Raluca Maria Popa
The Socialist Project for Gender (In)Equality: A Critical Discussion
For most of nineteenth-century socialists, whose Introduction writings are examined in the scope of this paper, Marxist socialist theory and later on state so- women’s equality with men was understood mainly cialist ideology pretended to establish women’s in terms of their equal participation in the working equality with men. The key of this claim was that collective. However, this concept of equality left women would participate equally with men in unexamined the sexual division of labor by which productive labor. Additional promises or ideo- RALUCA MARIA POPA logical claims were made about women’s equal- men are central to production and women are Program coordinator at ity with men in the sphere of reproduction. Early the Institute of Public central to reproduction. In the process of change socialist writings spoke about the withering away Policies, Bucharest, Romania. Ph.D. stu- towards a new socialist society, women were given of the family (as the locus of women’s oppres- dent at SNSPA, sion), and the establishment of unconstrained Bucharest, Romania. the additional role of workers, but the bases of the relations among sexes, based on free love. This E-mail: [email protected] unequal gender order were never contested. radical idea did not pervade the state socialist
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 49 KEY WORDS: ideology, but nevertheless attempts were made Socialist writings on ‘the woman to change the family in state socialist legislation socialism, gender, question’ inequality, Bebel, and it was widely proclaimed that the family Lenin, Kollontai, would be based on women’s equality with men. oppression, family According to the materialist conception, the The Marxist socialist theory of women’s determining factor in history is, in the final in- equality never clearly defined gender relations in stance, the production and reproduction of im- the future socialist society. The socialists were mediate life. This, again, is of a two fold charac- actually not preoccupied with gender equality. ter: on the one side, the production of the means They saw women’s subordination as one of the of existence, of food, clothing, shelter, and the aspects of capitalist exploitation, and they did tools necessary for that production; on the other not recognize that men (also) oppressed hand, the production of human beings them- 1 women. However, they finally developed a selves, the propagation of the species. theory of women’s liberation, which should be (Engels, 1884). understood as a theory of women’s liberation Socialists were very critical of their contempo- from capital with an added, but not fully devel- rary societies because of the position in which oped promise of equality between the sexes. The women were placed. The ‘woman question’ con- gender order that the theory suggested was still stantly accompanied the ‘social question’2 and based on problematic assumptions leading to they both represented the two main themes of gender inequalities. Women were offered partici- the socialist project of restructuring the societies pation in the sphere of production, but at the of the late nineteenth century. same time it was assumed that they would still The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical have to fulfill their (alleged) reproductive duties, assessment of the socialist project for women’s with the help of the socialist community. As emancipation. I will focus on the underlying idea Hilda Scott puts it, “the theory was not finished” of all prominent socialist writings that the trans- (Scott, 1976, pp.213-214). formation of the family would liberate women from the oppression they experienced both in capitalist and in pre-capitalist societies. My criti- cal discussion here aims to identify the flaws of the Marxist/ socialist theoretical perspective on women’s emancipation, which assumed that women’s participation in the labor force and the
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 50 socialization of childcare and household activi- participation in social/ working life and their as- ties were sufficient requisites for achieving sumed reproductive responsibilities, the socialist women’s full equality with men. I will show that project offered a male biased account of reshap- such a perspective is flawed with a class-biased ing the public/ private division. interpretation of the social conditions that shape My critique is greatly informed by the socialist women’s lives. In various degrees, all socialist feminist rethinking of Marxism and early social- authors failed to recognize the role that gender ism. These critiques gained momentum in 1970s played in structuring the social relations be- and the beginning of the 1980s, within the theo- tween men and women in the capitalist societies retical debates of the Second Wave feminist that they criticized, or in the future socialist soci- movement in the Unites States and Western Eu- eties that they upheld. rope. Socialist feminists like Heidi Hartmann, My discussion of the theoretical socialist Alison Jaggar, Juliet Mitchell, Sandra Harding or project for women’s emancipation focuses on Iris Young revised the premises of early social- the works of August Bebel’s Women Under So- ism, often formulating completely new interpre- cialism (1879), Engels’ The Origin of the Family, tations. They argued that there was a gender gap Private Property and the State (1884), in the socialist analysis of women’s condition, Aleksandra Kollontai’s views on love and Lenin’s which obscured the specific oppression that re- On the Emacipation of Women.3 My purpose is sulted from women’s centrality in reproduction, to identify the theoretical model of the transfor- as well as from the patriarchal relations that mation of the family contained in the socialist structured social life. project and to critically assess its impact on the Marx and Engels, August Bebel and even so- status of women. My argument is that in offering cialist women like Clara Zetkin or Lily Braun a view on the transformation of relations be- were all too ready to assume that women’s op- tween the sexes, the early socialists left unchal- pression will end once they would gain equal lenged men and women’s participation in the participation in the working collective of the fu- sphere of reproduction. The assumption that ture socialist society. However gender sensitive women are primarily responsible for reproduc- their writings prove (and I will make this point tion (in the sense of childbearing and child rear- clear in my argument bellow), socialist authors ing) led to difficulties in drawing the line be- failed to challenge the patriarchal assumptions tween the public and the private. Finally, due to that defined the dichotomy between productive the intricacies of the tension between women’s and reproductive activities, and women’ and
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 51 men’s differential participation in both spheres. To foster the gender blindness of the socialist Work itself was assumed to be primarily linked thinking even further, economic determinism with production and, consequently, reproduc- becomes entangled with patriarchal assumptions tive work was never given equal status with pro- about the ‘natural’ roles of men and women. ductive work. Furthermore, the socialist project Having conflated the spheres of reproduction for women’s emancipation still assumed that and production, socialists maintained that equal- women were central in reproduction. ity between men and women meant the equal Socialists, mainly following Engels, recog- participation of women and men in the working nized the existence of both productive and re- collective. The argument that the mode of pro- productive relations in the organization of social duction determined the relations of reproduc- life. They placed however the emphasis on pro- tion might have induced the optimistic belief ductive relations, and the arguments that they that indeed women’s integration in the developed are fraught with economic determin- workforce will bring full equality in the relations ism. Socialism more or less viewed the mode of between the sexes. However, one has to give up production as the determining factor