Feminist separatism is the theory that feminist opposition to patriarchy can be achieved through women's separation from men. Much of the theorizing is based in lesbian feminism .
130-480: The Van Dykes were an itinerant band of lesbian separatist vegans , founded in 1977 in the United States by Heather Elizabeth and Ange Spalding . Members of the group identified as dykes and lived in vans , traveling throughout Canada, the United States, and Mexico, stopping only on womyn's land . In 1976, Heather Elizabeth Nelson, her ex-girlfriend Chris Fox, and another lesbian couple had purchased
260-409: A historical materialist point of view, which means that they relate their ideas to the material and historical conditions of people's lives. Thus, Socialist feminists consider how the sexism and gendered division of labor of each historical era is determined by the economic system of the time. Those conditions are largely expressed through capitalist and patriarchal relations. Socialist feminists reject
390-449: A "tactical position". In the same document, they further distinguished between separatism as "personal practice" and as "political position". In lesbian feminist Marilyn Frye 's (1978) essay Notes on Separatism and Power she posits female separatism as a strategy practiced by all women, at some point, and present in many feminist projects (one might cite women's refuges, electoral quotas or Women's Studies programmes). She argues that it
520-538: A 1982 published conversation about black feminism and lesbian activism with her sister Beverly Smith , Barbara Smith , co-author of the Combahee River Collective Statement , expresses concerns that "to the extent that lesbians of color must struggle simultaneously against the racism of white women (as against sexism ), separatism impedes the building of alliances with men of color". Smith writes that race places lesbians of color in
650-430: A basic reality of women's lives. Delphy states that this is why women and all oppressed groups need materialism to investigate their situation. For Delphy, "to start from oppression defines a materialist approach, oppression is a materialist concept". She states that the domestic mode of production was the site of patriarchal exploitation and the material basis of the oppression of women. Delphy further argued that marriage
780-496: A capitalist society because of the ways in which women's "free labor" has been utilized. Kollontai criticized the feminist movement as also neglecting to emphasize how the working class, while trying to care and provide for a family and being paid less than that of men, was still expected to cater to and provide for the bourgeois or upper-class women who were still oppressing the working-class women by utilizing their stereotypical type of work. Kollontai also faced harsh scrutiny in being
910-421: A concept of oppression that focused on gender oppression. Marriage was a bourgeois institution which restricted women's freedom, including their sexual freedom. Marriages entered into without love, fidelity maintained through fear rather than desire, oppression of women by men they hated—all were seen as symptomatic of the coercion implied by the marriage contract. It was this alienation of the individual's will that
1040-401: A creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction. The international women's movements have constructed 'women's experience', as well as uncovered or discovered this crucial collective object. This experience is a fiction and fact of the most crucial, political kind" Defined as
1170-527: A different relation to men as white lesbians as "white women with class privilege don't share oppression with white men. They're in a critical and antagonistic position whereas Black women and other women of color definitely share oppressed situations with men of their race". Smith makes a distinction between the theory of separatism and the practice of separatism, stating that it is the way separatism has been practiced which has led to "an isolated, single-issued understanding and practice of politics, which ignores
1300-426: A dystopian future in which cyborgs represent the ideal way society would treat people in fixing the way society separates people by gender, race and religion. In her extensive manifesto written in 1991, Haraway explains about a political myth as a "cyborg" who represents the ideal way someone would be treated in society. Haraway's manifesto describes the cyborg as "A cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism,
1430-400: A harsh stance on the feminist movement and believed feminist to be naïve in only addressing gender as the reason inequality was happening under a capitalist rule. She believed that the true issue of inequality was that of the division of classes that led to the immediate production of gender struggles, just how men in the structure of the classes shown a harsh divide as well. Kollontai analyzed
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#17327874322191560-430: A historical precondition to the rise of a capitalist economy predicated upon wage labor. Related to this, she outlines the historical struggle for the commons and the struggle for communalism . Instead of seeing capitalism as a liberatory defeat of feudalism , Federici interprets the ascent of capitalism as a reactionary move to subvert the rising tide of communalism and to retain the basic social contract. She situates
1690-477: A lack of Black voices in feminist academia contributed to whitewashing of women's studies programs and courses. Kum-Kum Bhavani , a professor at University of California Santa Barbara, and Margaret Coulson, a socialist feminist scholar, assert that racism in the socialist feminist movement stems from the failure of many white feminists to recognize the institutional nature of racism. According to Bhavani and Coulson, race, class, and gender are inextricably linked, and
1820-584: A liberal creation of academics and reformist leftists who want to make alliances with bourgeois feminists. For instance, Alexandra Kollontai wrote in 1909: For what reason, then, should the woman worker seek a union with the bourgeois feminists? Who, in actual fact, would stand to gain in the event of such an alliance? Certainly not the woman worker. Kollontai was a prominent leader in the Bolshevik party in Russia, defending her stance on how capitalism had shaped
1950-432: A lifelong practice. In her 1988 book, Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value , lesbian philosopher Sarah Lucia Hoagland alludes to lesbian separatism's potential to encourage lesbians to develop healthy community ethics based on shared values. Hoagland articulates a distinction (originally noted by lesbian separatist author and anthologist, Julia Penelope ) between a lesbian subculture and a lesbian community ; membership in
2080-450: A massive change in society the feminist won't be able to get lasting change. Leopoldina Fortunati is the author of The Arcane of Reproduction: Housework, Prostitution, Labor and Capital ( L'arcano della riproduzione: Casalinghe, prostitute, operai e capitale ), a feminist critique of Marx. Fortunati is the author of several books, including The Arcane of Reproduction (Autonomedia, 1995) and I mostri nell'immaginario (Angeli, 1995), and
2210-413: A more popular issue to discuss among feminists due to the increase of popular male influencers that promote the behaviors and mindsets of toxic masculinity. Males will go on social media platforms such as TikTok, and share their harmful ideas about how women should be behaving. This has become a major issue among feminists today, and trends on TikTok have been curated to combat toxic masculinity. For example,
