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!

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.
Much more succinct and eloquently put, but this is what I was trying say. Thank you Angel. Plus the fact that much of this unpaid labour is work men are not biologically equipped to do.

Yes, but the point is that, rather tan accommodate women's needs as mothers and carers into the workplace, capitalist economies expect women to outsource it - to formula companies, nannies and nurseries - thus women are expected to work and be mothers - the question is who looks after the children of the nannies and nursery staff. The answer is grandparents who are past working age, or those who cannot find a place in the labour market (which includes men in some cases).

Capitalism both relies on unpaid labour and monetises it where that is not possible.

KickAssAngel
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

I would agree working class women are the bottom of the pile. I would agree all women are disadvantaged compared to men of comparable social standing. However, middle class women are more privileged than lower working class men.

Well, in women there is an unpaid army of care, all of which props up capitalism.

OK, I see your point.

So why could not men look after the children instead? Why does it have to be women who do that?

..Or both men and women?

I accept that for six months women are out of the picture, and have to be supported. But from then on, what difference would it make to the capitalist system if men stayed at home with the children and women went out to work? None as far as I can see. The capitalist system needs people to perform what little labour remains in a post-industrial economy, and that could be man, woman or monkey.

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

Rather than who cares for the babies, we could look at who grows the consumers
Men can't gestation or give birth. If women stopped that society would be fucked. If the birth rate drops it's a big problem for a capitalist society. Yet women are penalised for this vital function and brainwashed to think it's not work.

If I may, this is the problem with feminism atm, and much of the left generally: It has no coherent vision. It know what it's against, but cannot agree on what kind of society it would like to replace the current one with - and when I say 'vision' I don't mean talk of nebulous abstractions like 'equality' and an 'end to the patriarchy' - but a programmatic vision of strategic goals. What would a post-patriarchal society look like? How would the economy work? Do you want a world in which everyone works part time and looks after the children equally? How would we afford that? Do you want a feminism that allows women the choice to be stay at home mums if they wish, or one that strongly compels them to go out to work? What if lots of women would rather be the primary carer, whether that's a result of their cultural conditioning or not? What are you going to do about the sex industry? What laws are needed to reform it?

It seems to me like social justice groups had specific goals - women's suffrage, or black voting rights. Now, people just march for 'Black Lives Matter' - or just have a women's march for equality without there being any specific goals - which is little different from a prayer vigil for world peace.

'mansplaining' has just become a way of shutting down a discussion hasn't it?

Rather than who cares for the babies, we could look at who grows the consumers
Men can't gestation or give birth. If women stopped that society would be fucked. If the birth rate drops it's a big problem for a capitalist society. Yet women are penalised for this vital function and brainwashed to think it's not work.

OK, fair point. So what is the solution to that? Does the state pay women a living wage during their pregnancy? I'm all for that. But does that mean we pay all other people a living wage for their labour, or just women who are pregnant?

If the birth rate drops it's a big problem for a capitalist society.

No it isn't. Quite the opposite. You think capitalism is still predicated on labour. It isn't. All these people who there aren't enough jobs for and who need subsidising with benefits are a big pain in the arse for capitalism.

QuentinSummers

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

I was hoping we were ignoring that comment.
There is another thread about feminism at the moment and posters are saying how helpful the feminist threads are and how disagreement is welcomed on them.

Or can any discussion that does not fit in with the FWR orthodoxy be shut down with cries of 'mansplaining'. Disappointing comments.

Unpaid work is not valued by capitalism.
Capitalism is working to allow poor women to gestate the babies of rich women. Capitalism wants to commodify these activities so poor people can do them and be exploited.

This thread has been hugely dominated by one poster talking about working class men, which wasn't the subject of the OP.
Clearly I can't control what people talk about on my thread but I'm disappointed not to have been able to hear what I wanted to which was really what capitalism is and whether capitalism/feminism are compatible. Instead I got treated to lengthy monologues of a particular posters ireland views on working class men. It's the epitome of mansplaining.

Quentin, you cannot intelligibly discuss the role of women within the capitalist system without making reference to the role of men as well - because all these things are apiece.

QuentinSummers

I'm sorry you don't find it interesting and engaging. I've enjoyed the discussion. Many threads change focus. I think the relative merits of feminism and it's relationship to capitalism have been covered.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's 'msnsplaining'.

