Building On The Strengths Of The Socialist Feminist Tradition

Critical Sociology

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 1-15

  Ferguson, Sue ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84992828700     PISSN: 08969205     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/08969205990250010201     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. That dilemma evolved out of two main criticisms: a functionalist account of the intersection of patriarchy and capitalism; and a failure to incorporate an explanation of other (specifically racial) oppressions. For a key text of dual systems theory, see Lydia Sargent, ed., Women & Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1981). A good summary of the limits of dual systems theory is provided by Iris Young, Throwing Like a Girl and other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), especially pp. 21-35.
2. See, for example, Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, Materialist Feminisms (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1993).
3. Two important books are: Karen V. Hansen and Ilene J. Philipson, eds., Women, Class, and the Feminist Imagination: A Socialist-Feminist Reader (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990) and Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, eds., Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives (New York and London: Routledge, 1997).
4. See Johanna Brenner and Maria Ramas. “Rethinking Women's Oppression,” New Left Review 144, 1984.
5. Teresa L. Ebert, “Critiques for a Red Feminism,” in Post-ality: Marxism and Post-modernism. Spring 1995, p. 114. Ebert is engaging Barrett's book, The Politics of Truth:from Marx to Foucault (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).
6. See, for example, Linda Carty and Dionne Brand, “'Visible Minority' Women-a Creation of the Canadian State,” Resources for Feminist Research/Documentation sur la recherche feministe, 17: 3, Sept. 1988: 39-42; or Christina Gabriel and Laura MacDonald, “NAFTA and Economic Restructuring: Some Gender and Race Implications,” in Rethinking Restructuring: Gender and Change in Canada, ed. Isabella Bakker (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1996): 165-186.
7. Hansen and Philipson, Introduction to Feminist Imagination, p. 25.
8. I focus in this paper on Canadian contributors to social reproduction theory, among whom the following can be listed: Pat and Hugh Armstrong, Isabella Bakker, Patricia Connelly, Bonnie Fox, David Livingstone, Meg Luxton, Martha MacDonald, Heather Jon Maroney, Wally Seccombe and Dorothy Smith. Other important American and British contributors include Stephanie Coontz, Lise Vogel, Sheila Rowbotham and Iris Young.
9. Contributors to the domestic labor debate, whose purpose was to draw attention to the processes of reproduction in the household, are especially open to this criticism. See Wally Seccombe, “Reflections on the Domestic Labor Debate and Prospects for Marxist-Feminist Synthesis,” in The Politics of Diversity: Feminism, Marxism and Nationalism (Montreal: Book Center Inc., 1987): 190-297.
10. Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong, “Beyond Sexless Class and Classless Sex: Towards Feminist Marxism,” in Studies in Political Economy 10, Winter 1983, p. 9.
11. Stephanie Coontz offers an excellent historical account of these changes in The Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families 1600-1900 (London and New York: Verso, 1988), pp. 116-209. Market domination of the process of human reproduction is not just evident in meeting basic subsistence needs; as capitalism advances, the means of satisfying human needs for leisure time, intellectual stimulation, sport and sex are increasingly commodiied too.
12. Aspects of biological reproduction are commodiied, particularly for those who experience difficulty conceiving without technological intervention. On this see, Kathryn Russell, “A Value-Theoretic Approach to Childbirth and Reproductive Engineering,” in Science & Society 58.3, Fall 1994: 287-314. The process as a whole, however, can never be fully dominated by capital as it conflicts with one of the key conditions of capitalism, the existence of the “free” laborer (see Armstrong and Armstrong, “Beyond Sexless Class,” p. 28.
13. Armstrong and Armstrong, “Beyond Sexless Class,” p. 29.
14. Wally Seccombe and D. W. Livingstone, “'Down to Earth People': Revising a Materialist Understanding of Group Consciousness,” in Recast Dreams: Class and Gender Consciousness in Steeltown, ed. Livingstone and J. Marshall Mangan (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1996), p. 133.
15. Meg Luxton and Heather Jon Maroney, “Gender at work: Canadian Feminist Political Economy since 1988,” in Understanding Canada: Building on the New Canadian Political Economy, ed. Wallace Clement (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997), p. 97. The citations are from Carolyn Egan et al., “The Politics of Transformation: Struggles with Race, Class and Sexuality in the March 8th Coalition,” in Frank Cunningham et al, eds., Social Movements/Social Change: The Politics and Practice of Organizing (Toronto: Between the Lines and Winnipeg: Society for Socialist Studies/Societe d'etudes social-istes, 1988.): 20-47.
16. For instance, as Himani Bannerji has convincingly argued, the multi-cultural politics introduced by the Trudeau government in Canada is essentially conservative-aimed at channeling anti-racist resistance into “safe” cultural forms without class content, “On the Dark Side of the Nation: Politics of Multiculturalism and the State of “Canada",” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'etudes canadiennes 31: 3, Fall 1996: 103-128.
17. The faltering relationship between academics and activists has been an issue of concern. Interesting discussions can be found in: Jeri Dawn Wine and Janice L. Ristock, eds., Women and Social Change: Feminist Activism in Canada (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1991); and Hansen and Philipson, eds., Feminist Imagination, pp. 25-31.
18. Isabella Bakker. “The Political Economy of Gender,” in The New Canadian Political Economy, ed. Wallace Clement and Glen Williams (Kingston, Montreal and London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1989), p. 100, emphases added.
19. Seccombe, “Marxism and Demography,” p. 28.
20. Seccombe, “Marxism and Demography,” p. 44. In raising this criticism, I do not want to detract from Seccombe's unquestionable strengths. In this and other works, he develops a rich historical analysis of class and families that illustrates a real appreciation for human agency. See both: Family Forms and Modes of Production (London: Verso, 1992) and Weathering the Storm: Working-Class Families from the Industrial Revolution to the Fertility Decline (London: Verso, 1993). In suggesting his work recalls the structural functionalism of dual systems theory, I am referring to his theoretical explication of the framework in which he situates those historical actors. Seccombe's later publications do not stray from these theoretical premises.
21. Livingstone and Luxton, “Gender Consci
22. I am referring here to Bakker, ed., Rethinking Restructuring and contributions by social reproductionists to Patricia M. Evans and Gerda R. Wekerle, eds., Women and the Canadian Welfare State: Challenges and Change (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1997).
23. Himani Bannerji offers a compelling explication of this thinking in Thinking Through: Essays on Feminism, Marxism And Anti-Racism (Toronto: Women's Press, 1995).
24. Bannerji, “But Who Speaks For Us?” in Thinking Through, p. 77.