in organiz- such optimism, when encountering more ex- ing social life. To use Engels’ terminology, social- plicit articulations of the socialist vision of the re- ist thinking asserted that the mode of production lations between sexes. With the exception of directly shaped the organization of reproduc- Aleksandra Kollontai, all socialists believed that tion.4 Therefore the latter was to be transformed relations between the sexes were regulated by by a mere replacement of capitalist relations of nature, and that gender differences in reproduc- production with socialist ones. Socialist authors tion were natural. It was only the capitalist eco- argued that the establishment of the socialist nomic relations, based on private property, mode of production would abolish all the op- which hindered the ‘natural’ development of re- pressive features of the capitalist society vis-à-vis lations between men and women. In turn, they women: economic dependence, home seclusion, promised that the future socialist society would and sexual and emotional exploitation. They give space to the natural realization of relations predicated this view on the assumption that between the sexes, by abolishing private prop- women’s subordination to men was a result of erty. It appears evident that such a perspective, class exploitation, a view that remains blind to far from giving arguments in favor of a more gender inequalities. egalitarian development of reproductive rela-
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 52 tions, actually preserves segregation according to nated position of women, socialists engaged in men and women’s natural roles. an extensive discussion about the need to trans- I would like the reader to keep in mind the form the family. Their perspective on the trans- importance of this theoretical gap. The socialist formation of the family made no concessions to project failed to address the question: how will the traditional arrangements. As Boxer and women achieve equality with men in the sphere Quataert clearly put it: “socialism required disso- of reproductive relations (whether belonging to lution of the family” (1978, p.16). the private or to the public space)? They did not Socialists made three main claims about the debate on this matter, because they contended ways in which the family was going to be trans- that equality between men and women would formed in the future socialist society. These develop naturally, once capitalist exploitation claims also entailed reasons why they believed was abolished. This claim is still loaded with as- such a transformation was going to bring sumptions about men and women’s natural women’s full equality with men. I will outline roles. bellow these claims, and then I will critically dis- Socialists asserted that, in order for the trans- cuss them in the context of several socialist writ- formation of societies to take place, women had ings to show that they do not raise up to their to be freed for participation in social life, more promise of full gender equality. specifically in working life. Socialist authors The first claim was that the transformation of seem to agree that the place women had to be the oppressive, bourgeois family required liberated from was the family. Marx and women’s participation in labor. Women’s partici- Engels, August Bebel, Clara Zetkin or Lily Braun pation in labor was considered key to their clearly stated that family, as it appeared in the emancipation, as it offered them the possibility capitalist, bourgeois society was the locus of of economic independence (Bebel, Kollontai, women’s oppression. Marx and Engels argued Lenin). A crucial point needs to be added to this that “women’s oppression originated in the claim. Women’s integration into the labor force natural or sexual division of labor within the was not going to offer them freedom and equal- family” (Goldman, 1993, p.46). ity as long as capitalist economic relations were Given this general understanding that the kept in place. Here, the demands for women’s monogamous, bourgeois family, based on capi- emancipation met with the demands for talist relations of property was the single most worker’s emancipation and, according to social- important factor, which determined the subordi- ist thinking, they both pointed to the need to
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 53 end class relations of exploitation, by abolishing cialist writers. Some of them advocated for free private property. love, others aimed to largely preserve a more tra- The second claim that socialist authors made ditional (i.e. monogamous) type of relations be- about the transformation of the family was the tween men and women, albeit one based on need to socialize childcare and domestic work. love and not on economic constraints. Both of The general vision was that of a gradual shift these perspectives are in my opinion male bi- from an individual, autarchic family to commu- ased, as I will show bellow, in a more detailed nal living arrangements. August Bebel stated that discussion. The free love model does not take the transformation of the social conditions had into consideration the social expectations that one fundamental prerequisite, the end of private assign women the responsibility of taking care of property, which would in turn lead to the social- children. Therefore, men and women are placed ization of the community (Bebel, 1976, p.180). in unequal positions to enter and develop free In a passage of Das Kapital, Marx spoke about a love relations. On the other hand, the advocates “higher form of the family” (Evans, 1987, p.94), of monogamy fail to recognize that love, as it is which could probably be identified with the socially constructed, requires disproportionate working collective. Lily Braun argued, like Bebel emotional investment from women, as com- and Marx, that the family would give way in the pared to men (a point which Aleksandra future socialist society to communal forms of so- Kollontai made very clear). cial organization. Nadezhda Krupskaya, in The I will critically discuss bellow some of the Woman Worker, looked forward to a socialist fu- prominent articulations of the perspective that I ture when children would be cared for in com- outlined above. munal institutions (Evans, 1987, p.94). Aleksandra Kollontai, by far the most radical ad- vocate of feminist ideas within the socialist August Bebel: Women and Socialism movement, thought that the family would be re- placed with the commune (“Communism and August Bebel’s Women and Socialism was Family”, cited in Zhuravskaya, 1998, p.55). published first in 1879, and it achieved an un- Thirdly, the transformation of the family also contestable influence within the socialist move- posed the question of changing relations be- ment, particularly in debates around ‘the woman tween sexes. The configuration of relations be- question’. The book was translated into numer- tween sexes was a point of contention among so- ous languages and reissued in more than fifty
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 54 editions in Germany alone (Goldman, 1993, Bebel argues that women have always experi- p.36). Bebel’s analysis of women’s oppression enced oppression and that “although the forms greatly influenced the thinking of socialist of [their] oppression have varied, the oppression women like Clara Zetkin and Aleksandra has always remained the same”(Bebel, 1976, Kollontai, as it was the first attempt to move p.18). The second part of his analysis offers his away from “proletarian antifeminism” (Goldman, vision of a future society 5 that will end inequali- 1993, p.36), and to theorize women’s position in ties between men and women. the future socialist society. Bebel traced back the manifestations of I will show in what follows that August women’s oppression at the level of legislation, Bebel’s analysis contains a discussion of economic relations, and the organization of the women’s sexual subordination to men that could family. He argued that legislation was an “exclu- overcome the much-criticized economic deter- sive male” practice, which fostered men’s “own minism of socialist theory. My defense of August advantage”, and helped them “keep women in a Bebel’s perspective is nevertheless limited. The state of tutelage”(Bebel, 