"Marxist Feminism / Materialist Feminism"

by Martha E. Gimenez

It was possible, in the heady days of the Women's LiberationMovement, to identify four main currents within feminist thought;Liberal (concerned with attaining economic and political equalitywithin the context of capitalism); Radical (focused on men andpatriarchy as the main causes of the oppression of women);Socialist (critical of capitalism and Marxism, so much so thatavoidance of Marxism's alleged reductionisms resulted in dualsystems theories postulating various forms of interaction betweencapitalism and patriarchy); and Marxist Feminism (a theoreticalposition held by relatively few feminists in the U. S. -- myselfincluded -- which sought to develop the potential of Marxisttheory to understand the capitalist sources of the oppression ofwomen).

These are, of course, oversimplified descriptions of a rich andcomplex body of literature which, however, reflected importanttheoretical, political and social cleavages among women thatcontinue to this date. Divisions in feminist thought multiplied asthe effects of post-structuralist and post-modern theorizingmerged with grass roots challenges to a feminism perceived as theexpression of the needs and concerns of middle and upper middleclass white, "First World" women. In the process, the subject offeminism became increasingly difficult to define, as the post-modern critique of "woman" as an essentialist category togetherwith critiques grounded in racial, ethnic, sexual preference andnational origin differences resulted in a seemingly never endingproliferation of "subject positions," "identities," and "voices."Cultural and identity politics replaced the early focus on

capitalism and (among Marxist feminists primarily) classdivisions among women; today class has been reduced to another"ism;" i.e., to another form oppression which, together withgender and race integrate a sort of mantra, something thateveryone ought to include in theorizing and research though, tomy knowledge, theorizing about it remains at the level ofmetaphors (e.g., interweaving, interaction, interconnection etc.).

It was, therefore, very interesting to me to read, a few years ago, acall for papers for an edited book on Materialist Feminism. Thedescription of Materialist Feminism put forth by the editors, ChrysIngraham and Rosemary Hennessy, was to me indistinguishablefrom Marxist Feminism. This seemed such a promisingdevelopment in feminist theory that I proceeded to invite theeditors to join me in creating an electronic discussion list onMaterialist Feminism, MatFem. Initially, I thought that MaterialistFeminism was simply another way of referring to MarxistFeminism, but I was mistaken; the two are, to some extent,distinct forms of feminist theorizing. There is, however, suchsimilarities between Materialist and Marxist Feminist thought insome feminists' work that some degree of confusion between thetwo is to be expected.

My goal, in this introduction to the page, is to explore thedifferences and the similarities between these two importantcurrents within feminist theory. This is not an easy task; theoristswho self-identify as materialist or as marxist feminists differ intheir understanding of what those descriptive labels mean and,consequently, the kind of knowledges they produce. And,depending on their theoretical allegiances and self-understandingwithin the field, feminists may differ in their classification ofother feminists works, so that clear lines of theoreticaldemarcation between and within these two umbrella terms aresomewhat difficult to establish. Take, for example, Lise Vogel'swork. I always considered her a Marxist Feminist because, unlikeSocialist Feminists (whose avoidance of Marx's allegedreductionisms led them to postulate ahistorical theories ofpatriarchy), she took Marxism seriously and developed heranalysis of reproduction as a basis for the oppression of womenfirmly within the Marxist tradition. But the subtitle of her recentbook (a collection of previously published essays), is "Essays fora Materialist Feminism;" self-identifying as a socialist feminist,she states that socialist feminists "sought to replace the socialisttradition's theorizing about the woman question with a 'materialist'understanding of women's oppression" (Vogel, 1995, p. xi). Thisis certainly news to me; Socialist Feminism's rejection of Marx'sand Marxism's "reductionism" lead to the deliberate effort to

ground "patriarchy" outside the mode of production and,consequently and from the standpoint of Marxist theory, outsidehistory. Materialism, Vogel tells us, was used to highlight the keyrole of production, including domestic production, inunderstanding the conditions leading to the oppression of women.(But wasn't Engels' analysis materialist? and didn't MarxistFeminists [Margaret Benston and Peggy Morton come to mind)explore the ways production -- public and domestic -- oppressedand exploited women?) Materialism was also used as "a flag," tosituate Socialist Feminism within feminist thought and within theleft; materialist feminism, consequently cannot be reduced to atrend in cultural studies, as some literary critics would prefer(Vogel, 1995, xii).