2340-450: A network of publications, presses, magazines, and periodicals, known as the women in print movement. Some designated their periodicals and books "for women only", or "for lesbians only". One historical example is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's feminist novel Herland (1915) . Contemporary examples include Joanna Russ 's The Female Man (1975) and Nicola Griffith 's Ammonite (1993). The Wanderground (Persephone Press, 1978),
2470-606: A personal solution". Proponents of feminist separatism have varied opinions on the meaning of feminist and lesbian separatism; major debates include the degree to which women should separate from men, whether it is a strict ideology or a strategy, and how it works to benefit women. In a tract on socialist feminism published in 1972, the Hyde Park Chapter of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union differentiated between separatism as an "ideological position" and as
2600-430: A post-gender world, this cyborg represents the idea that there can by a dystopian future in which gender, religion and race are not dismissed but are not factors in how members of this society treat each other. This manifesto is consistently mentioning the idea of feminism and how feminists aren't looking for more or less than men but to make the playing field equal. This also goes to the socialist feminism point that without
2730-402: A profound critique of Eurocentric epistemology, science, economics, and culture. It is increasingly prominent as a feminist response to the contemporary breakdown of the planetary ecosystem. Socialist feminists believe that women's liberation must be sought in conjunction with the social and economic justice of all people. They see the fight to end male supremacy as key to social justice, but not
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#17327874322192860-407: A radically transformed society in which man would exploit neither man nor women " The equality described has to do with a transformed society in which both sexes are equal and given the same opportunities despite any physiological differences. Going forward it is described to need a total change in both the economic and social system to create the lasting improvement that the socialist feminism movement
2990-444: A rather displeasing and oppressing position for females that are part of its system. She recognized and emphasized the difference between the proletariat and bourgeoise women in society, though it has been expressed by Kollontai's thought that all women under a capitalist economy were those of oppression. One of the reasons Kollontai had a strict opposition of the bourgeois women and proletariat or working-class women to have an alliance
3120-433: A relation that is remarkably similar to the feudal relation of vassalage; it provides a means for exchanging support and protection from the husband in return for services and devotion from the wife." The idea of a contract for husbands to pay their wives is an exaggerated circumstance yet for decades it was the expectation that the woman would be considered a housewife and the man would be the breadwinner and make decisions for
3250-485: A renewed cycle of primitive accumulation, by which everything held in common—from water, to seeds, to our genetic code—becomes privatized in what amounts to a new round of enclosures . Material feminism highlights capitalism and patriarchy as central in understanding women's oppression. The theory centers on social change rather than seeking transformation within the capitalist system. Jennifer Wicke, defines materialist feminism as "a feminism that insists on examining
3380-465: A result of issues arising from broader and nationally specifically cultural narratives around women. Some of them are created independently in response to these needs, while others draw inspiration from radical movements in other countries. This results in no single history of radical lesbianism, but of separate national struggles. Internationally, radical lesbians often took advantage of convergent international spaces to create their own events to increase
3510-477: A run-down farm seventy miles outside of Toronto in an attempt to create womyn's land where agricultural self-sustenance, separatism, and non-monogamy were practiced. Elizabeth met Ange Spalding on a road trip to Toronto, who had been living in her van for a year. Together Elizabeth and Spalding formed the Van Dykes, with Spalding taking on the name Brook Van Dyke while Elizabeth became Heather Van Dyke and later
3640-446: A sexual class lays the subversive quality of feminism for liberalism because liberalism is premised upon women's exclusion from public life on this very class basis. The demand for real equality of women with men, if taken to its logical conclusion, would dislodge the patriarchal structure necessary to a liberal society." In 1985, Donna Haraway published the essay " A Cyborg Manifesto : Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in
3770-408: A unified category. There is not even such a state as ' being ' female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices" (p. 155). A cyborg does not require a stable, essentialist identity, argues Haraway, and feminists should consider creating coalitions based on "affinity" instead of identity. To ground her argument, Haraway analyzes
3900-489: A very disturbing thought to say the least." The gender pay gap is an issue that is especially prevalent in the United States. In Feminist Policy and Human Nature , Allison Jagger describes the biological differences between women and men that would affect job performance namely "Most evidently, women's reproductive functions may mean that women have needs for pregnancy leave, maternity services and arrangements for easy access to their nursing babies." This fact insists that it
4030-411: A vital role in the social production of gender and assays the different ways in which women collaborate and participate in these productions". Material feminism also considers how women and men of various races and ethnicities are kept in their lower economic status due to an imbalance of power that privileges those who already have privilege, thereby protecting the status quo. The term material feminism
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4160-399: A woman leader in a time of a male dominated political stance during the Bolshevik movement. In keeping with her unusual position during her time, she also kept diaries of her plans and ideas on moving towards a more "modern" society where socialism would help uproot that of capitalism and the oppression that different groups of gender and class had been facing. Kollontai was a great example of
4290-418: A woman who was indeed still oppressed by the times and was removed from her own ideologies and progress for the mere fact she was a woman in times where being so in a powerful position was frowned upon and "great women" were only allowed to be placed alongside "great men" in history. Kollontai's most pertinent presence in feminist socialism was her stance on reproductive rights and her view on women being allowed
4420-441: Is a form of exclusive private property", and condones treating women "as the prey and servant of social lust". Despite some claims, he has never been found to argue that the creation of a classless society would lead to gender oppression vanishing; instead evidence exists which suggest that he viewed female struggles as something independent. However due to his writing on women being scarce, the tradition and works of Marxist Feminism
4550-421: Is a labor contract that gives men the right to exploit women. The Grand Domestic Revolution by Dolores Hayden is a reference. Hayden describes Material feminism at that time as reconceptualizing the relationship between the private household space and public space by presenting collective options to take the "burden" off women in regard to housework , cooking , and other traditional female domestic jobs. In