1976, p.3). In support fate of his argument is similar to that of Engels in of this argument, he allowed extensive space for The Origin of the Family, Private Property and analyzing the male bias and the male privileges, the State. Having acknowledged the specific, as they were enshrined in the legislation. First of sexual subordination of women, Bebel fails to all, he was critical of those legal provisions that take it into account in his discussion of the fu- supported men’s violence against women, such ture socialist society. As all the other socialist as those allowing for “moderate chastisement of writers, he silences the issue of women’s sexual a wife by her husband” (p. 138). He further criti- emancipation and gives voice to their social and cized the divorce legislation, which did not allow economic liberation, through equal participation women to break the ties of marriage and forced with men, in the working collective. them to submit to the sexual demands of their In Women and Socialism, the most extensive husbands (pp.55-56). He also condemned the discussion of the ‘woman question’ within the moral double standard, which allowed husbands end of nineteenth century socialist movement, to have affairs outside marriage, but prohibited Bebel develops a two-fold argument. First of all, the same behavior for women. he examines women’s condition ‘in the past and Much more than legislation, Bebel empha- in the present’ to show the inequalities and op- sized women’s economic dependence on men as pression that historically affected women’s lives. one of the determining factors of women’s op-
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 55 pression. Writing before Engels’ analysis of the exploitation within the household, confinement family, Bebel stated that: “the bourgeois mar- to reproductive roles and pressure to procreate, riage is a consequence of bourgeois property” home seclusion and hindrance of mental devel- (p.231), and that “[…] woman owe[s] the inferi- opment. Bebel condemned men’s egotism that ority of her position to the peculiarities of her appropriates women’s emotional labor and ex- sex, which place her in a situation of economic pects her to be attentive, smiling, and responsive dependence on man” (p. 43) to his needs, always ready to listen and care The outstanding aspect of Bebel’s analysis is, about his troubles and worries. He saw domestic however, his overall argument that the funda- work as a burden, which was slowly wearing out mental aspect of women’s oppression is their a woman’s “body and mind” (p.68). sexual subordination. He described women’s Certainly, the link between economic inde- condition as “sexual slavery” (p.3). To a contem- pendence and sexual slavery, in Bebel’s terms porary reader such a position hinges on a radical has a class specificity, that is it can only be ar- feminist standpoint. “Woman”, he writes, “was gued for the propertied, middle andupper-class subject to man in all social relationships, [but] families of the capitalist society. Bebel proves especially so where his sexual needs were con- once again comprehensive in his analysis, when cerned” (p.4). Bebel supported his assertion he acknowledges the oppressive nature of the with examples of sexual subordination and family not only among middle and upper-classes, sexual abuse of women, epitomized in the prac- but also among working-classes. In working-class tice of prostitution. He exposed prostitution as a families, women are the victims of men’s alco- pervasive phenomenon, which could be traced holism and violent behavior. However, he argues in every country, in every religion and in any pe- that these behaviors on the part of men are the riod of time. result of dire economic conditions and material The other pervasive institution of sexual sub- deprivations. Women’s oppression falls back to ordination was, according to Bebel, the bour- class exploitation once again and Bebel fails to geois marriage. Bebel thought of marriage as recognize patriarchy in the relations between (another) form of sexual slavery, in which working-class men and women. For Bebel, pov- women were forced to sell themselves as “ob- erty remains the most important factor in shap- jects of enjoyment” (p.71). Along with the appro- ing the relations among men and women within priation of their sexuality, marriage also sub- the working-class families. jected women to physical and emotional
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 56 As promissory as his analysis of the sexual perception about women’s inferiority prevented subordination of women may sound, Bebel gets women’s advance in the social life. tangled in the nature vs. social dichotomy when Bebel advocated equality as the main explaining the nature of the relations between emancipatory route for women out of their con- sexes. As Marx and Engels in The German Ideol- dition of both sexual slavery (p.3) and economic ogy, he struggled with the contradictions be- dependence on men (p.43). He supported re- tween “man as a natural and sexual being and forms in view of achieving equality within the man as member of society” (p.85). In Women bourgeois society, such as the admittance of and Socialism, he resorts to both biological and women to liberal professions and to higher edu- social and economic explanations of women’s cation, on equal terms with men (pp.105-136), condition. For instance, he considers women’s and women’s right to vote (pp. 137-152). He ar- subordination as natural, when he argues that gued that the advance of industrialization and “nature has burdened women alone with the act the developments in the legislation of capitalist of generation” (p.91). On the other hand, he ar- societies had improved the status of women. gued extensively against the sexual division of la- Bebel considered that the “modern middle-class bor, which ascribed women the role of house- society contains the germs which a future society wives and confined them to the walls of home only needs to generalize and develop on a large and kitchen. Women’s subordinate status was scale to accomplish a vast and radical reform”. rooted in the artificial sex-segregation of the Still, he maintained that only the socialist society bourgeois society: “[..] the relationship of the could offer the material conditions for women to two sexes [...] is an artificial antagonism, a posi- “attain the full development of their being, the tion of master and servant, which keeps both so- normal exercise of all their powers and faculties” cially apart from their earliest years.” (p.149). (p. 42). Women’s true equality with men could Sex-role education was responsible, in Bebel’s only be achieved in the socialist society and this view for gender hierarchies: “women are equality meant for and foremost equality in checked as much in their bodily as in their men- work. tal development. This repressive system is fa- Much as other socialist writers, his concern vored by the strict separation of sexes in social was with freeing women for participation into intercourse and at school” (p.71). He also main- the social life, and more specifically into working tained that stereotypes about women’s natural life. He believed that women’s participation in vocation for home, and family, as well as men’s labor, together with the radical socialist transfor-
