Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 00:20:51 -0500 (EST) From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu> Subject: Re: M-I: Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Late Capitalism On Wed, 26 Mar 1997 Braderr-AT-aol.com wrote: > Andrew: > > And what of the fathers? I assume that they, as these white women, must work > in order to survive (and not merely as some exciting new passtime found in > exploitation). Are the fathers not bourgeois men taking advantage of both > their partners/wives AND the women of color (it still remains true that > childrearing is overwhelmingly alloted to women of all classes, with only the > very wealthy being able to send their children to boarding schools or hire > nannies who are in turn mostly women)? I have a lot of opinions regarding the intersection of gender and class. I try to stay focused and answer the topic that is at hand, and my understanding of the controversy was whether there was or was not bourgeois/liberal feminism. I was agreeing with Siddharth that there was, and I gave a specific example to demonstrate the contradiction of liberal feminism and its disjuncture with class-based politics (one that was subsequently misrepresented in a strawman). That's all. I am happy to at any time expand the discussion to the role of men in exploiting women. All hierarchical structures of domination are targets of my wrath. But they must (at least they should) be linked to class. Because I am a Marxist, and because my method of analysis is class-dialectical, I tend look for that thread. This does not mean that extra-economic forms of coercion shouldn't be met at every corner. Looking for class doesn't mean ignoring everything else--another irritating strawman that Marxists very often get beat on with whenever they criticize liberals. What I object to is conflating liberal (and radical) feminism with Marxist, or even socialist feminism. Generally, only Marxist feminism is class-based. The problem is one of co-optation. The civil rights movement and the women's liberation movement have been co-opted (and even commodified) by white male capitalists because they were insufficiently class-based. In fact, they very often distance themselves from Marxists in an attempt to gain legitimacy from the dominant power structures. "We're not commies, we just want an equal opportunity to compete." That is the problem with identity and fractional politics; they play right into the divide and conquer strategy of the bourgeoisie. So don't assume because I do not list every point of domination, every point of oppression and exploitation, in every one of my posts that somehow I don't consider all these points, I do; but if we are ever going to have unity we have to, among other things (like repudiating Stalinism unequivocally) adopt the class line first and foremost. Comradely, Andy Austin --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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