups (e.g. Robin Morgan). If you listen to stories about feminists from those days, almost all of them belonged to Internationalist Trotskyite communist groups and Marx, Lenin and Mao were typically read and discussed side by side with Betty Freidan and what have you.

Patriarchy theory is an anti-capitalist theory which draws on Marx. A very simplified summary goes something like this: capitalism benefits men at the expense of women's health, sanity and very right to life.

An example of this that they point to as 'evidence' of the collusion between capitalism and patriarchy that causes direct harm to women is the fashion industry.

Fashion's preference for slender or even anorexic body shapes means that women are continually anxious about their weight which pressures them into spending billions on diet products and so on. At the same time, women are bombarded with advertising selling them luxury chocolate, high class ice cream and so on which if they eat will obviously push them in the opposite direction they want to be going in if they want to be thin enough to wear the latest fashions.

Keeping women both thin and constantly anxious about their weight like this confuses them so much that it blinds them to the Patriarchal system that both dominates and exploits them. As paranoid as that sounds, it's also been argued by some feminists - and I'm not making this up I swear - that keeping women thin and underfed is a deliberate strategy by the Patriarchal overlords to keep women too weak to rise up and go into rebellion against their oppressors.

The similarity to a Marxist analysis is that many of the far Left thinkers of the 60s and 70s believed that the failure of the masses to rise up and overthrow capitalism in 1968 was because they had been taught to love their own oppression. This thing about fashion I mentioned above makes a pretty similar argument.

[deleted] · 2015-05-24T17:57:47+00:00

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TheGreasyPole · 2015-05-24T17:18:27+00:00

As far as I know it's an economic system based on a classless society. What's that got to do with gender/feminism?

Oh boy. Ok. In Americans heads this is all kind of mixed up. They don't know what a communist is, a socialist, a marxist... All those terms just kinda get put in a blender with the "liberal democratic left" and whizzed together in U.S. minds. The terms to them are almost completely interchangeable insults to hurl at the left.

At this stage you are best off abandoning all the real definitions of those terms and understanding them as some kind of insult the right throws against their opponents, because that is all the terms amount to in U.S. Debate.

If you're chatting with non-Americans it's different. They have some vague idea at least of the meanings, and you could debate them based on axioms each group has or shares. Americans ? Lost cause.

So because many early feminists were also Marxists... Feminism became cultural Marxism in their minds... And it never shifted from that. Which is hilarious as Marxism is an economic system far more than a social system. Anyway.

It's just insult throwing. Treat it the same way as the left calling, say, MRAs "fascist thugs". It's the same kind of fuckwittery.

I just work with the U.S. Definitions now, no point arguing with the ignorant about it. In political discussion with Americans I am a "Commie, Socialist, Marxist-Pinko" in exactly the same way I am a "Misogynist Shitlord" in gender discussions with feminists.

Despite being neither none of the above, I wear all those badges with pride because they all mean the same thing.... "I am a man fuckwits of both sides resort to throwing insults at"... It's the disagreement of the fuckwits that make these epithets badges of honour.

HappilySingleWoman · 2015-05-24T16:31:24+00:00

They're talking about the leftist idea that everyone is equal (I think).

Of course Marx himself had nothing to do with feminism.

_ArchitectofThought_ · 2015-05-24T16:56:07+00:00

I don't think feminism is comparable to Marxism specifically as Marxism, socialism, and communism are 3 different things, but feminism could be argued to be an attempt at social socialism, ie. the redistribution of values, resources, privileges, responsibilities, and rewards to better benefit a group who otherwise perform poorly in a socially darwinian ecosystem.

I would actually more correctly say feminism is a fascist concept, not a socialist one though, as feminism A) perpetuates an unending victim complex, B) singles out a particular group as the cause all woes (men/patriarchy) C) does not allow for it's own disproval, and acts as a cultural monolith, and D) oppresses those not directly under it's benefit.

As a side note, a very thoughtful quote on the topic: "The worst form of inequality is the attempt to make unequal things equal" ~Aristotle. Ironically, Aristotle also believed women were unfinished men. He was the original TRP.

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