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 57 mation of the society would bring about the domestic work and the socialization of child transformation of the family, and women’s lib- rearing. Again, these solutions prove insufficient eration. Bebel’s socialist vision of the transforma- for establishing gender equality in the sphere of tion of the family (and of the society at large) reproduction. As much as the abolition of private had one fundamental prerequisite: the end of property does not offer the ground for women private property. In his view, the end of prop- and men to become equal workers, the socializa- erty-based relations would lead to the socializa- tion of domestic work and child rearing does not tion of the community. The (future) socialist mean that men and women would become equal community was to be essentially a community of housekeepers and equal parents. Women’s do- labor: “After society has entered into exclusive mestic work was to be replaced by central kitch- possession of all the means of production, the ens, central washing establishments, central fac- equal duty of all to labor, without distinction of tories for producing clothes etc. Moreover, he sex, will become the first fundamental law of the imagined a complete socialization of food pro- Socialistic community” (1976, p.180). Bebel as- duction in which “the entire preparation of food sumed that the socialist working collective will be undertaken by society” and “the private would be based on gender equality. In my opin- kitchen will disappear” (p.227). In his view, ion, this assumption is not supported by his ar- these transformations would “reduce household guments. Abolition of private property in itself to the narrowest possible limits, and the widest does not mean that men and women would be- field [would] be opened for the gratification of come equal workers. Working relations have al- social instincts” (p.221). This vision has the mer- ways been characterized by gender inequalities its of recognizing that housekeeping activities such as sexual discrimination, which are distinct are work, even though they are performed pri- from class inequalities, and therefore would not vately, and therefore it is a step further from the end just by abolishing private property and put- capitalist definition of work. However, all he ting an end to the unequal accumulation of capi- does is to change the location of activities that tal. reproduce everyday life (preparing food, wash- Bebel rightfully understood that productive ing clothes) from private to public. The very fact relations could not be transformed, unless the that he separates these activities from “produc- sphere of reproduction was also restructured. tive activities” constitutes a flaw. Joanna Goven His solution for restructuring reproductive rela- (1993) has shown that in state socialism the tions was the socialization and mechanization of sphere of paid work was divided between pro-
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 58 ductive and reproductive activities. She contains about their natural role as mothers. First of all, that labor was gendered under state socialism: Bebel endeavored to keep sex differences in re- “Male labor is truly productive, female labor is production within the socialist community. He reproductive” (1993, p.212). This division was maintained that “the only dissimilarity which has hierarchical: reproductive labor did not have the a right to permanence is that established by Na- same worth and status as productive labor.6 ture for the fulfillment of a natural purpose”(p. However, her and other scholars (Molyneux, 122). Secondly, he seems to imply that the com- 1981) see this as a result of the industrial bias of munity would only help women bring up their state socialist countries. In my opinion, the ori- children: “educators, friends, young girls are at gins of this division are contained in the gender hand for all the cases in which she needs help” bias of socialist theory, which, as Bebel’s argu- (p. 232). Here I agree with Sheila Rowbotham’s ments show, still sees the socialist society di- assessment that “Bebel envisaged communitarian vided between men’s productive community and forms developing within daily life” (1993, p. women’s reproductive community. 142). That is to say, he didn’t see the socialist This division appears forcefully in Bebel’s commune as regulating every aspect of the orga- view on the socialization of child rearing. When nization of the society. Rather, he saw society as examining this view, it appears clear that he not the place where the person would engage in only endeavored to keep the gender segregation both individual and community activities. He did of reproductive activities, but he also thought state that social life would become more and that this segregation was natural. Bebel attrib- more public (p. 221), but nevertheless he al- uted the task of child rearing to the community. lowed for a private space of individuals, espe- In socialism, Bebel argued, women would no cially in the realm of sexual relations. The line longer have to allocate most of their time to between the private space of the individual and bringing up children, because the community the public space of the community is not very would take care of all the children, whether le- clearly drawn. Bebel seems to rely on a mecha- gitimate children or not (pp. 216-218). The cru- nism of self- regulation of the socialist commu- cial assumption that needs to be unwrapped nity, following the laws of Nature. In my opin- here is that this community is a community of ion, by introducing the laws of Nature in the women. Bebel’s perspective on the socialization socialist community, he still assigns women the of child caring does not challenge women’s cen- duty to procreate, and still assumes that taking trality in reproduction and the perceptions
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 59 care of children is a mother’s (or at least a taking care of the children that might be the out- woman’s) responsibility. come of these free relations. As a consequence, All the transformations of family life that I dis- men and women are still placed in unequal posi- cussed above would find their final expression, tions for entering and developing free love rela- in Bebel’s view, in the establishment of “a mar- tions. The heterosexual bias reflects in his as- riage founded on the free untrammeled choice sumption that free relations between sexes of love” (p. 220). Bebel does not state very necessarily mean heterosexual relations. There- clearly whether the institution of marriage will fore, Bebel’s view of the relations between the endure in the future socialist society, but never- sexes, in the future socialist society seems to rest theless he advocates for a form of marriage that on an ‘enlightened’ male selfish desire. He con- is radically different from the bourgeois, prop- tends that men and women should be free to es- erty-based marriage. Bebel places the greatest tablish sexual relationships based solely on mu- value on “free love” as the basis of the relations tual consent and (to his defense) on “mental between the sexes, a perspective which I argue affinity” (p. 48). The purpose of the couple will contains a male bias. Bebel aims to extend the be, in his opinion, the development of the per- freedom to engage in sexual relations based on sons involved. However, Bebel fails to recognize love and free choice to both men and women. In that by maintaining the sexual divisions of labor doing so, he fails to recognize that this perspec- in reproduction, he establishes unequal posi- tive on the relations between sexes is based on a tions for men and women to entry a free-love re- male-patterned sexual desire. That is, he holds lationship. Moreover, the same sexual division of that women, same as men, desire the greatest ac- labor prevents men and women from sharing cess to sexual partners, and that they are free to this free-love relationship on equal terms. engage in such relationships without any addi- tional responsibilities. The male heterosexual bias embedded in Bebel’s notion of free love is Engels: The Origin of Family, Private evident in two instances. First of all, it is hard to Property and the State place motherhood in Bebel’s vision of free rela- tions between the sexes, as this vision does not Engels’ work The Origin of the Family, Pri- take into account the social expectations with re- vate Property and the State, published in 1884, spect to the consequences of free love. Such ex- is “a comprehensive study of the origins of pectations ascribed women the responsibility of women’s oppression and the development of
