ized by: the subjugation of women to male
authority, both within the family and in the
community in general; the objectification of
women as a form of property; a sexual division
of labor in which women are confined to such
activities as childraising, performing personal
services for adult males, and specified (usually
low-prestige) forms of productive labor.

Feminists, struck by the near-universality of
these things, have looked for explanations in
the biological “givens” which underlie all hu-
man social existence: men are physically
stronger than women on the average, especially
compared to pregnant women or women who
are nursing babies. Furthermore, men have the
power to make women pregnant. Thus the forms
that sexual inequality takes—however various
they may be from culture to culture—rest, in
the last analysis, on what is clearly a physical
advantage males hold over females. That is to
say, they rest on violence, or the threat of
violence.

The ancient, biological roots of male su-
premacy —the fact of male violence—are com-
monly obscured by the laws and conventions
which regulate the relations between the sexes
in any particular culture. But they are there,
according to a feminist analysis. The possibility
of male assault stands as a constant warning to
“bad” (rebellious, aggressive) women, and
drives “good” women into complicity with male
supremacy. The reward for being “good”
(“pretty,” submissive) is protection from ran-
dom male violence and, in some cases, econ-
omic security.

| hope | have written these capsule sum-
maries of Marxism and feminism in such a
way that some similarities of approach show
through. Marxism rips away the myths about
“democracy” and “pluralism” to reveal a system
of class rule that rests on forcible exploitation.
Feminism cuts through myths about “instinct”
and romantic love to expose male rule as a rule
of force. Both analyses compel us to look at a
fundamental injustice. If either, or both, make
you uncomfortable, they were meant to! The
choice is to reach for the comfort of the myths
or, as Marx put it, to work for a social order
which does not require myths to sustain it.

Having gone to the trouble to provide these
thumbnail sketches of Marxism and feminism,
the obvious thing to do would be just to add
them up and call the sum “socialist feminism.”
In fact, this is probably how most socialist
feminists operate most of the time—as a kind of
hybrid, pushing feminism in socialist circles,
socialism in feminist circles. Practically speak-
ing, | think this is a perfectly reasonable way to
operate a lot of the time. One trouble with
leaving things like that, though, is that it keeps
people wondering “Well, what is she really?” or
demanding of us “What is the principal contra-
diction?” Such questions often stop us in our
tracks: It sounds so compelling and authori-

tative and logical: “Make a choice! Be one or
another!” Yet we know that there is a political
consistency to socialist feminism. We are not
hybrids or fence-sitters.

To get to that political consistency we have
to go beyond the capsule versions of Marxism
and feminism | laid out. We have to differ-
entiate ourselves, as feminists from other kinds
of feminists, and as Marxists from other kinds of
Marxists. We have to stake out a socialist femi-
nist kind of feminism and a socialist feminist
kind of socialism. Only then is there a possibili-
ty that things will “add up” to something more
than an uneasy juxtaposition. .

First, what is our outlook as feminists and
how is it different from that of other feminists? |
think most radical feminists and socialist femi-
nists would agree with my capsule characteriza-
tion of feminism as far as it goes. The trouble
with radical feminism. from a socialist feminist
point of view, is that it doesn’t go any farther: it
remains transfixed by the universality of male
supremacy: things have never really changed;
all social systems are “patriarchies”; imperial-
ism, militarism and capitalism are all simply
expressions of innate male aggressiveness. And
soon.

The problem with this is not only that it leaves
out men (and the possibility of reconciliation
with them on a truly human and egalitarian
basis) but that it leaves out an awful lot about
women. For example, to discount a socialist
country such as China as a “patriarchy” —as |
have heard some radical feminists do—is to
ignore the real struggles and achievements of
millions of women. Socialist feminists, while
agreeing that there is something timeless and
universal about women’s oppression, have in-
sisted that it takes different forms in different
settings, and that the differences are of vital
importance. There is a difference between a
society in which sexism is expressed by female
infanticide and a society in which sexism takes
the form of unequal representation on the
Central Committee. And the difference is worth
dying for.

One of the historical variations on the theme
of sexism which ought to concern all feminists
is the set of changes that came with the transi-
tion from an agrarian society to industrial capi-
talism. This is no academic issue. The social
system which industrial capitalism replaced was
in fact a patriarchal one, and | am using that
term now in its original sense to mean a system
in which production is centered in the house-
hold and is presided over by the oldest male.
The fact is that industrial capitalism came along
and tore the rug out from under that system:
production went into the factories; individuals
broke off from the family to become “free”
wage earners. To say that capitalism disrupted
the patriarchal organization of production and
family life is not, of course, to say that capital-
ism abolished male supremacy! But the particu-