4680-608: Is a separatist utopian novel written from author Sally Miller Gearhart 's personal experience in rural lesbian-separatist collectives. Wild Mares: My Lesbian Back-to-the-Land Life (University of Minnesota Press, 2018) documents author Dianna Hunter's experiences in a lesbian separatist collective. Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution (Simon & Schuster, 1973) is a collection of essays written by Jill Johnston , that were originally printed in The Village Voice , where Johnston discusses elements of breaking off from
4810-454: Is a type of feminist separatism specific to lesbians . Many lesbian separatists bought land so they could live separately from men and heterosexual women. Radical lesbianism and other similar movements represent a rupture with the broader feminist movements. They offer an attempt by some feminists and lesbians to try to reconcile what they see as inherent conflicts with the stated goals of feminism. Many of these conflicts and ruptures are
4940-454: Is because the bourgeois was still inherently using the women of the working class to their advantage, and therefore prolonging the injustice that women in a capitalist society are treated. She theorized that a well-balanced economic utopia was ingrained in the need for gender equality, but never identified as a feminist, though she greatly impacted the feminist movement within the ideology of feminism within and throughout socialism. Kollontai had
5070-494: Is best known as one of the founders of Mujeres Libres and served in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA). By 1919, she had been published in a variety of journals, including Los Quijotes , Tableros , Plural , Manantial and La Gaceta Literaria . Working under a male pen name , she was able to explore lesbian themes at a time when homosexuality
5200-411: Is credited with theorizing triple oppression , the concept that Black and Brown women experience oppression based on race, class, and gender. Jones further argues that white women, much less Black and Brown working women, would never be liberated if the structures of colonialism were not abolished and Black Nationalism were not adopted. Feminist historian Linda Gordon asserts that socialist feminism
5330-660: Is generally derivative of her husband's class or occupational status, e.g. a secretary that marries her boss assumes his class status. In 1972, " Socialist Feminism: A Strategy for the Women's Movement ", which is believed to be the first publication to use the term socialist feminism, was published by the Hyde Park Chapter of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union ( Heather Booth , Day Creamer, Susan Davis, Deb Dobbin, Robin Kaufman, and Tobey Klass). Other socialist feminists, notably two long-lived American organizations Radical Women and
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5460-433: Is inherently intersectional, at least to a certain degree, because it takes into account both gender and class. Gordon says that because the foundation of socialist feminism rests on multiple axes, socialist feminism has a history of intersectionality that can be traced back to a period decades before Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw first articulated the concept of intersectionality in 1989. According to Gordon, socialist feminism of
5590-448: Is just another part of gender construction the patriarchy has just created to harm women. Toxic masculinity can be observed in everyday life such as wikt:" locker room talk " (FEM Magazine). Locker room talk is an excuse for men to spew comments about women that are most commonly sexual. Because these men are in a certain environment, this behavior is normalized. However, locker room talk is extremely harmful especially because it enforces
5720-474: Is looking for. Kristen Ghodsee argues in her book Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism that free markets discriminate against women as big bosses consider women to be less reliable, weaker and more emotional which leads to the gender pay gap as they need financial incentives to employ them. George Bernard Shaw quotes "Capitalism acts on women as a continual bribe to enter into sex relations for money". He also claims many women take part in work within
5850-407: Is not only important but it is necessary for the workplace to incorporate this fairly into contracts. Forcing women to take unpaid maternity leave goes into the issue of the gender wage gap since women have reproductive needs that go far beyond men but are not compensated for that. In looking at the amount of unpaid labor that women have worked over centuries is a major issue regarding unpaid labor in
5980-684: Is now a lesbian travel company called Olivia. Womyn's land has been used in America to describe communities of lesbian separatists, normally living on a separate plot of land. Some lesbian lands have practiced the idea of ecofeminism on these separate plots of land, which is the connection between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature by men. Access to temporary free land was often found through women's music festivals, where lesbians would network and strategized their plans for lesbian land. Lesbian separatism provided opportunities to "live their lives apart from ...mainstream society", and in
6110-418: Is one constructed through the works of the many feminist Marxist's that came after; either through reinterpreting his original writings or providing their own theories to the foundation he provided. Much of this work has gone towards specifying how gender and class work together to create distinct forms of oppression and privilege for women and men of each class. For example, they observe that women's class status
6240-498: Is only when women practice it self-consciously as separation from men, that it is treated with controversy (or as she suggests, hysteria). Male separatism on the other hand (one might consider gentleman's clubs, labor unions, sports teams, the military, and more arguably decision-making positions in general) is seen as quite a normal, even expedient phenomenon, while it is mostly not practiced self-consciously. Some feminist separatists believe that men cannot make positive contributions to
6370-469: Is referred to as "Machismo" (FEM Magazine). Machismo keeps men in their designated masculine roles while women are given the submissive role. Machismo enforces the idea that men are the superior gender and women are second class citizens. The pressure on men to adhere to gender roles and in particular a gender binary feeds to the crisis of male suicide, rape culture and the normalization of violence. Socialist feminist politics aims to say this normalized behavior
6500-567: Is the editor of Gli Italiani al telefono (Angeli, 1995) and Telecomunicando in Europa (1998), and with J. Katz and R. Riccini Mediating the Human Body. Technology, Communication and Fashion (2003). Her influences include Mariarosa Dalla Costa , Antonio Negri , and Karl Marx . Silvia Federici is an Italian scholar, teacher, and activist from the radical autonomist feminist Marxist tradition. Federici's best known work, Caliban and
6630-663: The Freedom Socialist Party , point to the classic Marxist writings of Frederick Engels ( The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State ) and August Bebel ( Woman and Socialism ) as a powerful explanation of the link between gender oppression and class exploitation. In the decades following the Cold War , feminist writer and scholar Sarah Evans says that the socialist feminist movement has lost traction in
