We publish the translation of this text by the Ideological Commission of the Communist Party (Germany). The original text is available at this link: https://kommunistischepartei.de/diskussion/zur-frauen-und-geschlechterfrage/#sdfootnote3sym
The following contribution from the Ideological Commission of the Communist Party (Germany) is a preprint, which will soon appear in the second issue of our new theoretical journal Class Struggle & Science in printed form. Class Struggle & Science is available in all local groups of the Communist Party or can be purchased online ([email protected]). In the first issue, we published our draft of the Communist Party’s programme.
Contents
Summary
Introductory Thoughts
Part One: Sex
The Dimensions of Sex and Sexuality
Biological Sex
Sex-based Roles
Desire and Sexual Orientation
Realities Beyond the Binary?
Intersex
Trans Sex
Key Insights
Part Two: Historical Development of the Roles of the Sexes
The Women’s Question in the Light of Historical Materialism
Relations of Production and the Roles of the Sexes in Primitive Society
Beginning of Human Development
Transition to Class Societies
Relations of Production and the Roles the Sexes in Slaveholding Society and Feudalism
Relations of Production and Roles of the Sexes Capitalism
Relations of Production and Roles of the Sexes in the German Democratic Republic
Part Three: Current Situation of Women in Germany and the Mechanisms of Their Oppression
Economic Dependence
Family and Household
Sexism and Violence Against Women
Prostitution and Pornography
Economic Integration Is Not Liberation
Part Four: Critique of Feminism
On the Relationship Between Class and Sex
Clara Zetkin’s Critique of the Bourgeois Women’s Movement
Feminism and the Bourgeois Women’s Struggle
The So-Called “Marxist Feminism” of Silvia Federici
The Queer Feminism of Judith Butler
“Materialist” Queer Feminism
Part Five: Strategy for the Liberation of Women
The Path to the Liberation of Women
The Path to Socialism
Strategy Relating to the Women’s Question
Relationship Between Reform and Revolution
Proposals for Concrete Tactical Orientations
Wages and Working Conditions
Family and Household
Health and Sexuality
Our Relationship to the Challenges and Struggles of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Trans People
What Are We Fighting For? Women and Sex Under Socialism
Concluding Thoughts
Bibliography
Summary
The following text addresses the history and present of the condition of women. Its aim is to set out how the strategy for the liberation of women fits into the general strategy for the establishment of a classless society. The first part deals with sex, sex-based roles, and sexuality in order to clarify some basic concepts which are frequently improperly conflated or confused. We begin by defining our concept of biological sex based on the disposition to produce specific gametes and, therefore, the adoption of one of two complementary roles in reproduction, and distinguish from this the concept of the roles of the sexes. On this basis, we classify the phenomena of intersex and trans sex. We also address desire and sexual orientation. Here, as well as in parts four and five, we criticise false orientations, both implicitly and explicitly, particularly in the area of queer feminism. It is important to us to emphasise that this is not directed against specific individuals who understand themselves as trans or queer, as we strive for a society in which all people live free from oppression by others, and to this end we criticise views and ideas that we consider to be incorrect. We therefore establish that the female body is characterised primarily by the potential for childbirth as well as other subordinate differences in bodily structure between the sexes. However, the position of women in a society is not determined by these biological sex characteristics, but rather by the role they assume on this basis within a particular historical mode of production.
The second part presents the development of the position of the sexes in the sense of historical materialism. Starting with primitive society, we observe the changes in the mode of production and sex-based relations at the beginning of human development, in the transition to class society. In primitive society, there was no specific oppression of women, as all members of a tribe were dependent on each other and largely had to perform the same tasks in order to survive. The oppression of women arose in connection with and on the basis of class rule. The biologically based division of labour between the sexes only became entrenched with the emergence of classes, based on the progress of the productive forces, the resulting surplus, and the private ownership of the means of production and surplus product, and thus became the foundation of oppression. We trace how the condition of women changed in slaveholding society, in feudalism, and finally in capitalism, and how it differed depending on class affiliation. We examine in more detail the upheavals in the economic base during the transition to capitalist production as well as the role of the family in the oppression of the proletarian woman in early imperialism. We then briefly address the achievements in the German Democratic Republic.