It's not because I don't like it. It's because it's domination by a male poster, acting like they know better and the other posters here just aren't thinking it through (not me because I don't know much about political theory), when clearly some of the other posters are knowledgeable.

As a result it's been a very unbalanced discussion with few contributions. It's a very clear example of mansplaining.

Anyway I will leave you both to continue your conversation.

I don't know - I think it is possible that capitalism both gives women opportunities (to contribute paid labour and therefore achieve financial autonomy with all the freedoms that brings) and exploits women (by exploiting their unpaid labour and their bodies).

The problem is that capitalism exists on top of (historically speaking) sex-based hierarchies of power which are also evident in capitalist societies. So whilst capitalism itself as a market and ideological phenomenon might not care about what sex productive labour is, society does because of social and cultural norms and biological differences which precede and go beyond market ideology.

Feminism deals with all these things both caused by and going beyond capitalism

So whilst capitalism itself as a market and ideological phenomenon might not care about what sex productive labour is, society does because of social and cultural norms and biological differences which precede and go beyond market ideology.

I agree with you there; patriarchy precedes capitalism. But at the same time I don't see how a valuable feminism can possibly flourish within the neoliberal system. For example, neoliberal ideology would imply that pornography and prostitution are markets of supply meeting demand that no state has a right interfering.

I didn't get any mansplainy vibes from users posts at all, they seemed very thoughtful and open to criticism. It benefits everyone to be challenged and discuss. I watched some of the video and pretty much agreed with it.

Thank you Havalina and Moussemoose

I didn't say that a valuable feminism could thrive or even be viable in capitalism though, I am trying to work out the relationship between various forms of feminism and capitalism.

In a sense, user I think your question is - which form of political and economic organisation has, could or does feminism thrive in? I don't think I can easily answer that question, but it does not mean the aims of feminism are null and void or that it cannot be answered. Plus, feminism is a broad church, so answering that question would rely on some form of consensus about what feminism is meant.

Besides, does neoliberalism = capitalism?

Or would a social market economy also be capitalist?

In a sense, user I think your question is - which form of political and economic organisation has, could or does feminism thrive in?

Yes, thank you - you put it more succinctly than I could.

but it does not mean the aims of feminism are null and void or that it cannot be answered

I hope I did not give the impression of suggesting otherwise.

Plus, feminism is a broad church, so answering that question would rely on some form of consensus about what feminism is meant.

Yes, and - this IS going to sound mansplainy - I think feminism being a broad church is perhaps the problem. I don't say that in order to suggest I understand what it's like to be a female victim of patriarchal injustice and explain to you all what you should do, but just to make a general point - one that could apply equally to any social justice movement: and that is without consensus you achieve nothing.

Besides, does neoliberalism = capitalism?

Or would a social market economy also be capitalist?

Good point. Maybe we should drop the term capitalism, because as you suggest there are many different forms of capitalism, not all of which are bad. The problem is specifically rent based capitalism which insists on completely open markets.

We - left liberals - really need to think of a new system. Because we can't go back to either communism or the Keynesian mixed economy of the post-war era, which is what people like Corbyn and Sanders would like to do. The conditions for it just no longer exist: all our manufacturing base has gone and the economy is irrevocably globalised. What we have now is a mix of property investment, financial speculation these big tech corporations like Google hoovering up vast amounts of the world's wealth while putting very little of it back in to the real economy of jobs and infrastructure. Maybe the answer is a new form of socialism involving things like UBI; or maybe a more enlightened, socilaised form of capitalism as you suggest.

The impact this economic crisis is having on gender relations is very strange. First of all, the trans and non-binary individual has emerged as a prominent cultural subject, which is actually very much in line with the values of capitalism: a fluid subject capable of constant reinvention. Secondly, the dominant masculine identity has changed, for the worst I think. In the past, there was the husband, the patriarch, the protector, the provider, the hero. In popular culture this was represented as the ‘strong and silent’ type (think Paul Newman). This male ideal might be problematic from a feminist perspective, but it has given way to something far worse: the man child. Now men in their thirties and forties are spending all their time sat at home playing video games and looking at porn while their wives are out working. Rust Belt America is full of these kind of men apparently - deprived of their jobs of old and stewing in resentment in a perpetual adolescence. Their hero - and ultimate manchild - is Donald Trump.