Please talk to me about feminism and capitalism!

[QuentinSummers]

On the "what kind of feminist are you?" quiz that's been shared here a couple of times there are a couple of questions suggesting women can't become equal under capitalism.
Then the other day I read about non earners (who are predominantly women) having no value in a capitalist system.
I don't know about political theory but sure someone here will. Could someone explain how feminism and capitalism could or couldn't work together?
Intuitively I feel like our economic/political system does need to change to take into account the unpaid work needed to run a household/raise children/look after people in society who can't support themselves. What political systems would support this and how?
Thanks everyone!

Anything you can say about the plight of the working man goes extra for the females of each class.

No, I don't think that's true. As I've said, males of lower socioeconomic status are more likely to be out of work and homeless than women.

Socialism really isn't much better. Where there are trade unions

Unions and Socialism are not really the same thing. If the proletariat owns the means of production, there is no real need for unions.

No, I don't think that's true. As I've said, males of lower socioeconomic status are more likely to be out of work and homeless than women

It's interesting for sure but I wonder how much of that has to do with how the figures are put together and what benefits people are entitled to. I did a quick Google and found that people not included in those figures are -

*Married women looking to return to work
*People not eligible for contribution based JSA. To claim the contributions based JSA they need to have paid at least two years of NI contributions.
*Those looking for part time work and not full time work

Still the LFS (which removes those caveats but has it's own issues) also says that female unemployment is 0.2% lower than mens.

There is another issue here though. The LFS and official stats both are collating the people looking for paid work. I would argue the employment stats are a bit of a red herring when it comes to this subject. It would be more interesting to look at who has an independent income (benefits or paid employment) rather than who simply has a paid job.

You can't really use capitalism's own metric of "success" when looking at whether the system works overall.

Also in regards to your first post heavy industry was also capitalism. It didn't start with Thatcher.

There are multiple studies showing that in poorer economies, societies etc. helping women improves the condition of all of the community, but helping men only helps the men.

That's a really interesting statement. What I would like to ask is why not implement economic policies that redistribute wealth to poor women AND men? In fact, how on earth could you just re-distribute to the female poor without the male? Can you give me an example of such a hypothetical redistributive policy?

This kind of feminist/anti-racist discourse actually serves to legitimize the capitalist system, because it transfer the focus from issues of class to those of gender and race. In other words, if you're poor and a women and a member of a certain ethnic group, then you matter. Then big capitalist companies can have equality and diversity initiatives and put some more women and people of different races in the top jobs. But the implication is that if you're poor and not a woman or a member of one of these other identitarian groups, then fuck you, you don't matter. Equality and diversity actually lets capitalism off the hook, because it means it doesn't have to do anything about the core issue of structural economic inequality. All you get, at best, is a diversified elite at the top with lots of poor people still at the bottom.

I urge you to watch this, and watch the whole thing, but 35.35 is particularly relevant.

By the way, I'm not saying fighting prejudice and sexism is bad - OF COURSE it's good - but that the way these things are framed is all wrong, because they obscure structural economic equality.

Here Clara Zetkin and Lenin discuss "the Woman's Question".

www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm

It is clearly stated that equality is of most importance to our struggles. The two are intertwined, sex and class. We fight the same beast.

Nor is it a zero sum game. The goal is not to punish but to elevate all.

Is it coincidence that Tory cuts hit hardest on women?

Nor is it a zero sum game. The goal is not to punish but to elevate all.

No, the goal is to elevate poor people. Rich people are elevated enough. And you elevate poor people by taking money from rich people and giving it to the poor - by giving them all well paid jobs. It's kind of that simple. As soon as you make the argument purely about diversity, then you're taking the focus away from economic inequality - the solution to which would require rich people losing out. You can have gender diversity - and that's a good thing - but you don't want economic diversity, because another term for economic diversity is inequality.

Arghh, when I said "I urge you to watch this, and watch the whole thing, but 35.35 is particularly relevant" I forgot to post the link.

Here it is:

No, the goal is to elevate poor people

Yes. I agree with all you have written.

This is a really interesting thread with lots to think about. I am jumping in but the points which stand out to me are

• third wave feminism is neoliberal feminism, it serves the market, because it re-makes gender (sexualised femininity) as a product which consumers 'choose'

• promoting diversity is not the same as promoting equality - in fact diversity recognises difference without seeking to address the inequalities that result

• the point that capitalism prefers two income households (more money, more need for childcare and other services) and women to be divorced and working (more households needing stuff) than SAHM married is well made.

I don't think that working class men are worse off than women in capitalism; more it is a race to the bottom. But DS needs attention so I need to reflect on this later.

- third wave feminism is neoliberal feminism, it serves the market, because it re-makes gender (sexualised femininity) as a product which consumers 'choose'

- promoting diversity is not the same as promoting equality - in fact diversity recognises difference without seeking to address the inequalities that result

Well expressed. I completely agree.

"Please Talk to me about Feminism and Capitalism!"