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 60 the family” (Goldman, 1993, p.38). Engels saw meant to show that the form of family deter- the origin of women’s oppression in the emer- mines the social organization as much as the gence of the monogamous family, as an institu- mode of production. However, as feminist au- tion that sustained private property. The Origin thors (Sayers et. all, 1987) show, Engels failed to embarks on an analysis of different types of fami- follow his own methodological guidelines. lies, based on the findings of the American an- In the second chapter of The Origin (The thropologist Lewis H. Morgan, to conclude that Family), Engels presents an anthropological ac- the replacement of the capitalist mode of pro- count of the evolution of the family and of the duction with the socialist communal relations of gradual “subjugation of one sex by the other” work will liberate women from the oppression (1986, p.96) (i.e. of women by men). Based on they experienced in the bourgeois family. Morgan’s findings from his study of American In- The fundamental premise of Engels’s analysis, dian tribes, Engels presented the first step in the as expressed in the 1884 Preface of his work was historical transformations of the relations be- that: “According to the materialist conception, tween sexes as the passage from the primitive the determining factor in history is, in the final “group marriage” to the “gens system” when in- instance, the production and reproduction of cest became taboo. A second step that drew the immediate life. This, again, is of a two fold char- circle of possible relations among sexes even acter: on the one side, the production of the narrower was the passage from the “gens sys- means of existence, of food, clothing, shelter, tem” to the single-pair system. Both the gens sys- and the tools necessary for that production; on tem and the single-pair system were based on the other hand, the production of human beings communal living arrangements, where status and themselves, the propagation of the species.” possessions were inherited through female line. (Engels, 1986, pp.35-36). From a feminist per- In time, as men began to accumulate property spective, the analytical distinction between the (that is to produce more than they consumed), sphere of production and that of reproduction is yet another transformation occurred. The mo- Engels’ most promissory contribution to the nogamous family emerged as a way of securing Marxist analysis of society. This theoretical ap- the preservation of private property. According proach seemed to offer the ground for acknowl- to Engels, this moment historically marks the ori- edging the “centrality of reproduction to the his- gin of women’s oppression. For Engels, the end torical process” (Goldman, 1993, p.38). Engels’ of what he considered a matriarchal organization analysis of different types of families is therefore of society, and the emergence of monogamy rep-
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 61 resented “the world-historical defeat of the fe- has further implications for how he conceives of male sex[emphasis in the text]” (Engels, 1986, men and women relations in propertyless fami- p.87). In contrast with the former matrilineal lies. Engels privileged the proletarian family over kinship, the organization of the monogamous the bourgeois family, because, in his opinion the family was based on women’s servitude: “The former was based on love, and not on economic man took command in the home […]; the constraints. He argued that “the rulling class re- woman was degraded and reduced to servitude. mains dominated by the familiar economic influ- She became the slave of his lust and a mere in- ences and therefore only in exceptional cases strument for the production of children” does it provide instances of really freely con- (Engles, 1986, p. 90-91). tracted marriages, while among the oppressed When presenting the transformations of the class, these marriages are the rule” (Engels, relations between sexes, Engels’ main concern is 1986, p.113). to link these changes with the antagonism be- In sum, Engels’ analysis reached the conclu- tween propertied and proletarian classes in the sion that women are not oppressed by men, but bourgeois society. This is the reason why his by capital. In upper and middle-class families, analysis rapidly effaces the relations of domina- women were kept in a subordinated position, tion between men and women to focus mostly because control over their sexual and reproduc- on class exploitation. In The Origin, Engels states tive life was key to the preservation of private that “the monogamous marriage comes on the property. Therefore, the abolition of private scene as the subjugation of one sex by the other” property would end that control. In working- and “it announces a struggle between the class families, women were “exploited as unpaid sexes”(1986, p.96). Having made this statement, workers in the home, and wage laborers outside which seems to argue for a distinct relation of it” (Scott, 1976, p.30). In this view, women’s do- domination of women by men, Engels immedi- mestic exploitation was a result of capitalist ex- ately twists his argument to explain this inequal- ploitation, because capitalism appropriated the ity as (still) essentially class oppression: “the first surplus value of women’s housework7. Engels’ class oppression coincides with that of the fe- conclusion is problematic for at least two rea- male sex by the male” (1986, p.96). sons. First of all, Engels fails to recognize Engels established a causal relation between women’s domination by men in the working- private property and women’s subordination in class families (Humphries, 1987; Giminez 1987). the bourgeois family. This unidirectional relation As Heidi Hartmann puts it: “Surely capitalists
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 62 benefit from women’s labor, but also surely whether they are legitimate or not. This removes men, who as husbands and fathers receive per- all the anxiety about the “consequences” that sonalized services at home” (1981, p.9). Second prevents a girl from giving herself completely to of all, his understanding of women’s sexual sub- the man she loves. Will not that suffice to bring ordination in the family is reductionist. The de- about the gradual growth of unconstrained sire to preserve private property certainly may be sexual intercourse ? [my emphasis in the text]” a reason why men would want to control (Engels, 1986, p.107). women’s reproductive functions. However, A further discussion is in order here to illumi- women are also subject to domestic violence and nate the problematic assumptions, which are rape within the marriage, and later on feminists hidden in Engels’ perspective on the transforma- have argued that women’s sexual subordination tion of the relations between sexes, as enunci- is rather part of a social structure of violence that ated above. Like August Bebel, Engels advocated defines relations between sexes than a result of love as the only basis for relations between capitalist relations (Firestone, 1979; Millet 1990; sexes. In arguing for this idea, Engels faces the MacKinnon 1991). same difficulty as Bebel did, because he wants to The structure of Engels’ work is very similar maintain love at the level of individual, private to that of Bebel’s. Engels examines the historical relations, while at the same time he allocates development of family in order to argue for the child-care to society. His perspective on free love necessity of the socialist transformation of the is slightly different from that of Bebel, but never- society. The oppressive nature of the family theless carries the same male heterosexual bias. could only be overcome, Engles believed, in the He fails to recognize the patriarchal social expec- future socialist society. The transformation of tations, which ascribe women the primary re- property relations and the entry of women into sponsibility for taking care of children. There- social production would bring a thorough trans- fore, he isolates individual free love from the formation of the relations between sexes: “With larger social context, and believes that the future the transfer of the means of production into socialist society will offer the grounds for men common ownership, the single family ceases to and women to engage in love relationships on be the economic unit of society. Private house- equal terms. On close examination these terms keeping is transformed into a social industry. appear though unequal. The care and education of children becomes a First of all, Engels’ perspective on the rela- public affair, society looks after all children alike, tions between sexes is ambiguous. On one hand,