The third part outlines the condition of women in Germany, addressing individual aspects of their oppression separately. It examines their economic dependence and their situation as wage workers, their circumstances in the family and household, sexism and violence against women, as well as prostitution and pornography. This analysis shows that legal equality and economic integration of the female worker under capitalism has not led to liberation, but rather that women of the working class continue to be oppressed under capitalism.
The fourth part builds upon the first three parts, summarising the insights regarding the relationship between class and sex, and laying the groundwork for a critique of feminism and the bourgeois women’s movement. As explained above, we aim to describe reality accurately, avoid misunderstandings, and create clarity. For this, it is necessary that the concepts we use accurately reflect reality. To this end, we clarify several theoretical concepts that pertain to the relationship between the sexes, which differs fundamentally from the relationship between classes. Exploitation is the economic relationship between the bourgeois class and the proletarian class. Furthermore, the proletariat is oppressed, as it suffers from diminished quality of life and life opportunities due to its class position, its access to healthy food, medicine, housing, culture, education, and other resources is limited. Oppression is the exercise of violence and power through social institutions and measures. The proletarian woman, particularly as a mother, is less integrated into the production process, receives lower wages as a female worker, and therefore has even less access to the aforementioned resources, placing her in a particular dependency especially, though not exclusively, on men. This (intensified) oppression of the female worker, resulting from the interplay of her sexual disposition with the mode of production, poses a threat to her health and life. It is the basis of prevailing prejudices, disadvantage and discrimination against women in many areas of life, as well as, in part, sex-specific violence. The bourgeois woman may also be affected by this, but her experience differs qualitatively from the oppression of the proletarian woman. On the basis of these concepts, we explain the connection between the interests of women and those of the working class and outline our critique of feminism, also drawing on Clara Zetkin’s historical and still significant critique of the bourgeois women’s movement. Using the example of so-called “Marxist feminism” by Silvia Federici and the queer feminism of Judith Butler, we concretise our critique and, with reference to so-called “materialist queer feminism,” demonstrate the incompatibility of feminism and Marxism.
The fifth part is devoted to the strategy for the liberation of women. Referring to our struggle for socialism, we discuss the relationship between reform and revolution and make several exemplary proposals for specific tactical orientations in areas such as wages and working conditions, family and household, health and sexuality. We also address our stance on the challenges and struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, and trans people. In conclusion, we offer a brief outlook on the situation of women and the position of the sexes under socialism.
We hope thereby to contribute to a clarification of the fundamental dynamics, causes, and tendencies regarding the situation of women of the working class, in order to assess their role within the overall strategy and our position with respect to current struggles that specifically affect women.
Introductory Thoughts
The question of the oppression and liberation of women is central to the workers’ movement. In order to clarify how the strategy for the liberation of women fits into the general strategy of the communists for the establishment of a classless society, we concern ourselves with the history and present of the condition of women. Only by understanding the essential causes of developments can we grasp current conditions and make predictions for the future. It is therefore about clear orientation for our practice, a reliable strategy and tactics, and the greatest possible clarity, in order to build the unity and striking power of our party on this basis.
The fact that we speak of women without using quotation marks or asterisks is no longer taken for granted, since dominant social debates are increasingly developing in a direction that calls into question the binary nature of the sexes or even biological sex itself. Before we turn to the question of women in the past, present and future, we therefore first address the issue of sex and the topics of intersex and transsexuality.
