File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-11-22.061, message 39


Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 17:20:18 +1000
From: rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au (Rob Schaap)
Subject: M-I: War Of Scheetz Against All


Bob Scheetz wrote:  The "proletarianisation of women" , one of the themes
of capital's increasing colonization of the family, has 
been mentioned. This means something quite opposite to "liberation" I think.
Feminism, like the earlier "Christ'ning the heathen,"
does duty to euphemize this pillage and devastation.  And, as
with the "opening of the West", clearing it of indigenes
was the essential pre-condition, so is abortion for the proletarianisation of
women ... This abomination is momentous.   It fairly compells
address to even the minimally  morally sensate.

[Rob Schaap:  Although I admit I'm not sure what Bob was getting at in the
'canting feminists' post, and that I found the rhetorical style vaguely
disagreeable, I'd rather Bob didn't leave the list.  Carrol Cox (I think it
was) argued that abortion as a discussion topic should be avoided - and
>from my experience, it would take us off our threads and it would inflame
passions beyond the bounds of useful discourse.  So, okay.  But then,
having closed the subject, Carrol launched a provocative diatribe!  Bob's
stuff is undoubtedly contentious, fraught even ... but it strikes me as an
acceptable class analysis of an important issue.  And I doubt the moral
anguish of the pregnant has more to do with false consciousness than it
does with her objective material conditions.  Bits of Bob's analysis are
even redolent, if memory serves, of Engels on the family.  I can imagine
class analyses which effectively oppose Bob's position too, but that's
hardly the point.  

And I'm also inclined to think that in a socialist society, where all human
labour is seen for its true value, where parenthood has status and material
support, where parenthood does not exclude the parent from engaging in the
public domain, where the practice of parenthood is not implicitly defined
by gender - well, a lot of current, gender-specific, unfair, desperately
pressing, and often class-specific concerns would not confront the
pregnant.  If this is so, Bob has a valid point, does he not?

Rob]




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