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#17327874322196760-800: The London lesbian magazine Gossip: A Journal of Lesbian Feminist Ethics , Lesbian Feminist Circle , a lesbian only journal collectively produced in Wellington , New Zealand, the Australian periodical Sage: The Separatist Age, Amazones d'Hier, Lesbiennes d'Aujourd'hui , produced for lesbians only in Montreal , Quebec, and the Killer Dyke a magazine by the "Flippies" (Feminist Lesbian Intergalactic Party), based in Chicago . The Furies
6890-476: The Orthodox Marxist notion that class and class struggle are the only defining aspects of history and economic development. Although Marx may have prioritised class oppression as the subject of his study and did not talk about female emancipation often, he did treat it as an issue in its own right. One place that this is shown is in his third Parisian manuscript of 1844, where he states that "marriage
7020-733: The Spanish Civil War , an anarcha-feminist group, Mujeres Libres (Free Women) linked to the Federación Anarquista Ibérica , organized to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas, while the prominent Spanish anarchist and feminist leader Federica Montseny held that the "emancipation of women would lead to a quicker realization of the social revolution" and that "the revolution against sexism would have to come from intellectual and militant 'future-women.' According to this Nietzschean concept of Federica Montseny's, women could realize through art and literature
7150-655: The Witch : Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation , expands on the work of Leopoldina Fortunati. In it, she argues against Karl Marx's claim that primitive accumulation is a necessary precursor for capitalism . Instead, she posits that primitive accumulation is a fundamental characteristic of capitalism itself—that capitalism, in order to perpetuate itself, requires a constant infusion of expropriated capital. Federici connects this expropriation to women's unpaid labour, both connected to reproduction and otherwise, which she frames as
7280-528: The Women's Liberation Movement . She says many lesbian women criticized the movement for its domination by heterosexual feminists who perpetuated heterosexism in the movement. Similarly, Black women asserted that they were deprived a voice due to the overwhelming majority of white women in the WLM advocating widely held views regarding violence against women, the family, and reproductive rights that failed to account for
7410-740: The Yucatán Peninsula , visiting Chichén Itzá . The caravan stayed in Cozumel for several weeks at the home of a lesbian named Paloma. In Cozumel, the Van Dykes were arrested by the Mexican Police on unclear charges and held in jail for several hours. An attempt to drive to Belize was aborted and the Van Dykes returned to the United States. The Van Dykes visited womyn's land in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and New Mexico. After Judith Van Dyke met
7540-670: The demonization of men and supported a proletariat revolution that would overcome as many male–female inequalities as possible. In this way, a politic of solidarity was seen as the means to enact a socialist platform. As their movement already had the most radical demands in women's equality, most Marxist leaders, including Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai , counterposed Marxism against bourgeois feminism, rather than trying to combine them. Orthodox Marxists argue that most Marxist forerunners claimed by feminists or Marxist feminists including Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai were against capitalist forms of feminism. They agreed with
7670-640: The economic and cultural sources of women's oppression . Socialist feminism is a two-pronged theory that broadens Marxist feminism 's argument for the role of capitalism in the oppression of women and radical feminism 's theory of the role of gender and the patriarchy. Socialist feminists reject radical feminism's main claim that patriarchy is the only, or primary, source of oppression of women. Rather, Socialist feminists assert that women are oppressed due to their financial dependence on males. Women are subjects to male domination within capitalism due to an uneven balance in wealth. They see economic dependence as
7800-441: The nuclear family . Through a Marxist historical perspective, Engels analyzes the widespread social phenomena associated with female sexual morality, such as fixation on virginity and sexual purity, incrimination and violent punishment of women who commit adultery , and demands that women be submissive to their husbands. Ultimately, Engels traces these phenomena to the recent development of exclusive control of private property by
7930-466: The "informatics of domination". Feminists must, she proclaims, unite behind "an ironic dream of a common language for women in the integrated circuit". Women were no longer on the outside along a hierarchy of privileged binaries but rather deeply imbued, exploited by and complicit within networked hegemony, and had to form their politics as such. According to Haraway's manifesto, "there is nothing about being female that naturally binds women together into
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#17327874322198060-453: The #97% trend was created for women to share their stores about sexual harassment. 97% of women will experience some form of sexual harassment in their lifetime, and therefore this trend shows that women suffer immensely at the hands of men. Socialist feminist theories have been used to highlight the economic disparities amongst women on a global scale. Contemporary socialist feminists have shifted their concerns from uncompensated house labor to
8190-457: The 1970s, "significant numbers of lesbian feminists moved to rural communities." One of these lesbians, Joyce Cheney, interviewed rural feminist separatists and lesbian separatists living in intentional community , land trusts and land co-ops . The result was her book, Lesbian Land (1976). Cheney describes the reason for many of these separatists' move to lesbian land as a "spatial strategy of distancing ... from mainstream society". In
8320-401: The 1970s, the impacts of post-World War II technological development led many women to organise against issues from the toxic pollution of neighbourhoods to nuclear weapons testing on indigenous lands. This grassroots activism emerging across every continent was both intersectional and cross-cultural in its struggle to protect the conditions for reproduction of Life on Earth. Known as ecofeminism,
8450-479: The 1980s presaged the concept of intersectionality by examining the overlapping structures that produce an individual's experience of oppression. Feminist scholar and women's studies professor Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy says that this broader analysis of societal structures began with socialist feminism and served as a catalyst for feminist scholarship. Kennedy says that many of the first women's studies programs were established by socialist feminist theorists. Despite
8580-571: The Argentinian film Ni dios, ni patrón, ni marido was released which is centered on the story of anarcha-feminist Virginia Bolten and her publishing of La Voz de la Mujer . Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the social institutions of private property and capitalism to explain and criticize gender inequality and oppression. According to Marxist feminists, private property gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, political and domestic struggle between
