Le capitalisme et l'oppression des femmes : pour un retour à Marx

Abstract

Critical of the ritual rejection of Marx in feminist writings which decry his alleged economic determinism and class reductionism, the author argues that feminism without Marx is inherently incapable of producing a theory of the oppression of women which aclnowledges both the capitalist conditions of possibility and persistance of gender inequality, and the capitalist structural limits to women's political emancipation. Marx's methodology, on the other hand, is useful to identify the network of marcolevel processes, connecting production and reproduction, that establish unequal opportunity structures for men and women and tie the fate of gender inequality to the fate of capitalism. Consequently, the vitality of marxism as a theoretical and political force depends on the recognition of the pivotal importance of feminist struggles. But, if feminism is to be more than the voice of relativity privileged women, it has to acknowledge the structural limits capitalism imposes to all struggles for equality which do not seek akso to transcend it.