3. Women's liberation - Nadia de Mond
YOUTH SCHOOL 2018 - OUTLINE - THE LIBERATION OF WOMEN
PART I: A FEMINIST, MARXIST ANALYSIS OF THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN
Introduction: A new mass movement has become aware of the oppression of women
How do we explain violence against women as historical materialists?
• We refuse a naturalizing explanation
• We analyze our societies (and our identities) as historically constructed, made hierarchical by race, class and gender
A small overview of the history of Europe – with notes on other continents
Conclusion: Gender inequality is universal
What do Marx and Engels say about this? "The origin of family, private property and the state". What is interesting, is the methodological approach.
• Material context. Sexual division of labor
• Importance of social reproduction
• The role of the family
What do recent archaeological studies say about the origin of oppression?
Marxism and women's oppression today - socialist feminism
• Reserve Industrial Army
• Sexual segregation of the labor market
• Social reproduction as a challenge in the class struggle
2 updates in the context of neoliberal globalization
• Feminization of the world of work
• Reproduction crisis and globalization of the breeding chain
PART II - GENDER, SEXUALITY, INTERSECTIONALITY The current mononuclear family
• Gendering people
• The use of violence
The symbolic side of oppression. Androcentrism
The oppression of women in the public / political domain
The transversality of the struggles
intersectionality
PART III - WOMEN'S LIBERATION STRUGGLES
Late 19th - early 20th century: • Positions within the labor movement • The rise of liberal feminism in Europe • Feminism in the dominated countries
1960s-70s: The Second Feminist Wave The different currents: radical feminism, materialist feminism, differentialist feminism, socialist feminism
Recent feminist currents: • Ecofeminism • Postcolonial feminism • Queer and trans feminism • Social Reproduction feminism
Conclusions – liberation strategies
- Adrienne Rich Criticism of heterosexuality
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) - poet and radical feminist
Her first book on feminist issues was: Of Women born; Motherhood as Experience and Institution(1976)
This text is an extract from the essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence published as an essay in 1980
and republished in her book Blood, Bread and Poetry (1986).