8710-621: The Late Twentieth Century" in Socialist Review . Although most of Haraway's earlier work was focused on emphasizing the masculine bias in scientific culture, she has also contributed greatly to feminist narratives of the twentieth century. For Haraway, the Manifesto came at a critical juncture at which feminists, in order to have any real-world significance, had to acknowledge their situatedness within what she terms
8840-597: The Past and explains that "to break away from those who've been part of our survival is a leap that many women of color could never make". Socialist feminism Socialist feminism rose in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement and New Left that focuses upon the interconnectivity of the patriarchy and capitalism . However, the ways in which women's private, domestic, and public roles in society has been conceptualized, or thought about, can be traced back to Mary Wollstonecraft 's A Vindication of
8970-575: The Rights of Woman (1792) and William Thompson 's utopian socialist work in the 1800s. Ideas about overcoming the patriarchy by coming together in female groups to talk about personal problems stem from Carol Hanisch. This was done in an essay in 1969 which later coined the term 'the personal is political.' This was also the time that second wave feminism started to surface which is really when socialist feminism kicked off. Socialist feminists argue that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both
9100-742: The Sociological Imagination: How Radical Sociology Changed the Discipline . Levine goes on to describe the book as "one of the earliest statements of how a Marxist class analysis can combine with a feminist analysis of patriarchy to produce a theory of how gender and class intersect as systems of inequality". Eisenstein defines the term 'capitalist patriarchy' as "descriptive of the 'mutually reinforcing dialectical relationship between capitalist class structure and hierarchical sexual structuring." She believes: "The recognition of women as
9230-400: The United States women protested by not working or spending money to show how much influence women have. Anarcha-feminism , also called anarchist feminism and anarcho-feminism, combines anarchism with feminism . It generally views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary coercive hierarchy that should be replaced by decentralized free association . Anarcha-feminists believe that
9360-533: The West due to a common narrative that associates socialism with totalitarianism and dogma. Post-1970, the socialist feminist movement continued to grow. In "Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth & early Twentieth Centuries," by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy , social feminism is defined as "women who saw the root of sexual oppression in the existence of private property and who envisioned
9490-472: The advancement of Communist Anarchism". Its central theme was that of the multiple nature of women's oppression. An editorial asserted, "We believe that in present-day society nothing and nobody has a more wretched situation than unfortunate women." Women, they said, were doubly oppressed—by bourgeois society and by men. Its feminism can be seen from its attack on marriage and upon male power over women. Its contributors, like anarchist feminists elsewhere, developed
9620-464: The anarchist feminists deplored and sought to remedy, initially through free love and then, and more thoroughly, through social revolution." Mujeres Libres was an anarchist women's organization in Spain that aimed to empower working class women. It was founded in 1936 by Lucía Sánchez Saornil , Mercedes Comaposada and Amparo Poch y Gascón and had approximately 30,000 members. The organization
9750-525: The benefit of males and the maintenance of male privilege – this separation being initiated or maintained, at will, by women ." Cultural critic Alice Echols describes the emergence of a lesbian separatist movement as a response to homophobic sentiments expressed by feminist organizations like the National Organization for Women . Echols argues that "...the introduction of (homo)sex troubled many heterosexual feminists who had found in
9880-491: The capitalist profit-driven economy will remove the motivation for sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression. Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism was a collection of essays assembled and anthologized by Zillah R. Eisenstein in 1978. Sociologist and academic Rhonda F. Levine cites Eisenstein's work as a "superb discussion of the socialist-feminist position" in her anthology Enriching
10010-552: The claims of being a homogenizing philosophy that erases difference of identity, socialist feminism's inherent approach to difference of identities, through an analysis of economic exploitation of all, is both recognized and enhanced by Crenshaw's intersectionality. Despite the alleged presence of intersectionality in socialist feminism, many feminists, particularly women of color, critique the movement for perceived deficiencies in regards to racial equity. In Kennedy's account of socialist feminism's impact on women's studies, she says that
10140-520: The communalization of meal preparation and consumption outside the home and free women from their burden of providing meals on a house-by-house scale. Socialist feminists claim that toxic masculinity is not only damaging to men but also women and non-binary people. Toxic masculinity is the idea that men should behave in a specific way, most commonly these behaviors are strong and with hold emotion (Salam, Maya). For example, in Latinx culture toxic masculinity
10270-428: The creation of art and culture reflective of its visions of female-centered societies. An important and sustaining aspect of lesbian separatism was the building of alternative community through "creating organizations, institutions and social spaces ... women's bookstores, restaurants, publishing collectives, and softball leagues fostered a flourishing lesbian culture." During the second-wave of feminism , women created
10400-1379: The distinct struggles faced by women of color. Theorists Anna Wheeler and William Thompson , in The Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery , published in 1825, describe how women's work contributes to capitalism's continuance. They assert that cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and all other activities that are deemed domestic work do constitute as actual work. Wheeler and Thompson assert that people, or labor, are needed for capitalism to function and that without women producing children as well as fulfilling these domestic activities, capitalism would fail. Flora Tristian , French socialist activist, in her piece "Why I mention Women" published in 1843, argued that women and girls do not receive education because they are tasked with domestic duties. Girls and women, according to Tristan, thus cannot obtain gainful employment outside of
10530-419: The domestic sphere due to their neglect in their education and forced preoccupation with cleaning, cooking, and tending to children. Socialist feminists highlight how motherhood and the gendered division of labor grows "naturally" from women's role as mothers, is the source of women's exclusion from the public sphere, and creates women's economic dependence on men. They assert that there is nothing natural about
10660-501: The driving force of women's subjugation to men. Further, Socialist feminists see women's liberation as a necessary part of a larger quest for social, economic, and political justice. Socialist feminists attempted to integrate the fight for women's liberation with the struggle against other oppressive systems based on race, class, sexual orientation, or economic status. Socialist feminism draws upon many concepts found in Marxism , such as
