I commonly assumption that men are socially superior to women Decause iney are natural) superior. Male supremacy, according ERIS myth, -1OL2 phenomena at a particular stage in nstOry. oul anatura aw. Ana What the 'proof" that inferior? They are mothers! Nature, it is believed, has condemned the female sex to an inferior status.
If these assumptions are correct, then the prospect for liberation would be grim. Yet the confidence of Marxists in the struggle to overcome women's arises because we reject these "truths' and maintain that oppression - including national, and racial oppression spring from historic, economic and social conditions. not (in the case ot women) from their sexual make-uo Of course, it can't be denied that - unlike men have been reproducers of the species throughout history! need to go beyond this elementary tact to assess the social meaning or value associated with reproduction. To get to the roots of the subjection of the female sex, it is necessary to examine the combination of all social relations in any particular period of history, including how organised in the production process and maintained, through reproduction. how ORIGIN OF WOMEN'S OPPRESSION HUMAN HISTORY can be divided 3HLO LWO main epochs: food-gathering epoch, which extended over hundreds of thousands years; and the food-producing epoch, which began with the invention agriculture and stockbreeding some 8,000 years ago. In primitive societies, production was limited to hunting, fishing, and gathering immediate consumption community. Everyone played arduous role in overcoming the harsh forces of nature sustaining me commumity.
In these subsistence-based sociemes. a socia division ot labour existed: men generally hunted while gathered wild womer However, although division of labour developed along sex lines, there is no evidence to suggest that this division oppressive to women.
of both women and Status reflected the roles each of the sexes performed in social production the activities of everyday life.
Increasing antropological Gence suggests contribution to these hand-to-mouth societies was not unimportant. Men - nela SOCa women are women's oppression sexual, biological or But Marxists labour is itself is the for the the an they sang to and physically fruits and this empty-handed, was ne socia mer and evilabour London women marched in defiance of McKnee's Public Order Ban to celebrate International Women's Day. And Cano Chantes al une way Brixton Community harassment could not prevent cicterhood The women chose to march illegally refused to be classified as a 'cultural or religious festival' were just as likely as not to return because hunting prully, the care of young members community's of the community did not fall upon the women within individual family units — as the family has evolved today -but was borne by the community as a with its social division of As productive forces in society from Clapham Centre- Police this annual show of and developed - with the invention of improved implements, for example -a small surplus of goods was created above and beyond the immediate agricultural revolution made possibe a quantalive chance ul society. With the domestication of plants, food became more abundant, and new productive forces The former division of releaseu. labour between the sexes which would have exempted them from the ban.
Leatlets distributed on the march reminded women thai International Women's Day commemorates the strike in 1908 of 15,000 New York sweatshop garment workers all women and all muitant ne Womens movement still has to fight the oppression of women at home, at work and in the streets displaced by a new series of social divisions specialisation of jobs was possible now that some people were freed from food gathering. which The emergence presented the possibility of exchange, together with the private appropriation of the social surplus. Although were this transition in society was complex and extremely uneven, the developing societies rapidly became stratified. was the Te Tire appeared.
production favourable property charactes generation.
for exchange.
point -that defined SOCa DrOduCUOl oppression Family, rooting women's that this WOLK WHLE labour, and ot this surplus This menoe endoles analyse liberation. Those who came to privately control the society's surplus laid the basis for emergence COT classes WILS fundamentally different interests. For time inequality The new division of labour and the changing relationship between men the DIOCCOS of for exchange created conditions for men to dominate, both in the seizure of the surplus and in the class of the owners of this surplus. Why did men as a group have this relation to the social surplus? This question is a point of continuing debate among anthro pologists and winn une women liberation movement.
Whatever the reasons. it is cleai that with the development of private and the emergence ot a state to defend it - the value of women's role as reproducers of future generations assumed quite a diferent patriarcha family Forms vere men at family forms the head, so that the paternity of children could be guaranteed and private property passed on to the new Women themselves like cattle - became valudole ooject They, were a source of wealth, who could produce new human beings potential labour to be exploited. It was at this with the emergence of the patriarchal family in class society -women became increasingly by their reproduction capacities, rather than their role in In the classical Marxist work which explains the origins of women's The Origin of the Private Property and the State - Frederick Engels is careful to argue against any notion of men and women as antagonistic classes.
oppression in the family forms which developed with the passage from pre-class to class class antagonism coincides win me cevelooncat antagonisms of man and woman in the monogamous marrage There has been much debate abour Some critics feel that Engel's sources were inadequate given the low level of antropological knowledge and data when he was Others challenge conclusions he draws from the data. Whatever the assessment of Engels contribution on these points, it is hi method which remains an important acquisition for Marxists.
historical and materialist us to scientifically women's oppression and to for women's can't tackle the subjugation women have suffered fo centuries on the basis of subjective