These brief comments about Vogel's understanding of MaterialistFeminism highlight some of its problematic aspects as a termintended to identify a specific trend within feminist theory. It canblur, as it does in this instance, the qualitative differences thatexisted and continue to exist between Socialist Feminism, thedominant strand of feminist thought in the U.S. during the late1960s and 1970s, and the marginalized Marxist Feminism. I amnot imputing such motivations to Lise Vogel; I am pointing out theeffects of such an interpretation of U.S. Socialist Feminism which,despite the use of Marxist terms and references to capitalism,developed, theoretically, as a sort of feminist abstract negation ofMarxism. Other feminists, for different reasons, would alsodisagree with Vogel's interpretation; for example, for Toril Moiand Janice Radway, the relationship between Socialist Feminismand Materialist Feminism "is far from clear" (Moi and Radway,1994: 749). Acknowledging the problematic nature of the term, ina special issue of The South Atlantic Quarterly dedicated to thistopic they do not offer a theory of Materialist Feminism, nor aclear definition of the term. Presumably, the articles included inthis issue will give the reader the elements necessary to define theterm for herself because all the authors "share a commitment toconcrete historical and cultural analysis, and to feminismunderstood as an 'emancipatory narrative'"(Moi and Radway,1994:750). One of these authors, Jennifer Wicke, defines it asfollows: "a feminism that insists on examining the materialconditions under which social arrangements, including those ofgender hierarchy, develop... materialist feminism avoids seeingthis (gender hierarchy) as the effect of a singular....patriarchy andinstead gauges the web of social and psychic relations that makeup a material, historical moment" (Wicke, 1994:751);"...materialist feminism argues that material conditions of allsorts play a vital role in the social production of gender and assaysthe different ways in which women collaborate and participate in

these productions"... "there are areas of material interest in the facthat women can bear children... Materialist feminism... is lesslikely than social constructionism to be embarrassed by theoccasional material importance of sex differences.."(Wicke, 1994:758-759).

Insistence on the importance of material conditions, the materialhistorical moments as a complex of social relations which includeand influence gender hierarchy, the materiality of the body and itssexual, reproductive and other biological functions remain,however, abstract pronouncements which unavoidably lead to anempiricist focus on the immediately given. There is no theory ofhistory or of social relations or of the production of genderhierarchies that could give guidance about the meaning ofwhatever it is observed in a given "material historical moment."

Landry and MacLean, authors of MATERIALIST FEMINISMS(1993), tell us that theirs is a book "about feminism and Marxism"in which they examine the debates between feminism andMarxism in the U.S. and Britain and explore the implications ofthose debates for literary and cultural theory. The terrain of thoseearly debates, which were aimed at a possible integration orsynthesis between Marxism and feminism, shifted due to theemergence of identity politics, concern with postcolonialism,sexuality, race, nationalism, etc., and the impact of postmodernismand post- structuralism. The new terrain has to do with the"construction of a materialist analysis of culture informed by andresponsive to the concerns of women, as well as people of colorand other marginalized groups" (Landry and MacLean, 1993:ix-x). For Landry and Maclean, Materialist Feminism is a "criticalreading practice...the critical investigation, or reading in the strongsense, of the artifacts of culture and social history, includingliterary and artistic texts, archival documents, and works oftheory... (is) a potential site of political contestation throughcritique, not through the constant reiteration of home-truths" (ibid,pp. x-xi). Theirs is a "deconstructive materialist feministperspective" (ibid, p. xiii). But what, precisely, does materialistmean in this context? What theory of history and what politicsinform this critique? Although they define materialism in aphilosophical and moral sense, and bring up the differencebetween mechanical or "vulgar"materialism and historicalmaterialism, there is no definition of what materialism meanswhen linked to feminism. Cultural materialism, as developed inRaymond William's work, is presented as a remedy or supplementto Marx's historical materialism. There is, according to Williams,an "indissoluble connection between material production, politicaland cultural institutions and activity, and consciousness ...

