A Critical Approach to Marx and Feminism
Dangerous Relationships: Pornography, Misogyny and Rape by Diana E. H. Russell looks at the relationship between pornography and how its growth has fuelled the conditions for misogyny and rape to flourish. The text begins by picking apart the complex nature of defining pornography, and the various ways it manifests harm, using previous case studies, feminist... Continue Reading →
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 intense ideological enforcement of material female oppression. Here, it is useful to explore periods of history where the significance of sex (as opposed to gender) is... Continue Reading →
Communists often hail the work of Alexandra Kollontai, holding her up as a decorated Marxist feminist and member of the Soviet Central Committee. In reality, Kollontai’s favour with the majority male leadership of the Soviet Union was highly dependent upon her compliance, and she spent much of her political career combatting the Communist Party’s disregard... Continue Reading →
The great significance of Friedrich Engels’s Origin of the Family, Private Property & the State is that it is one of the first Marxist analyses of development of family and origins of women’s oppression (the first was August Bebel’s Women & Socialism, 1879) — a subject in which most men were uninterested. A Short Summary... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
Street Fights of Tumblr Liberals & the Alt-Right Angela Nagle's Kill All Normies represents a break with the usual unwillingness to subject the amorphous left’s internet cultures and identity politics to the same degree of scrutiny as the right’s. Published by Zero Books, Kill All Normies uses as its title a slogan promoted on 4Chan’s... Continue Reading →
This single volume new edition of Yvonne Kapp’s biography of Eleanor Marx, first published over 40 years ago, was deservedly highly acclaimed at the time. EJ Hobsbawm praised it as “one of the few unquestionable masterpieces of 20th century biography” and Michael Foot described it as “a work of scholarship but also a work of... Continue Reading →
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 →
International Women’s Day (IWD) has become a corporate event reflecting the now mainstream ideology of 'corporate feminism'. This year its theme is #BalanceforBetter. The anonymous organisers of IWD events assert that 'balance' is not a women’s issue, it’s a business issue and thus their 'flagship events are backed by significant corporate and/or government sponsorship'. Sponsors... Continue Reading →