10790-439: The early part of the decade. Other well known lesbian separatists groups include The Gutter Dykes, The Gorgons, and The Radicalesbians . In a United States context, the practice of lesbian separatism sometimes incorporates concepts related to queer nationalism and political lesbianism . Some individuals who identify as lesbian separatists are also associated with the practice of Dianic paganism . In Francophone countries,
10920-478: The exclusion of any one of these factors from one's worldview would result in an incomplete understanding of the systems of privilege and oppression they say constitute our society. Kathryn Harriss, a feminist scholar from the United Kingdom, describes what she sees as the shortcomings of the socialist feminist movement of the 1980s in the United Kingdom. Harriss describes marginalized women's grievances with
11050-577: The family. This idea of women's unpaid labor is more than simply the housework and childcare services; it's the fact that the labor housewives did was considered compulsory instead of labor. This is the type of thinking and mentality that the socialist feminism and women who want more of these In 2017, there was an international women's strike protesting the unfair treatment of women in today's society. The strike included over 50 countries and occurred on international women's day. The strikes in each country were focused on an injustice in that specific country. In
11180-769: The feminist movement and that even well-intentioned men replicate the dynamics of patriarchy . Charlotte Bunch , an early member of The Furies Collective , viewed separatism as a strategy, a "first step" period, or temporary withdrawal from mainstream activism to accomplish specific goals or enhance personal growth . In addition to advocating withdrawal from working, personal or casual relationships with men, The Furies recommended that lesbian separatists relate "only (with) women who cut their ties to male privilege" and suggest that "as long as women still benefit from heterosexuality, receive its privileges and security, they will at some point have to betray their sisters, especially Lesbian sisters who do not receive those benefits." This
11310-503: The gender hierarchy that socialist feminism aims to diminish. Another example in which exemplifies toxic masculinity is the phrase "boys will be boys". This term is usually used to justify an action of a male that is rude or inappropriate which in turn harms women because it makes exceptions for men to behavior however they please. These examples enforce the behaviors that are sexist and give a false idea to men that they are allowed to treat women however they want. Toxic masculinity has become
11440-479: The gendered division of labor and show that the expectation that women perform all or most reproductive labor , i.e. labor associated with birthing and raising children but also the cleaning, cooking, and other tasks necessary to support human life, deny women the capacity to participate fully in economic activity outside the home. In order to free themselves from the conditions of work as a mother and housekeeper, socialist feminists such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman saw
11570-740: The group Mujeres guerreras que abren caminos y esparcen flores (Oikabeth). Radical lesbianism arose in Chile in 1984 in response to national conditions resulting from the dictatorship. Costa Rica developed a radical lesbianism movement in 1986. During the 1980s and 1990s, life for lesbians in Latin America was difficult because of lesbophobic repression across the region. Consequently, the communities in Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Argentina and Brazil began working more closely together on shared goals. Lesbian and feminist separatism have inspired
11700-529: The house and in childcare. Women in capitalism are not compensated for their role in the household including housework, cooking, cleaning, childcare and the cost of carrying and delivering a child. "Contracts for husbands to pay their wives for domestic services have been found invalid by the courts. If housewives do not like the conditions of their work they are hardly free to move to another household; instead, they are tied by an elaborate legal contract which can only be broken on special grounds. Marriage is, in fact,
11830-438: The household but this is invisible as far as the market is concerned. Socialist feminist Claudia Jones worked to incorporate Black women, other working women of color, and their needs into The Communist Party in the 1930s. This is because The Communist Party tended to default to issues of the white, male proletariat. Jones theoretical background rests at the intersection of Marxism , Black Nationalism , and Feminism and she
11960-480: The institutionalization of rape and prostitution , as well as the heretic and witch-hunt trials, burnings, and torture at the center of a methodical subjugation of women and appropriation of their labor. This is tied into colonial expropriation and provides a framework for understanding the work of the International Monetary Fund , World Bank , and other proxy institutions as engaging in
12090-779: The insufficient pay women receive for work done outside the home. Although some women have secured high-paying male-dominated jobs, most find work in service, clerical, agriculture, and light industrial work. Feminist philosopher Rosemarie Tong presents three common reasons for the gender wage gap: "the concentration of women in low-paying, female-dominated jobs; the high percentage of women who work part-time rather than full-time; and outright wage discrimination against women." The gender pay gap has been produced and sustained through patriarchal and capitalist conditions. The feminization and devaluation of service-based jobs have subjected women to low wages. The lack of access women have to alternative employment which may harbor higher pay, has increased
12220-411: The late 1970s and is associated with key thinkers, such as Rosemary Hennessy , Stevi Jackson and Christine Delphy. Rosemary Hennessy traces the history of Materialist Feminism in the work of British and French feminists who preferred the term materialist feminism to Marxist feminism . In their view, Marxism had to be altered to be able to explain the sexual division of labor. Marxism was inadequate to
12350-545: The main Marxist movement that feminism was a bourgeois ideology counterposed to Marxism and against the working class. Instead of feminism, the Marxists supported the more radical political program of liberating women through socialist revolution, with a special emphasis on work among women and in materially changing their conditions after the revolution. Orthodox Marxists view the later attempt to combine Marxism and feminism as
12480-620: The male-dominated institutions. For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology (Onlywomen Press, 1988), edited by Julia Penelope and Sarah Lucia Hoagland , is a collection of writings on lesbian separatism. Notable US lesbian separatist periodicals include Common Lives/Lesbian Lives (Iowa, 1980–1996), Lesbian Connection (Michigan, 1974–present), Sinister Wisdom (California, 1976–present), Lesbian Tide (California, 1971–1980), WomanSpirit (Oregon, 1974–1984) Conditions (New York, 1976–1990), and Azalea: A Magazine by Third World Lesbians (New York, 1971–1980). Other examples are
12610-407: The material conditions under which social arrangements, including those of gender hierarchy, develop [...]. [M]aterialist feminism avoids seeing this gender hierarchy as the effect of a singular [...] patriarchy and instead gauges the web of social and psychic relations that make up a material, historical moment". She states that "materialist feminism argues that material conditions of all sorts play