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 63 he considers that the future socialist society will “The Origin of the Family provided a program actually install true monogamy, not only for for the socialist women’s movement which has women, but also for men. On the other hand, he remained virtually unmodified down to the wants to leave individuals the choice of separat- present” (p.36). This program had three basic ing from a relationship, if this relationship does claims. First of all, women had to be granted not carry anymore “the intense emotion of indi- complete equality with men before the law, sec- vidual sex love” (Engels, 1986, p.114). Moreover ondly they were to achieve economic indepen- he states that this emotion is likely to end “espe- dence through employment outside the home, cially among men” (Engels, 1986, p.114). In and finally they were to be freed of their domes- these instances, it becomes clear that Engels tic burden by the assumption of household duty uncritically endorses a patriarchal view of female by the society (Scott, 1976, p.36). This agenda, sexuality, which considers women to be mo- with no modification, formed the basis for the nogamous and essentially concerned with repro- state socialist legislative and social program for duction. On the other hand, men are thought to the emancipation of women. Therefore, all the be more likely to pursue sexual love for more assumptions about women’s role in reproduc- women, without concern for reproduction. tion were transferred at the level of policy mak- Engels’ perspective on free love discloses thus its ing. male-bias, manifested in the complete discon- nection between sexuality and reproduction that Engels envisions for the future society. Sexuality The Bolsheviks: Aleksandra is a matter of privacy, while reproduction is a Kollontai’s views on love and Lenin’s matter of social concern. The consequences of perspective on the emancipation of this thinking are actually that female sexuality and female reproductive functions become a women matter of social concern, while male sexuality and male contribution to reproduction remain The Russian ‘version’ of the socialist project the private concern of individuals. for women’s emancipation can be compounded The analysis that I presented above ties in from the writings of the leaders of the Bolshevik closely with the examination of the state socialist Revolution, mainly Aleksandra Kollontai, and treatment of women, as I will present it in the Lenin. Actually, it was only Aleksandra Kollontai next two chapters. As Hilda Scott (1976) argues who devoted time to the issues of sexual inti-
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 64 macy and love in the future socialist society, and value and power of the proletariat. Among her who publicly expressed her views in speeches or shifting perspectives on various issues, ranging books such as The Family Question (1908), The from sexuality and love to the socialist Revolu- Social Bases of the Woman Question (1909), tion, one can nevertheless trace a common (and Sexual Relationships and the Class Struggle, constant) endorsement of a view that sees the Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of working-collective as the highest form of social Marital Relations, or Society and Maternity organization. In Kollontai’s conception, the ulti- (1915)8. I will, nevertheless, include Lenin’s per- mate goal of communist workers was “love-com- spective on women’s emancipation in my discus- radeship” or “love duty to the collective” sion because his views were influential for the (Kollontai, “Make Way for Winged Eros”, p.286, Bolshevik policies, and later of for state socialist cited in Zhuravskaya, 1998, p. 32). Kollontai saw politics. the development of such love as an integral part Aleksandra Kollontai was repeatedly singled of building communism. The basis of the com- out by both historians of feminism and of the so- munist collective was to be, in her vision, the cialist movement as “one of the first to make an mutual care of its members. Kollontai thought effort to reconcile revolutionary Marxism with that however great individual love, as experi- the women’s movement” (Zhuravskaya, 1998, enced in the couple, might be, “the ties binding p.20). Richard Evans considers that, unlike other [people] to the collective will always take prece- socialists, she “did try to establish a theory of dence, will be firmer, more complex, and more sexual freedom and emancipation” (1978, p.16). organized.” (“Theses on Communist Morality in Richard Stites characterizes Kollontai as “a femi- the Sphere of Marital Relations”, p. 234, cited in nist voice”9 (Stites in Slaughter and Kern, 1981, Zhuravskaya, 1998, p.34). p.116) among the Bolshevik leaders. In line with Kollontai’s concept of love, and the way she the discussion that I developed in this chapter, I envisages sexual relations in the future socialist will focus on Kollontai’s views on free love and society offer a more comprehensive approach to maternity, and show their similarities and differ- the dilemma of free love and motherhood. So- ences with Engels’ and Bebel’s perspectives. cialists like Bebel and Engels expected that Aleksandra Kollontai was first and foremost sexual relations in the future socialist society concerned with the particular oppression of would develop according to natural laws. As I working-class women, and her philosophical, as showed in the previous sections, this perspective well as political ideas stem from her belief in the entailed masculinist assumptions about what the
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 65 natural laws of relations between sexes were. their contemporary capitalist societies: “We are Kollontai does not appeal to nature either in her people living in the world of property relation- conception of the relations between sexes or in ships, a world of sharp class contradictions and her definition of motherhood. She frequently of an individualistic morality.”(Kollontai, “Sexual talks about the communist or “proletarian moral- Relationships and the Class Struggle”, p. 240, ity” (Social Bases of the Woman Question), cited in Zhuravskaya, 1998, p.31). Family, in her which would form the basis of the future work- opinion was central to the maintenance of both collective. However, she does not assume that a the economic and the social relations, but above new type of social (and sexual relations) will all “family was a narrow cell that fostered selfish emerge ‘naturally’. Rather, she believes that the egotism” (Zhuravskaya, 1998, p.53). The dedica- individuals will have to be taught, in the future, tion to the couple was extreme in the case of “to look at the world through the prism of the women, who were pressured by social conven- collective and not through [their] own selfish tions to assume that love for one man was their ego” (Kollontai, cited in Stites, 1978, p.267). main purpose in life. Against this social expecta- The main point of contention between tion, Kollontai argued that women’s liberation Kollontai’s perspective and those of Engels and required that women started to view love and Bebel refers exactly to this latter point. Bebel did emotions within family relationships as men did talk about the relinquishment of personal ego- – as only part of their total existence (“Sexual Re- tism in the future society, but both him and lations and the Class Struggle”, p.248). Kollontai Engels expected that this would happen ‘natu- added a cultural dimension to the classic social- rally’. Kollontai proves much more sensitive to ist analysis of the family. She viewed the family the social assumptions that shape what is consid- not only as an economic unit, a base for prop- ered ‘natural’, when she realizes that such a erty relations, but also as “a cultural institution thorough transformation cannot take place with- which maintained the values of authoritarianism out socialization. and male domination, based on female submis- Kollontai’s views on the family stemmed siveness and emotional dependency” mainly from her embracing of a future society in (Zhuravskaya, 1998, p. 69). Her solution for end- which love (transformed sexual energy) would ing women’s domestic predicament is neverthe- be the driving force of the community of labor- less the ‘classic’ socialist solution. She believed ing people. She saw the Russian society in very that work was the ultimate liberating force for similar terms as her socialist comrades viewed women. In her Autobiography of a Sexually