Language is practical consciousness, a way of thinking and actingin the world that has material consequences (ibid, p. 5). Williams,they point out, "strives to put human subjects as agents of cultureback into materialist debate" (ibid, p. 5).

The implications of these statements is that "humans as agents ofculture" are not present in historical materialism and that Marx'sviews on the relationship between material conditions, language,and consciousness are insufficient. But anyone familiar withMarx's work knows that this is not the case. In fact, it is Marx whowrote that "language is practical consciousness" and positedlanguage as the matter that burdens "spirit" from the very start, forconsciousness is always and from the very first a social product(Marx, [1845-46] 1994, p.117).

Landry and Maclean present an account of the development offeminist thought from the late 1960s to the present divided inthree moments: the encounters and debates between marxism andfeminism in Britain and the U.S.; the institutionalization andcommodification of feminism; and "deconstructive materialistfeminism." These are "three moments of materialist feminism"(ibid, p.15), a very interesting statement that suggest thatMaterialist Feminism -- a rather problematic and elusive conceptwhich reflects, in my view, postmodern sensibilities about cultureand about the subject of feminism -- had always been there, fromthe very beginning, just waiting to be discovered. Is that really thecase? If so, what is this materialism that lurked under the varietyof feminist theories produced on both sides of the Atlantic sincethe late 1960s? Does reference to "material conditions" in generalor to "the material conditions of the oppression of women" sufficeas a basis for constructing a new theoretical framework,qualitatively different from a Marxist Feminism? If so, how? Theauthors argue that feminist theories focused exclusively on genderand dual systems theories that bring together gender and classanalysis face methodological and political problems that"deconstructive reading practices can help solve;" they propose"the articulation of discontinuous movements, materialism andfeminism, an articulation that takes the political claims ofdeconstruction seriously... deconstruction as tool of politicalcritique (ibid, p. 12-13). But isn't the linking betweendeconstruction and Marxism what gives it its critical edge? It is inthe conclusion that the authors, aiming to demonstrate thatmaterialism is not an alias for Marxism, outline the differencebetween Marxist Feminism and Materialist Feminism as follows:

"Marxist feminism holds class contradictions and class analysiscentral, and has tried various ways of working an analysis of

gender oppression around this central contradiction. In addition toclass contradictions and contradictions within gender ideology...we are arguing that materialist feminism should recognize asmaterial other contradictions as well. These contradictions alsohave histories, operate in ideologies, and are grounded in materialbases and effects.... they should be granted material weight insocial and literary analysis calling itself materialist.... thesecategories would include...ideologies of race, sexuality,imperialism and colonialism and anthropocentrism, with theiraccompanying radical critiques" (ibid, p. 229).

While this is helpful to understand what self-identified materialistfeminists mean when they refer to their framework, it does notshed light on the meaning of material base, material effect,material weight. The main concept, materialism, remainsundefined and references to ideologies, exploitation, imperialism,oppression, colonialism, etc. confirm precisely that which theauthors intended to dispel: materialism would seem to be an aliasfor Marxism.