Why?

Go to a library or check the internet. It's so 80's.

I don't think that working class men are worse off than women in capitalism

Working class men are worse off than middle class women, but working class women are still bottom of the pile.
The more I consider these issues it seems capitalism is the root cause of many equality issues. As user1498662042 has said a focus on gender and race issues let's the worst aspects of capitalism play at being reasonable while economic inequality still screws over the poor, or the 'not rich'.

However, it's not a competition and all the issues being discussed need addressing. It is not either or and a race to the bottom this plays into the hands of capitalists.

Well that turned into a mansplaining monologue didn't it?

but capitalism could, in theory, exist in a matriarchal society. This is exactly why discussions have to include intersectionality. You can't look at how a wc person is treated within capitalism without also looking at the effects of racism, homophobia, patriarchy etc etc. There's no such thing as a homogenous wc within one country.

Even discussing the intersection of capitalism & feminism is a very simplistic analysis. But, to sum it up - capitalism allows financial benefits to certain people. It rewards privilege and power. In a patriarchal society, it therefore elevates male above female.

If we wanted to discuss capitalism and race, we would conclude that white skin is more privileged and rewarded than any other color.

Could feminism and capitalism work together? Yes, in theory. If we could somehow do a mind wipe of every person on the planet, change history and make it so that we don't look at people and automatically categorize into male/female and then stereotype, pigeon hole and reward accordingly, then capitalism could be a place where everyone has equity (equal access to success, even if not everyone achieves the same success). BUT - there would have to be some very careful thought about inheritance.

Could capitalism and feminism work together in our current societies? Maybe. There are pressure groups, charities etc. If enough businesses start to accept that employing/promoting women is of financial benefit, they will start to do that. One area where this is being promoted is the Geena Davis group for women in the media.

Could capitalism and feminism work together in our current societies

But within capitalism the poor (less rich) are still being oppressed. Poor women would be (continue to be) oppressed by rich women. If you are poor and female do you care who is oppressing you, or indeed, the nature of the oppression.

Capitalism demands oppression of some groups for it to work.

User - it would not be possible for all the men to sub in for the women tomorrow. They can't breast feed, they can't take on gestation or morning sickness or any of those things. This is a nonsense argument.

Could feminism and capitalism work together? Yes, in theory. If we could somehow do a mind wipe of every person on the planet, change history and make it so that we don't look at people and automatically categorize into male/female and then stereotype, pigeon hole and reward accordingly, then capitalism could be a place where everyone has equity (equal access to success, even if not everyone achieves the same success). BUT - there would have to be some very careful thought about inheritance.

By definition, capitalism is not a place where everyone has equity. Universal equality of opportunity simply does not exist.

That said, I'm not completely and utterly opposed to capitalism in all it's forms. It's clear that completely centrally planned, soviet style economies do not work - so a private sector is needed. While total economic equality is not achievable in the real world, social justice is: that is, there should be a line below which the poorest do not fall and another line above which the richest do not rise. Capitalism is very good at generating wealth, but it is important that the state plays a role in socialising market profits.

The problem, I think, is neoliberal capitalism specifically - the idea that the state should withdraw and let the market rip.

Sure you could have a feminist, capitalist society as you define it. You could have a strata of very rich people with a 50/50 gender split and a mass of very people with a 50/50 gender split. That would be a gender equal society but it would still not be a just one.

User - it would not be possible for all the men to sub in for the women tomorrow. They can't breast feed, they can't take on gestation or morning sickness or any of those things. This is a nonsense argument.

I didn't suggest otherwise. You're making a bit of a non-argument their yourself because there isn't much we can do about those things is there? If women want to have babies they will have to experience morning sickness and breast feed. Nobody can change that.

Sorry the above should read:

"Sure you could have a feminist, capitalist society as you define it. You could have a strata of very rich people with a 50/50 gender split and a mass of very poor people with a 50/50 gender split. That would be a gender equal society but it would still not be a just one."

Err that is my point. Women have to do these things, men cannot. And in order for them to do here things there is an impact on women's availibilty to be a good capitalist wage slave consumer. Capitalism as it is set up now does not allow for these things, so capitalism would care very much if you just subbed women in to men's roles as you suggested earlier... but good come back bro.

so capitalism would care very much if you just subbed women in to men's roles as you suggested earlier... but good come back bro.

How? I don't follow.

because who would grow the babies, have the babies, feed the babies, care for kids before & after school, work at charities (including PTAs, which heavily subsidize education, thereby educating the future workforce required by capitalism), care for the infirm, sick and elderly?

You say that capitalism 'wants' to get rid of the workforce. Not really, capitalism 'wants' to get rid of paying for the workforce. Well, in women there is an unpaid army of care, all of which props up capitalism. If women jacked that in, there would have to be a HUGE economic shift to offset that.

You're being remarkably obtuse in understanding that women are treated as less privileged, under/unpaid workers who support capitalism and suffer more under it than the majority of wc men.