12740-405: The name Lamar Van Dyke (named after Hedy Lamarr ). Chris Fox became Thorn Van Dyke. The Van Dykes shaved their heads, avoided men unless necessary, and believed that the world was being subjected to testosterone poisoning . After driving to Texas, several more women had joined the caravan: Thorn's girlfriend Judith Van Dyke, Sky Van Dyke and Birch Van Dyke. Together, six Van Dykes drove four vans to
12870-636: The need to revise their own roles." In Argentina, Virginia Bolten is responsible for the publication of a newspaper called La Voz de la Mujer ( The Woman's Voice ), which was published nine times in Rosario between 8 January 1896 and 1 January 1897, and was revived, briefly, in 1901. A similar paper with the same name was reportedly published later in Montevideo , which suggests that Bolten may also have founded and edited it after her deportation. "La Voz de la Mujer described itself as "dedicated to
13000-661: The only issue, rather one of many forms of oppression that are mutually reinforcing. In the forty years of socialism in East Germany , the German Democratic Republic (GDR), many feminist demands were implemented: Nevertheless, feminists of West Berlin remained skeptical as they lived door to door with this real socialism. Cäcilia Rentmeister , who had personal contacts to friends and relatives in East Berlin analyzed in 1974 women's situation in
13130-471: The party's literary monthly, The New Masses , and the polemic was extended with the publication of a pamphlet by A. Landy, Marxism and the Woman Question. Radical Women , a major Marxist-feminist organization, bases its theory on Marx' and Engels' analysis that the enslavement of women was the first building block of an economic system based on private property. They contend that elimination of
13260-567: The party's orthodox position by arguing that the home is a center of production and housewives carry out productive labor. Her writings include In Woman's Defense (1940) and Woman-Power (1942). Inman's work was at first warmly received by several top Communist women leaders, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Ella Reeve Bloor , but the CPUSA leadership began an official attack on Inman's work for purported ideological deviation in 1941. A series of articles written against Inman's ideas appeared in
13390-471: The patriarchs of the rising slaveowner class in the ancient mode of production, and the attendant desire to ensure that their inheritance is passed only to their own offspring: chastity and fidelity are rewarded, says Engels, because they guarantee exclusive access to the sexual and reproductive faculty of women possessed by men from the property-owning class. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both Clara Zetkin and Eleanor Marx were against
13520-426: The phrase "women of colour", suggesting it as one possible example of affinity politics. Using a term coined by theorist Chela Sandoval, Haraway writes that "oppositional consciousness" is comparable with a cyborg politics, because rather than identity it stresses how affinity comes as a result of "otherness, difference, and specificity" (p. 156). Donna Haraway is the author of A Cyborg Manifesto and it describes
13650-403: The political relevance of this movement continues to expand. Classic statements in its literature include Carolyn Merchant, US, The Death of Nature ; Maria Mies, Germany, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale ; Vandana Shiva, India, Staying Alive: Women Ecology and Development ; Ariel Salleh, Australia, Ecofeminism as Politics: nature, Marx, and the postmodern . Ecofeminism involves
13780-467: The professionalization of housework as key. This would be done by hiring professional nannies and housekeepers to take the load of domestic work away from the woman in the house. Perkins Gilman also recommended the redesign of homes in ways that would maximize their potential for creativity and leisure for women as well as men, i.e. emphasizing the need for rooms like studios and studies and eliminating kitchens and dining rooms. These changes would necessitate
13910-459: The purpose of masking conflicts of interest and maintaining domination. She and her allies saw heterosociality as well as heterosexuality as aspects of hetero-power, strongly to be resisted. Latin American radical lesbianism developed during the 1970s, and like other parts of the movement, resulted from specific national conditions. Radical lesbianism began to develop in Mexico in 1977, led by
14040-665: The range of oppressions that women experience". In 1983, anarchist Bob Black wrote: "Separatism may be absurd as a social program and riddled with inconsistencies. But semi-isolation makes it easier to indoctrinate neophytes and shut out adverse evidence and argument, an insight radical feminists share with Moonies , Hare Krishna , and other cultists". While advocating a broadly separatist policy, feminist Sonia Johnson points out that feminist separatism risks defining itself by what it separates itself from, i.e. men. Lesbian poet Jewelle Gomez refers to her intertwined history with black men and heterosexual women in her essay Out of
14170-593: The relevance of the gay rights movement to the women within it. The delegates passed a resolution in favor of women's liberation, but Del Martin felt they had not done enough, and wrote "If That's All There Is", an influential 1970 essay in which she decried gay rights organizations as sexist. The Furies formed a commune in 1971 open to lesbians only, where they put out a monthly newspaper called The Furies . The Furies consisted of twelve women, aged eighteen to twenty-eight, all feminists, all lesbians, all white, with three children among them. These activities continued into
14300-504: The same luxuries that men have in finding love not only to be stable and supported, and to also be able to make their own money and be secure on their own two feet. She focused her attention on opening up society's allowance of women's liberation from a capitalist and bourgeois control and emphasizing women's suffrage in the working-class. A pioneering Marxist and feminist, Mary Inman of the Communist Party USA challenged
14430-456: The separatist impulses of lesbian feminism which created culture and cultural artifacts as "giving love between women greater visibility" in broader culture. Faderman also believes that lesbian feminists who acted to create separatist institutions did so to "bring their ideals about integrity, nurturing the needy, self-determination and equality of labor and rewards into all aspects of institution-building and economics". Separatist lesbianism
14560-792: The sex-positive feminists Pat Califia and Gayle Rubin in San Francisco, who were affiliated with a lesbian BDSM group called Samois , the Van Dykes embraced S/M and leather culture . In 1979, the Van Dykes created the first S/M workshop at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival , which caused controversy. Lamar Van Dyke chronicled the adventures of the Van Dykes in a comic book titled "Van Dyke Comix." Lesbian separatism Author Marilyn Frye describes feminist separatism as "separation of various sorts or modes from men and from institutions, relationships, roles and activities that are male-defined, male-dominated, and operating for
14690-574: The sexes, and is the root of women's oppression in the current social context. Marxist feminism's foundation is laid by Friedrich Engels in his analysis of gender oppression in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884). He argues that a woman's subordination is not a result of her biological disposition but of social relations, and that men's efforts to achieve their demands for control of women's labor and sexual faculties have gradually solidified and become institutionalized in