Rosemary Hennessy (1993) traces the origins of MaterialistFeminism in the work of British and French feminists whopreferred the term materialist feminism to Marxist feminismbecause, in their view, Marxism had to be transformed to be ableto explain the sexual division of labor (Beechey, 1977: 61, cited inKuhn and Wolpe, 1978: 8). In the 1970s, Hennessy states,Marxism was inadequate to the task because of its class bias andfocus on production, while feminism was also problematic due toits essentialist and idealist concept of woman; this is whymaterialist feminism emerged as a positive alternative both toMarxism and feminism (Hennessy, 1993: xii). The combinedeffects of the postmodern critique of the empirical self and thecriticisms voiced by women who did not see themselves includedin the generic woman subject of academic feminist theorizingresulted, in the 1990s, in materialist feminist analyses that"problematize 'woman' as an obvious and homogeneous empiricalentity in order to explore how 'woman' as a discursive category ishistorically constructed and traversed by more than onedifferential axis" (Hennessy, 1993: xii). Furthermore, Hennessyargues, despite the postmodern rejection of totalities andtheoretical analyses of social systems, materialist feminists needto hold on to the critique of the totalities which affect women'slives: patriarchy and capitalism. Women's lives are every whereaffected by world capitalism and patriarchy and it would bepolitically self-defeating to replace that critique with localized,fragmented political strategies and a perception of social reality ascharacterized by a logic of contingency.

Hennessy's views on the characteristics of Materialist Feminism emerge through her critical engagement with the works of Laclau and Mouffe, Foucault, Kristeva and other theorists of the postmodern. Materialist Feminism is a "way of reading" that rejects the dominant pluralist paradigms and logics of contingency and seeks to establish the connections between the discursively constructed differentiated subjectivities that have replaced the generic "woman" in feminist theorizing, and the hierarchies of inequality that exploit and oppress women. Subjectivities, in other words, cannot be understood in isolation from systemically organized totalities. Materialist Feminism, as a reading practice, is also a way of explaining or re-writing and making sense of the world and, as such, influences reality through the knowledges it produces about the subject and her social context. Discourse and knowledge have materiality in their effects; one of the material effects of discourse is the construction of the subject but this subject is traversed by differences grounded in hierarchies of inequality which are not local or contingent but historical and systemic, such as patriarchy and capitalism. Difference, consequently, is not mere plurality but inequality. The problem of the material relationship between language, discourse, and the social or between the discursive (feminist theory) and thenon-discursive (women's lives divided by exploitative and oppressive social relations) can be resolved through the conceptualization of discourse as ideology . A theory of ideologypresupposes a theory of the social and this theory, which informsHennessy's critical reading of postmodern theories of the subject,discourse, positionality, language, etc., is what she calls a "globalanalytic" which, in light of her references to multinationalcapitalism, the international division of labor, overdeterminedeconomic, political and cultural practices, etc, is at the very least akind of postmodern Marxism. But references to historicalmaterialism, and Althusser's theory of ideology and the notion ofsymptomatic reading are so important in the development of herarguments that one wonders about her hesitation to name Marxand historical materialism as the theory of the social underlyingher critique of the postmodern logic of contingency; i.e., thetheory of capitalism, the totality she so often mentions togetherwith patriarchy as sources of the exploitation and oppression ofwomen and as the basis for the "axis of differences" that traversethe discursive category "woman." To sum up, Hennessy's versionof Materialist Feminism is a blend of post-marxism andpostmodern theories of the subject and a source of "readings" and"re- writings" which rescue postmodern categories of analysis(subject, discourse, difference) from the conservative limbo ofcontingency, localism and pluralism to historicize them or

contextualizing them by connecting them to their systemicmaterial basis in capitalism and patriarchy. This is made possibleby understanding discourse as ideology and linking ideology to itsmaterial base in the "global analytic."