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 66 Emancipated Communist Woman, she argued tween sexes should be subject to legislative regu- that women could establish their true individual- lations in matters which concern “the increase or ity only by becoming economic independent. decrease of the population required by the na- Her answer to the ‘woman question’ was in line tional economic collective” (Kollontai, “Theses with the socialist project. “Socialism and only so- on Communist Morality in the Sphere of Marital cialism”, she argued, “would bring complete Relations”, p. 228, cited in Zhuravskaya p.37). equality and independence for women, the state Kollontai shared with all the other socialists the care of children, and full freedom in the area of assumption that motherhood was a woman’s so- love” (Kollontai, “The Family Question”, cited in cial duty, and that taking care of children was Stites, 1978, p.260). primarily women’s responsibility. Kollontai be- Kollontai’s views on love argue for a different lieved that “maternity was not only a natural perspective on the relations between the sexes, function of women, but also a moral duty for because she exposes these relations not as natu- Communist women” (Stites, in Slaughter and ral, but as socially constructed. She argued that Kern, 1981, p.117). In 1918, she founded the individualism and selfishness dominated love re- Department for the Protection of Motherhood lations in her contemporary society, and that and Childhood, which, in her autobiography, they would be transformed in the future society she regarded as her most important achieve- through a process of social learning. However, ment. The guiding principles of the policy of the in what concerns the specific ways in which free department mirror most clearly an understand- love and maternity were going to be incorpo- ing of motherhood as the natural function of rated in the future socialist society, Kollontai women: faces the same tension between private sexual 1. Child-bearing is the social function of relations and the public regulation of maternity the woman and the duty of the government is to and childcare. On one hand, she states that enable her to fulfill this function. “once the relations between the sexes cease to 2. It is the duty of the government to edu- perform the economic and social function of the cate the mother-citizen. former family, they are no longer the concern of 3. The child must be physically protected; the worker’s collective” (Kollontai, “Theses on breast-feeding is a social duty of women. Communist Morality in the Sphere of Marital Re- 4. Bringing up of the child is to take place lations”, p. 66, cited in Zhuravskaya p.37). On in the atmosphere of a socialist family. the other hand, she considered that relations be- (Heitlinger, 1978, p.108)
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 67 To sum up, even though she recognized that ist society. Speaking from this context, he stated love, and relations among sexes are socially con- that “[…] that the drawing of women into pro- structed, and do not follow natural laws, even in duction is, at bottom, progressive” (Lenin, “The the future socialist society, she nevertheless still Development of Capitalism in Russia”, cited in ascribed women the social duty to procreate. Tucker, 1975, p. 681). The drawing of women Lenin was never publicly explicit on his into social production and industry was in views on sexual relations. The few instances in Lenin’s opinion, their way out of “the narrow which he voiced his opinions on sexual relations circle of domestic and family relations” to which between men and women are to be found in his they were previously confined. Women’s entry private correspondence with Inessa Armand, or into paid work would “stimulate their develop- in private conversations with Clara Zetkin. His ment and increases their independence, in other letters to Inessa Armand, written in 1915, are a words, create conditions of life that are incompa- response to her intention to publish a pamphlet rably superior to the patriarchal immobility of on sexual morality. Her discussion was centered pre-capitalist relations” (Lenin, cited in Tucker, on free love and she thought “even transient pas- 1975, pp.681-682). By entering factory work, sion and love affair are preferable to the bour- Lenin argued the woman became “as much a geois marriage/ morality” (Armand cited in Stites, breadwinner as the man [was]” and this, in turn, 1978, p.261). However, Lenin did not defend was a positive and important factor in “the transient relationships, and was much more in- woman’s struggle for her independence in the clined to speak in favor of monogamy and a tra- family”. Lenin also stated that women should ditional (Victorian) configuration of relation- participate in industrial work on an equal foot ships among men and women. with men, a situation which he termed “the Lenin’s writings on ‘the woman question’ equality of the proletarian” (Lenin, cited in concentrate on the beneficial effects that Tucker, 1975, pp.681-682). women’s participation in the work force had for When writing about capitalist societies women’s position in the family. As Marx and (“Capitalism and Female Labor”, 1913), Lenin Engels, Lenin believed women’s oppression was employed Engles’ class analysis, and argued for rooted in the larger economic arrangements of essentially economic reasons for women’s op- the society. The social and economic context in pression. Lenin’s understanding of the nature of which Lenin formulated his perspective on women’s position in capitalist societies asserts a women’s emancipation was that of a pre-capital- two-fold economic exploitation: once as unpaid
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 68 domestic workers, and twice as sexual commodi- mothers, how does that reflect in their prospects ties. He contended that “millions and millions of for equal participation with men in social life? women live as household slaves” (Lenin, “Capi- talism and Female Labor”, cited in Tucker, 1975, p.682). Lenin understood working –class Conclusions women’s domestic slavery as essentially a means of bourgeois exploitation, by which oppressors For most of the nineteenth century socialists, appropriated women’s unpaid work of “feeding whose writings I have examined in the scope of and clothing the family”. Finally, prostitution this paper, women’s equality with men was un- epitomized the exploitative economic relations derstood as mainly their equal participation in of capitalist societies, as “commerce in women’s the working collective. However, this concept of bodies” (Lenin, “Capitalism and Female Labor”, equality left unexamined the sexual division of cited in Tucker, 1975, p.682). labor by which men are central to production In addition to his advocacy of women’s par- and women are central to reproduction. In the ticipation in the labor force as their way of eman- process of change towards a new socialist soci- cipating from the family, Lenin also expressed ety, women were given the additional role of his views on a more thorough transformation of workers, but the bases of the unequal gender or- the family. He stated that “one cannot be a so- der were never contested. cialist, without demanding the full freedom of di- vorce” (Lenin, 1916, cited in Stites, 1978, p.263), and “the annulment of all laws against abortion” References (Lenin, cited in Stites, 1978, p.264). However, he did not further examined his claims on the trans- Bebel, August. (1976). Women in the past, formation of the family to account for a perspec- present, and future. (H.B.A. Walther, tive on child rearing in the future socialist soci- Trans.).New York: AMS Press. (Original work ety. Same as his other socialist comrades, he published 1879.) struggled with the shifting line between the pub- lic and the private and failed to answer the ques- Biskup, M, Filias, V & Vitányi, I. (1987). The tions: If child rearing was to become public, Family and Its Culture. An Investigation in who would assume that responsibility? And if seven East and West European countries. women still have the social duty to become Budapest: Akadémiai Kiado.