14820-410: The struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle , and the anarchist struggle against the state . In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice versa. L. Susan Brown claims that "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist". Bakunin opposed patriarchy and
14950-480: The subculture being "defined in negative terms by an external, hostile culture", and membership in the community being based on "the values we believe we can enact here". Bette Tallen believes that lesbian separatism, unlike some other separatist movements, is "not about the establishment of an independent state, it is about the development of an autonomous self-identity and the creation of a strong solid lesbian community". Lesbian historian Lillian Faderman describes
15080-420: The task because of its class bias and focus on production. Feminism was also problematic due to its essentialist and idealist concept of woman. Material feminism then emerged as a positive substitute to both Marxism and feminism. Material feminism partly originated from the work of French feminists, particularly Christine Delphy. She argued that materialism is the only theory of history that views oppression as
15210-605: The term radical lesbian movement is used instead of lesbian separatism. It is roughly analogous to English-language lesbian separatism. Inspired by the writings of philosopher Monique Wittig , the movement originated in France in the early 1980s, spreading soon after to the Canadian province of Quebec . Wittig, referencing the ideas of Simone de Beauvoir , challenges concepts of biological determinism , arguing that those in power construct sex difference and race difference for
15340-529: The theoretical foundation for lesbian separatism." Echols cites Cell 16 as an example of heterosexual feminist separatism, as the group never advocated lesbianism as a political strategy. In No More Fun and Games , the organization's radical feminist periodical, members Roxanne Dunbar and Lisa Leghorn advised women to "separate from men who are not consciously working for female liberation." Instead, they advised periods of celibacy, rather than lesbian relationships, which they considered to be "nothing more than
15470-467: The theories and historical implications of Marxism as a background for her ideologies, which she addressed the most profound obstacle for society to address be that of the gender inequality, which could never be eradicated under a capitalist society. As capitalism is inherently for private profit, Kollontai's argument toward the eradication of women suffrage within society under a capitalist rule also delved into how women cannot and will not be abolished under
15600-606: The vilification of 'radical lesbian separatism'." Olivia Records was a separatist business in Los Angeles that produced women's music and concerts. Olivia Records was founded in 1973 by Jennifer Woodhul, Lee Schwing, Ginny Berson , and Helaine Harris and was originally located in Washington, D.C. Olivia Records sold nearly 2 million copies of albums with women performers and artists that were marketed to women. The record company eventually shifted from music to travel, and
15730-576: The visibility of lesbianism. Examples of this include the 1994 lesbian march in New York on the 25th anniversary of Stonewall . Another example was at the 1995 Beijing hosted World Women's Conference. A third example took place during the 1997 Amsterdam hosted Gay Games. In the United States, the movement started in 1970, when seven women (including lesbian activist Del Martin ) confronted the North Conference of Homophile Organizations about
15860-460: The wage gap. Households that cannot hire additional aid for domestic duties limit the hours women are able to work outside their homes—having to do both outside and inside labor results in the uncompensated "second shift", expanding the gap. Women's work is considered "secondary wages" under patriarchy. Even women who can work full-time and do the same jobs as men are not paid equally. Tong claims that "women are paid less simply because they are women,
15990-504: The way the law "subjects [women] to the absolute domination of the man". He argued that "[e]qual rights must belong to men and women" so that women can "become independent and be free to forge their own way of life". Bakunin foresaw the end of "the authoritarian juridical family " and "the full sexual freedom of women." Anarcha-feminism began with late 19th and early 20th century authors and theorists such as anarchist feminists Emma Goldman , Voltairine de Cleyre and Lucy Parsons . In
16120-440: The women's movement a welcome respite from sexuality." Echols considered separatism as a lesbian strategy to untie lesbianism from sex so heterosexual women in the feminist movement felt more comfortable. Cell 16 , which was founded in 1968 by Roxanne Dunbar , has been cited as the first organization to advance the concept of separatist feminism. Cultural historian Alice Echols credits Cell 16's work for "helping establishing
16250-411: Was a yearly music festival that took place every summer until 2015. Michfest was established in 1976 and was active supporter in the need for women to be separated at times from the "politics, institution, and culture of men. Michfest offered women not only the chance to 'live' feminism, but, as the quotes above testify, also acted as a way of educating women about feminist forms, in ways that can challenge
16380-456: Was an American newspaper by The Furies Collective which intended to give a voice to lesbian separatism, and ran from January 1972 until mid-1973. The early 1970s was an active period in womyn's music , a genre mostly originated and supported by lesbian separatists. Maxine Feldman 's Angry Atthis and Alix Dobkin 's Lavender Jane Loves Women were two early examples of this phenomenon. The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival , or "Michfest",
16510-441: Was based on the idea of a "double struggle" for women's liberation and social revolution and argued that the two objectives were equally important and should be pursued in parallel. In order to gain mutual support, they created networks of women anarchists. Flying day-care centres were set up in efforts to involve more women in union activities. Lucía Sánchez Saornil , was a Spanish poet, militant anarchist and feminist . She
16640-539: Was criminalized and subject to censorship and punishment. Writing in anarchist publications such as Earth and Freedom , the White Magazine and Workers' Solidarity , Lucía outlined her perspective as a feminist. In the past decades, two films have been produced about anarcha-feminism. Libertarias is a historical drama made in 1996 about the Spanish anarcha-feminist organization Mujeres Libres . In 2010,
16770-544: Was first used in 1975 by Christine Delphy . The current concept has its roots in socialist and Marxist feminism ; Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, editors of Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives , describe material feminism as the "conjuncture of several discourses— historical materialism , Marxist and radical feminism , as well as postmodernist and psychoanalytic theories of meaning and subjectivity". The term materialist feminism emerged in
16900-473: Was part of a larger idea that Bunch articulated in Learning from Lesbian Separatism (1976), that "in a male-supremacist society, heterosexuality is a political institution," and the practice of separatism is a way to escape its domination. Separatism has been considered by lesbians as both a temporary strategy and as a lifelong practice. Lambda Award winning author Elana Dykewomon has chosen separatism as
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