In Hennessy's analysis, historical materialism seems like an everpresent but muted shadow, latent under terms such as totality,systemic, and global analytic. However, in the introduction toMATERIALIST FEMINISM: A Reader in Class, Difference andWomen's Lives (1997), written with her co-editor, ChrysIngraham, there is a clear, unambiguous return to historicalmaterialism, a recognition of its irreplaceable importance forfeminist theory and politics. This introduction, entitled"Reclaiming Anticapitalist Feminism," is a critique of thedominant feminist concern with culture, identity and differenceconsidered in isolation from any systemic understanding of thesocial forces that affect women's lives, and a critique of anacademic feminism that has marginalized and disparaged theknowledges produced by the engagement of feminists withMarxism and their contributions to feminist scholarship and to thepolitical mobilization of women. More importantly, thisintroduction is a celebration of Marxist Feminism whose premisesand insights have been consistently "misread, distorted, or buriedunder the weight of a flourishing postmodern cultural politics"(ibid, p.5). They point out that, whatever the name of the productof feminists efforts to grapple with historical materialism (marxistfeminism, socialist feminism or materialist feminism), these arenames that signal theoretical differences and emphases but whichtogether indicate the recognition of historical materialism as thesource of emancipatory knowledge required for the success of thefeminist project. In this introduction, materialist feminismbecomes a term used interchangeably with marxist feminism, withthe latter being the most prominently displayed. The authors drawa clear line between the cultural materialism that characterizes thework of post-marxist feminists who, having rejected historicalmaterialism, analyze cultural, ideological and political practices inisolation from their material base in capitalism, and materialistfeminism (i.e., marxist or socialist feminism) which is firmlygrounded in historical materialism and links the success offeminist struggles to the success of anticapitalist struggles; "unlikecultural feminists, materialist, socialist and marxist feminists donot see culture as the whole of social life but rather as only onearena of social production and therefore as only one area offeminist struggle" (ibid, p. 7). The authors differentiate materialistfeminism from marxist feminism by indicating that it is the endresult of several discourses (historical materialism, marxist andradical feminism, and postmodern and psychoanalytic theories of

meaning and subjectivity) among which the postmodern input, intheir view, is the source of its defining characteristics.Nevertheless, in the last paragraphs of the introduction there is areturn to the discussion of marxist feminism, its critiques of theidealist features of postmodernism and the differences betweenthe postmodern and the historical materialist or marxist analysesof representations of identity. But, they point out, theoreticalconflicts do not occur in isolation from class conflicts and thelatter affect the divisions among professional feminists and theirclass allegiances. Feminists are divided in their attitudes towardscapitalism and their understanding of the material conditions ofoppression; to be a feminist is not necessarily to be anticapitalistand to be a materialist feminist is not equivalent to being socialistor even critical of the status quo. In fact, "work that claims thesignature "materialist feminism" shares much in common withcultural feminism, in that it does not set out to explain or changethe material realities that link women's oppression to class" (ibid,p.9). Marxist feminism, on the other hand, does make theconnection between the oppression of women and capitalism andthis is why the purpose of their book, according to the authors, is"to reinsert into materialist feminism -- especially in thoseoverdeveloped sectors where this collection will be most widelyread -- those (untimely) marxist feminist knowledges that the driftto cultural politics in postmodern feminism has suppressed. It isour hope that in so doing this project will contribute to theemergence of feminisms' third wave and its revival as a criticalforce for transformative social change (ibid, p. 9).

In light of the above, given the inherent ambiguity of the termMaterialist Feminism, shouldn't it be more theoretically adequateand politically fruitful to return to Marxist Feminism? Is the effortof struggling to redefine Materialist Feminism by reinsertingMarxist Feminist knowledges a worthwhile endeavor? Howimportant is it to broaden the notion of Materialist Feminism toinclude Marxist Feminist contents? Perhaps the political climateinside and outside the academy is one where Marxism is sodiscredited that Marxist Feminists are likely to find moreacceptance and legitimacy by claiming Materialist Feminism astheir theoretical orientation. I do not in anyway impute thismotivation to Ingraham and Hennessy whose introduction to theirbook is openly Marxist. In fact, after I read it and looked over thetable of contents I thought a more adequate title for the bookwould have been Marxist Feminism. And anyone familiar withhistorical materialism can appreciate the sophisticated Marxistfoundation of Hennessy's superbly argued book. In my view, asthe ruthlessness of the world market intensifies the exploitation ofall working people among which women are the most vulnerable

and the most oppressed, the time has come not just to retrieve theMarxist heritage in feminist thought but to expand MarxistFeminist theory in ways that both incorporate and transcend thecontributions of postmodern theorizing.

