Women’s economic dependence on men historically ensured that women married. Marriage was, and is still today, seen as aspiration for women and a way to access material wealth and secure basic sustenance. Though in the last half century due to the women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s, women’s ability to sustain themselves economically has... Continue Reading →
Sex Work Is Not Work: A Marxist Feminist Analysis of Prostitution – PART II
Part II: Can ‘sex work’ be considered ‘labour’? ‘all [commodities] are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract.’Marx, Capital Vol I Marx tells us that ‘human labour power’ is expended in the production of commodities — that ‘human labour is embodied in them’ — and that it is... Continue Reading →
Sex Work Is Not Work: A Marxist Feminist Analysis of Prostitution – PART I
Part I: Can sex be considered a commodity? ‘A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.’Marx, Capital Vol I In an attempt to move beyond the moralism that frequently surrounds the... Continue Reading →
Does Capitalism Kill Women?
Though the coronavirus pandemic continues to dominate public attention, rising rates of domestic abuse, rape and femicide suggests that women are experiencing a dangerous and deadly pandemic of our own: misogyny. However, data from the Office for National Statistics shows that while the rate of male homicide victims is on the decline, the number of... Continue Reading →
Marxist Feminism Part IV: Historical, Material Oppression
This article is part of a series. Read Part I here. Read Part II here. Read Part III here. A significant contributing factor to the current trend of conceptualising 'gender' as a standalone form of oppression is a lack of familiarity with its application throughout history as the ideological enforcement of material female oppression. Here,... Continue Reading →
Marxist Feminism Part III: Division of Labour
This article is part of a series. Read Part I here. Read Part II here. In The Origin of the Family, Engels attributes the ‘world historical defeat of the female sex’ to a single event: the overthrow of matriarchal lineage. This achieved male control over paternity and sexual reproduction — the original means of production. Through this new,... Continue Reading →
Marxist Feminism Part II: Social Reproduction
This article is part of a series. Read Part I here. Rejecting dualist and identity approaches to women's politics, Marxist feminists argue that the domestic sphere and the capitalist mode of production are not separate, autonomous systems; but that social reproduction (including the vast amount of unpaid work which takes place outside the workplace) is... Continue Reading →
Marxist Feminism Part I: Fragmented Feminism
The left is plagued by a paternalism which treats feminist issues and organising with condescension at best; at worst, with contempt. This attitude demonstrates not only the prevalence of individual prejudices towards women but, more importantly, a significant theoretical misunderstanding which fails to adequately consider the totality of the capitalist mode of production. Due to... Continue Reading →
Prostitution or Sex Work? Language Matters
The term ‘sex work’ has come to replace the word ‘prostitution’ in contemporary discussions on the subject. This is not accidental. The phrase ‘sex work’ has been adopted by liberal feminists and powerful lobbyists in a deliberate attempt to steer the narrative on prostitution. Smoke and Mirrors Superficially, the term ‘sex work’ is intended to... Continue Reading →
Claudia Jones: Communist, Anti-racist and Feminist
It is surprising that not more has been written about Claudia Jones given her stunning achievements as an activist, freedom fighter ideologist and theoretician. The fact that she is buried next to Karl Marx is an appropriate but not an adequate epitaph. The bare bones of her all too short life — she died at... Continue Reading →