Lecture 12 & 13 Sociology 621 October 19 & 24 2005 CLASS AND GENDER I Introduction: Standard Feminist Critiques Both Marxism and Feminism are emancipatory theoretical traditions. Both identify and seek to understand specific forms of oppression in the existing world -- gender oppression, particularly of women, in the case of feminism; class oppression, particularly of workers, in the case of Marxism. Both theoretical traditions explore the consequences of the oppression on which they focus for other social phenomena, and both seek to understand the conditions which contribute to the reproduction of the oppression in question. Both believe that these forms of oppression should be and can be eliminated. Both see the active struggle of the oppressed groups at the core of their respective theories as an essential part of the process through which such oppression is transformed: the struggles of women are central to the transformation of gender oppression, the struggles of workers are central to the transformation of class oppression. And intellectuals working within both traditions believe that the central reason for bothering to do social theory and research is to contribute in some way to the realization of their respective emancipatory projects. Given these parallel moral and intellectual commitments, one might have thought that Marxists and feminists would work closely in tandem, mutually seeking to understand the complex ways in which class and gender interact. With some notable exceptions, this has not happened. Indeed, far from trying to forge a close articulation of Marxist analyses of class and feminist analyses of gender, in many ways the most sustained challenge to class analysis as a central axis of critical social theory in recent years has come from feminists. The characteristic form of this challenge involves the accusation that Marxist class analysis is guilty of one or more of the following sins: 1. The concept of class in Marxism is gender-blind, whereas class relations are inherently gendered. 2. Marxist class analysis tends to “reduce” gender to class. That is, gender oppression is treated as if it can be fully explained by class oppression. 3. Marxist class analysis treats gender inequality and gender oppression as “epiphenomenal” -- that is, as effects which are not themselves causally important for anything else. They are treated as a “surface phenomena”, symptoms of something else, but not important in their own right. Because of time constraints we cannot, in this course, systematically explore the theoretical and empirical problem of the relation of class to gender. Nevertheless, it is important to respond to these objections and define a general perspective on how to think about the structural interconnection between class and other forms of oppression. But first, I want to draw a contrast between Marxism and Feminism as broad traditions of social theory, focusing on the relationship between their emancipatory visions and the explanatory challenges each theory faces.Sociology 621. Lectures 12 & 13. Class & Gender 2 II. Visions of Emancipation, challenges of explanation 1. Marxism & Feminism as emancipatory critical theories Recall how I defined an emancipatory critical theory in the first lecture of the semester: This is a social theory that analyzes existing institutions and practices in terms of an emancipatory alternative. Both Marxism & Feminism are emancipatory traditions of social theory in this sense. They are both grounded in a normative ideal of a world free of oppression; where they differ in these terms is the kind of oppression around which the theory revolves – class oppression in Marxism, and gender oppression in Feminism. 2. The emancipatory visions What, precisely, are the emancipatory visions of these two traditions? 2.1 Marxism & classlessness. Marx himself was fairly explicit in his characterization of the emancipatory ideal – a classless society. The institutional implementation of this ideal was much less clear, but the principle of the ideal was clear: a society without class exploitation and alienation, a society governed by the distributional maxim “to each according to need from each according to ability.” Capitalism, then, is to be analyzed from the vantage point of these ideals: how does capitalism block the realization of these ideals? What dynamics in capitalism point in the direction of the realization of this ideal of emancipation? 2.2 Feminism & Emancipation. The positive normative vision in feminism is perhaps less clear and contested among feminists. Is the emancipatory ideal gender equality or genderlessness? Does a radical; egalitarianism within gender relations imply an obliteration of gender difference or just a valorization of gender difference? But whatever else feminists might believe about this, the emancipatory vision involves an end to inequalities of power, opportunity, and status built around gender relations. 3. The explanatory challenges 3.1 The general problem: A fully elaborated Emancipatory theory faces four interconnected tasks: i. Harms. Demonstrating that existing social arrangements impose serious harms on people ii. Emancipatory alternative. Demonstrating that an alternative structure of relations in which such harms would be absent would be viable – that a social order with those institutions would actually work. iii. Practical transformation. Demonstrating that this alternative is achievable – that there is some process by which people can move from the present world to the alternative. Both Marxism and Feminism make convincing cases for i. They face dramatiucally different challenges in ii and iii. .Sociology 621. Lectures 12 & 13. Class & Gender 3 3.2 The explanatory challenges Marxism: It is easy to convince people that harms exist in capitalism and that they are caused by the social institutions of capitalism; what is hard is to convince people that a radical alternative is feasible and achievable. Both of these constitute hug theoretical challenges to anti-capitalists. The idea that a complex industrial society can be effectively run without markets and private ownership is a tough sell, and the idea that political forces could coalesce to accomplish this transformation is also difficult to make convincing. The relatively deterministic quality of Historical materialism helped solve both of these problems: capitalism is doomed, the