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JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 70 Honeycut, K. (1981). Clara Zetkin: A socialist . (1981). Aleksandra Kollontai and the approach to the problem of women’s oppres- Russian Revolution. In J.Slaughter & R. Kern sion. In J.Slaughter & R. Kern (Eds.), European (Eds), European women on the left. Socialism, women on the left. Socialism, feminism, and the feminism, and the problems faced by political problems faced by Political Women, 1880 to the Women, 1880 to the present. Westport and Lon- Present (pp.29-50). Westport and London: don: Greenwood Press. Greenwood Press. Tong, R.P. (1998). Feminist thought. A more Lenin, V. I. (1975). On the emancipation of comprehensive introduction. Westview Press. women. In R.C. Tucker (Ed.), The Lenin anthol- ogy (pp. 679-700). New York: Norton. Wolchik, S., & Meyer, A. G. (Eds). (1985). Women, state and party. Durham: Duke Univer- Molyneux, M. (1981). Socialist societies old sity Press. and new: progress towards women’s emancipa- tion. Feminist Review, 8, 1-34. Zhuravskaya, G. (1998). Love as an ideology: Reflections on “Sexual Crisis” in Aleksandra Rowbotham, S. (1993). Women in movement: Kollontai’s Writing. CEU Master of Philosophy feminism and social action. London: Routledge. Thesis
Sayers, J., Evans, M., & Redclift, N. (Eds.). (1987). Engels revisited. New feminist essays. Notes London and New York: Tavistock. 1 Feminist historians have documented the struggles Scott, H. (1976). Women and socialism. Ex- between feminists and socialists at the end of the nine- periences from Eastern Europe. teenth century. Feminists’ claims met with, but in many cases departed from the socialist political claims. Femi- London:Alison&Busby. nists pointed out to men’s patriarchal privileges in the family, women’s subordination by love, and claimed Stites, R. (1978). The women’s liberation women’s right to self-fulfillment, but they met men’s movement in Russia. Princeton: Princeton Uni- resistence in asserting their demands (see Boxter and versity Press. Quataert, 1978). The socialist question took precedence over the woman question, and women’s liberation was
JSRI • No. 6 /Winter 2 0 0 3 71 understood further only in the framework of the socialist man beings themselves, the propagation of the species”” struggle against capitalism. (1993, p.143). 2 For a discussion of the relation between the 5 I would like to add here that, in Bebel’s vision such “woman question” and “the socialist question” see a society is not a utopia, but rather develops organically Boxer, Marilyn J. and Quataert, Jean H.(eds).(1978). So- from the material conditions that are already present in cialist women : European socialist feminism in the nine- the capitalist society. Bebel was writing in the thought teenth and early twentieth centuries.New York : Elsevier; stream of the so-called ‘scientific socialism’ whose foun- Richard Evans. 1979(1977) The feminists : women’s dations were laid by Marx. emancipation movements in Europe, America, and 6 For a discussion of the structure of socialist Australasia, 1840-1920 London: Barnes & Noble. economy and they ways in which it prioritized the “pro- 3 There are several reasons for my selection of works ductive” sphere over the “non-productive” sphere, see here. The first two works are, in my opinion the two Kornai, J. (1992). The Socialist System: The Political most influential socialist writings that address the Economy of Communism. Princeton: Princeton Univer- women’s liberation. As Boxter and Quataert show, they sity Press. were “translated into many languages, serialized and 7 This is a point which Marxist feminists have de- paraphrased in socialist periodicals, quoted endlessly, re- fended. See for example: Mariarosa Dalla Costa. (1975). printed numerous times (Bebel’s book appeared in its A General Strike. Edmond, W. &Fleming, S. All Work and fiftieth edition in 1913)” (1978, p.10) and they held a No Pay: Women, Housework, and the Wages Due. “canonical status” (Lichtheim, G.,1961, p.241, cited in Briston: Falling Wall Press. For them, the solution to Boxter,M.& Quataert, J., 1978, p. 10) within the socialist women’s domestic exploitation is that household be- movement. I selected Lenin’s writings because of his comes paid work. prominent status in the Russian Bolshevik revolution, 8 Richard Stites (1978) strongly argues that, even and the influential role that his writings had on the es- though Aleksandra Kollontai offered the most compre- tablishment of the state socialist ideology. Last, but not hensive articulation of the Russian socialist view on least, Aleksandra Kollontai offers a view on the transfor- women’s emancipation, her writings and ideas were mation of the family that was highly influential for the marginalized in the making of the Bolshevik politics. Bolshevik family policies between 1917 and 1936. From 9 Aleksandra Kollontai’s feminism developed in the a feminist perspective, her writings also account for the social and historical context of the end of the nineteenth most radical perspective on changing the status of century Russia, and it can only be understood as a Rus- women. sian, working-class feminism. She was very of the Euro- 4 According to Sheila Rowbotham, “Engels used the pean liberal feminists (as she clearly states in The Social word reproduction in a double sense, meaning both the Bases of the Woman Question), and sometimes she activities involved in enabling life to go on, producing voiced criticism against her female colleagues in the in- food, clothing and shelter, and the bearing and rearing ternational socialist movement, like Clara Zetkin and of children, which he describes as “the production of hu- Inessa Armand.
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