The justification for using Materialist Feminism rather thanMarxist Feminism is the alleged insufficiency of Marxist Theoryfor adequately explaining the oppression of women. Lurkingbehind the repeated statements about the the shortcomings ofMarxism there is an economistic and undialectical understandingof Marx and Marxist theory. That Marx may not have addressedissues that 20th century feminists consider important is not asufficient condition to invalidate Marx's methodology as well asthe potential of his theory of capitalism to help us understand theconditions that oppress women. But regardless of thosepronouncements, it is fascinating, in retrospect, to read the theoryproduced by self- defined Materialist Feminists and realize thatthey are actually using and developing Marxist theory in ways thatbelie statements about its inherent shortcomings. And it isimportant to know how Kuhn and Wolpe, authors of FEMINISMAND MATERIALISM (1978) define the term materialism; theyadopted Engels' definition of the term: "According to thematerialist conception, the determining factor in history is, in thefinal instance, the production and reproduction of immediate life.This, again, is of a twofold character: on the one side, theproduction of the means of existence, of food, clothing and shelterand the tools necessary for that production; on the other side, theproduction of human beings themselves, the propagation of thespecies" (Engels, [1883] 1972, p.71)(Kuhn and Wolpe, 1978: 7).Kuhn, Wolpe and the contributors to their book in various waysexpanded the scope of historical materialism to produce newknowledges about the oppression of women under capitalism. Butmaterialist feminism, a term which may have been useful in thepast might have lost its effectivity today. How useful is it tobroaden the meaning of Materialist Feminism today to encompassMarxist Feminism if, at the same time, the term is claimed bycultural materialists whose views are profoundly anti-marxist?How will the new generations learn about the theoretical andpolitical importance of historical materialism for women ifhistorical materialist analysis is subsumed under the MaterialistFeminist label? Doesn't this situation contribute to themarginalization of scholars who continue to self-identify asMarxist Feminists? I understand Marxist Feminism as the body oftheory produced by feminists who, adopting the logic of analysisof historical materialism, expand the scope of the theory whilecritically incorporating useful insights and knowledges fromnon-marxist theorizing, just as Marx grappled with the discoveries

of the classical economists and their shortcomings. Why shouldthis theoretical enterprise present itself under a different name,especially one likely to elicit some degree of confusion among theyounger generations of feminists? Furthermore, the political costof doing, essentially, Marxist theorizing under the banner ofMaterialist Feminism is likely to be exceedingly high. Why?Because, by overstressing the "materialist" aspect in historicalmaterialism it can contribute justify the dominant stereotypesabout Marxism: its materialism, meaning its alleged anti-agency,anti-human, deterministic, reductionist limitations.

The answers to these questions are political and will come fromfeminists practices and dialogue and from the effects of theintensification of capitalist rule upon both first and third worldpeoples. In the meantime, it is important to know that Marxist andsome works within Materialist Feminism share fundamentaltheoretical assumptions and political goals.

Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism.1994.

Hennessy, Rosemary. Materialist Feminism and the Politics ofDifference. 1993.

Hennessy, Rosemary and Chrys Ingraham, eds. MaterialistFeminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives.1997.

Kuhn, Annette and AnnMarie Wolpe, eds., FEMINISM ANDMATERIALISM. Women and Modes of Production. Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1978.

Landry, Donna and Gerald Maclean, MATERIALISTFEMINISMS. Blackwell, 1993.

Moi, Toril and Janice Radway, "Editors' Note." The South AtlanticQuarterly (Fall, 1994): 749.

Sharpe, Jenny. Allegories of Empire: The Figure of Woman in theColonial Text. 1993.

Vogel, Lise. WOMAN QUESTIONS. Essays for a MaterialistFeminism. Routledge, 1995.

Wicke, Jennifer. "Celebrety Material: Materialist Feminism andthe Culture of Celebrety." The South Atlantic Quarterly (Fall,1994): 751-78.Gimenez, Martha and Jane Collins, ed.Work

Without Wages. SUNY Press, 1990.

Feminist Theory Website: Marxist / Materialist Feminismhttp://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/mar.html

Hosted by the Center for Digital Discourse and Cultureat Virginia Tech University

COPYRIGHT 1998 KRISTIN SWITALA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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