Gender oppression and inequality has been a focus for the left. The socialist and labour movement has always been the vanguard of the struggle for equality between men and women. However, it cannot be denied that there are various views on the issue among the left.
If is the gender oppression is the result of class differentiation and, in other words, the product of a labour division precursing class society? Or is it much older?
A group of leftists, even it has roots in pre-capitalist society, it is interwoven with capitalism so that its survival depends on the survival of capitalism. There are other trends on the Left who think capitalism is neutral to gender operation.
I think, historically, gender operation dates back to pre-class society. As Marx has written in German Ideology:
With the division of labour, in which all these contradictions are implicit, and which in its turn is based on the natural division of labour in the family and the separation of society into individual families opposed to one another, is given simultaneously the distribution, and indeed the unequal distribution, both quantitative and qualitative, of labour and its products, hence property: the nucleus, the first form, of which lies in the family, where wife and children are the slaves of the husband. This latent slavery in the family, though still very crude, is the first property, but even at this early stage it corresponds perfectly to the definition of modern economists who call it the power of disposing of the labour-power of others. Division of labour and private property are, moreover, identical expressions: in the one the same thing is affirmed with reference to activity as is affirmed in the other with reference to the product of the activity.(1)
As is seen in this paragraph, Marx explicitly and clearly states that social division of labour has roots in the natural division of labour, the division that puts man in a superior position. Therefore, in spite of Heidi Hartmann, who believes Marxism is ‘sex blind’, Marx and Engels were avant garde theorists on the issue, and apparently their genuine ideas on the matter, like their other ones, must be brought up from under debris of false interpretations and polish it.
On the other hand, some writers like Lindsey German(2) simply think that patriarchy and gender domination in modern time result from just class relations, and though accept gender inequality in different form exists but it results from the capitalist class’ abstaining from providing the facilities that save women from being fulltime or part time housework. Reducing the issue to this simplistic level is also the source of other theoretical errors.
But, again, despite the theories that propound the idea that capitalism is indifferent to gender inequality, I think although capitalism theoretically reduces men of both genders into an amorphous bulk of identical wage labourers but it does not mean that capitalism does no try to take advantage of gender and race to intensify exploitation of the working class.
Therefore, I think though women’s struggle, alongside technological advancement, paves the way for women equality in capitalism but the abolition of private property will be the major blow to gender oppression. But, may gender inequality may persist even after the abolition of private property? Yes, maybe, because as Marx says its emergence predates private property.
The importance of the issue of gender oppression in Iran
If gender oppression is an important issue, it is doubly important in Iran and other countries that suffer from the survival of pre-capitalist relations and ideologies.
Gender operations is not just an important part of the working class’ democratic struggle but a major factor that explains the current politics in Iran. Preserving male chauvinism and patriarchy is part of the material interests of some old classes, including petty bourgeoisie, that idealize their superiority in the political Islam. Patriarch is the glue that stick together the classes that have partly contradictory interests. The old petty bourgeoisie, though suffers from the capital’s domination and the government’s tyranny, but back exploiters in great social clashes. This may be the secret of persisting conditions of our society in the last three decades.
1) https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm
2) http://isj.org.uk/theories-of-patriarchy/
3) http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3718
