From: "Dave Bedggood" <dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 12:19:58 +0000
Subject: Re: M-TH: Violence against women



Revolutionary greetings to the Marxism lists  from the Communist 
Workers' Group NZ. [This doesn't include Menshevik-International]. 
At a time when many millions of working class and poor peasant 
families are destitute and don't benefit from a paid holiday, and when
family violence often erupts, thanks to Rebecca for posting an 
important contribution on male violence against women.
 
I agree with much of what Rebecca writes. However, her position does 
not explain why capitalism makes most, if not all men, dominate 
women other than to divide workers and contain the revolution. That 
surely happens, but to rely upon an explanation at this level is to stay 
at the level of appearances and power relations. Or it is to invoke 
some transhistorical biological basis which Rebecca wants to avoid.
So to explain why gender relations exist,  it is necessary to look for a 
source of the oppression of women that is not a byproduct of 
wage-oppression which is, by itself,  gender neutral. 

The oppression of domestic labour originated in the patriarchal 
family which preceded capitalism, but has been taken over by capitalism 
as a source of unpaid labour in reproducing wage-labour. Capital uses 
the family as a source of "slave" labour, and uses men to help maintain 
this slave labour, often by use of violence. While this domestic 
relationship is outside capitalism, preceding it,  it is subordinated 
to the historically specific operation of capitalism, and  will not be 
eliminated until capitalism is ended and all domestic labour socialised.

This explains why capital dominates both wage-labour and domestic 
labour, and why men and women's interests are fundamentally to unite 
to overthrow capitalism. But it also explains why a source of gender
oppression  also exists under capitalism and is the source of a division
between male and female workers. It is mens' role in the reproduction 
of domestic slavery that accounts for male privilege in the wage-labour 
force where women are predominantly in the reserve army of labour, or 
feminised work derived from the domestic labour role. 

To overcome the gender division in the working class men and women 
must unite to socialise domestic labour as necessily part of the the struggle to 
end wage-labour. And towards that end, must unite to stop male violence 
women so that women can fully participate and unite on an equal basis with
men in the struggle for socialism. Crucially, this applies to the revolutionary 
party where women must be able to take a leading role alongside men.

Although I am  critical  of the degeneration of the RCP today, back in 1976
they produced a very good document on "Womens' Opression under 
Capitalism" which puts the broad position I argue above in much more detail. 
The RCP at that time was also notable for the extent to which women 
played a leading role in the party. Maybe James could get parts of that 
article scanned and posted on M-Thaxis?

Dave. 

> Below is is a tentative piece of mine on male violence against women that
> has partly
> grown out of discussion on the Marxism list on the question of male violence
> against
> women.
> Violence of male individuals against female individuals. Again this form of
> violence has
> its source in the nature of capitalist society. It can never be eliminated
> without
> eliminating capitalism. Capitalism and this form of violence  necessarily go
> together.
> Capitalist oppression is mediated or expresses itself through the violent
> oppression of
> individual women by individual men. The inverse relation, although it
> exists, is only
> marginal against the extent to which it exists in former relation.
> Does this mean that gender oppression exists in which the male gender is
> violent
> towards the female gender? No! Because some men are violent against women it
> does
> not logically follow that men are necessarily violent against women. In
> short, then,
> male violence against women is not a gendered based violence. The violence
> of  men
> against women is a specific form assumed by capitalism's violent character.
> The
> violence of working class men against working class women is one of the
> forms by
> which class violence against the working class is maintained by capitalism.
> Working
> class men who inflict violence on working class women are promoting the
> perpetuation
> of class violence against the working class as a whole and working class
> women
> specifically. Through this form of violence they are promoting a sexist
> division within
> the working class.
> This being so the violence of working class men against working class women
> is a
> specific class form by which the capitalist class maintains a violent and
> oppressive
> relation to the working class. Violence by working class men against working
> class
> women is a class issue. The struggle against violence by working class men
> to working
> class women forms an indispensable part of the class struggle against the
> capitalist
> class.
> In short the struggle against violence by men against women forms part of
> the struggle
> against the bourgeoisie. This specific struggle forms a part of the struggle
> for
> socialism.
> To attempt to conduct the struggle against male violence on a narrow gender
> basis is
> to displace the struggle and thereby defend capitalism. To attempt to reduce
> violence
> by men against women to the context of gender is to suggest that the
> violence has its
> source in gender; in a specific gender: the male gender.  If male violence
> is gender
> violence then that means that it is male gender constituted violence. This
> means the
> male gender organises and structures its violence against women. This makes
> men as a
> whole and not capitalism responsible for male violence. The source of male
> violence
> against woman begins and ends with men as a whole. Accordingly male violence
> transcends class relations and even history itself. This conveniently
> removes the real
> source of the violence, capitalism, form view. In this way feminism serves a
> useful
> (capitalist blind) bourgeois ideological and political function.
> To promote the form of the struggle along gender lines is to promote
> capitalism and
> thereby undermine the interests of working class women. The struggle against
> male
> violence against women must be conducted on a revolutionary basis if it is
> to be a real
> struggle against male violence.
> There is only one real way of conducting the struggle against male violence
> directed at
> women --the revolutionary way.
> To confine the struggle against male violence within gender constraints is
> not to
> conduct the struggle at all. By confining it to a gendered context is to
> confine the
> struggle to an abstract level that transcends history. It is to turn the
> struggle from a
> concrete class question to an abstract naturalist struggle. It is to
> emancipate the
> struggle from politics thereby suggesting that class relations play no
> significant part in
> the struggle.
> By focusing on gender difference as a difference that is common to all
> historical
> periods feminism is focusing on what is common to all periods instead of the
> relevant
> specificity under capitalism. Attention must be focused on the specific form
> oppression
> acquires under a specific society --capitalism. To concentrate on what is
> common to all
> societies is to concentrate on what is in effect natural and above history.
> This is to then
> suggest that historical movement cannot eliminate these characteristics.
> This means
> that they cannot be eliminated. If this is the case then one must just
> accept them living
> as best one can. Consequently it is a futile exercise to consider these
> issues. They are
> differences that are beyond politics. Consequently there obtains an
> irresolvable
> contradiction in a feminism that locates the source of the oppressive
> relations between
> men and women in gender.
> But the point is that they are wrong. Oppressive relations between men and
> women are
> not located in gender but in historical conditions.
> The point is that the capitalism, by its very nature, give out largesse even
> if it wanted
> to. On the other hand men can surrender largesse without it in any way
> threatening the
> system. In the former case there are objective conditions explaining the
> character of the
> struggle. In the latter case only subjectivism can be offered to explain the
> struggle.
> The Marxist perspective, on the other hand, is that social division between
> male and
> female is a product of social relations. Marxism argues that the oppression
> of women
> by men is caused by capitalist relations. Take ways these relations,
> replacing them with
> socialist relations, and harmony between men and women prevails. The source
> of the
> problem is capital not natural relations.
> Women act on nature in a socially mediated way. This means that social
> relations
> cannot be separated from the natural context. This being so one cannot
> divorce the
> natural differences in men from social relations. Since men and women work
> on nature
> in a socially mediated way then the natural differences between men and
> women must
> be rooted in the character of social relations. The natural relations
> between men and
> women assume a social form --a historicity which means it changes its
> character.
> 
> Rebecca
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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