We fundamentally uphold the claim that our political strategy be based on a stable scientific foundation. For in order to change the world, we must first understand it correctly and recognise the laws by which it functions. We must comprehend the conditions under which we live, work and struggle in our theory as they actually are, and not as we would like them to be. As communists, we are interested in the truth; it is our aim to approach the dynamic and endlessly complex objective reality as closely as possible through a collective process of understanding, and to continuously test this against practice. We oppose false conceptions because they hinder theoretical clarity, which is a prerequisite for unified action and organisation. On the question of how reality actually is, there can be no neutrality or compromise, the substantive, reasoned debate must be carried out.
The class struggle also takes place in the field of philosophy and science. Dialectical and Historical Materialism, the fundamental worldview of Marxism, positions itself on the side of the liberation of the working class and the popular masses from oppression, exploitation and misery. In contrast, the defenders of class society, in bourgeois science, repeatedly attempt, deliberately or unconsciously, to falsify and distort facts. As part of the social superstructure, bourgeois science currently has a reactionary character, insofar as it stabilises the existing class society and obscures the possibility of overcoming it. Yet historically it also played a progressive role, for example by refuting the dogmas of the Church during the time of the bourgeois revolutions and producing knowledge in areas such as technology and medicine. Thus, it contributed in the past and in part still contributes today to the understanding of objective conditions, but at the same time it also places itself in the service of reactionary ruling interests, for instance by producing pseudo-scientific misogynist theories. We therefore find usable insights in existing science, but we must verify them where possible and keep in mind that not every socially recognised theory meets our standards for science. Accordingly, we do include findings from bourgeois science in this text, but wherever possible we aim to rely on Marxist theories and explanations.
Using the example of the women’s question, we demonstrate what our scientific claim means and how we counteract the division of the working class by identifying common objective interests and solutions. This text on the women’s question was developed through collective work within the Communist Party; its conclusions presuppose a party that acts in a unified way in order to become socially effective in practice. In terms of content, we aim to explain the essential causes of the condition of women and to clarify the relationship between class and sex. On this basis, we present our critique of feminism and justify our own strategy and tactics.
We strive to approach the truth and to present our process of understanding in a way that is as transparent and clear as possible. Naturally, we are not infallible, and therefore we call for criticism of our position on a scientific, argumentative basis.
Part One: Sex
The Dimensions of Sex and Sexuality
In the debate around Sex and Sexuality, different levels are often improperly conflated or confused. For this reason, we consider it sensible to first separate these conceptually in order to then clearly determine their relationship to one another. The levels of biological sex, sex-based roles, as well as sexual orientation and desire, play different roles with regard to exploitation, oppression, and discrimination, and therefore require different approaches.
Biological Sex
In the animal and plant kingdoms, there are various forms of reproduction, and not all are based on sexual reproduction. From an evolutionary perspective, however, sexual reproduction has proven advantageous in many respects, as the recombination of genes that takes place through it supports evolutionary adaptation to the respective demands of external conditions. Most species that reproduce sexually share the feature that one group is geared towards producing large gametes (e.g. egg cells) and another group towards producing small gametes (e.g. sperm cells). Fertilisation then occurs when large and small gametes unite to form a zygote, from which, through cell division, an organism develops. This new specimen of the species is genetically composed half from the large gamete and half from the small one.
Biological sex is the category used to describe the biological division of labour in sexual reproduction. Different species have developed varying features (genetic coding, hormonal systems, sex organs) that enable them to produce either large or small gametes. In humans, the development of biological sex is determined in particular by the 23rd pair of chromosomes (XX or XY), but also by other genes. This genetic coding influences the hormonal system, which or rather, its processing in the body via receptors, is relevant, among other things, for the development of internal and external sex organs.[1]
Sex refers to the biological disposition of a body to take on a particular role in sexual reproduction, and not to the actual capabilities of an organism, as the latter can also be limited independently of disposition, for example by illness. This classification explains how males and females can be categorised in the animal kingdom (including Homo sapiens). In the debate, the English term “sex” is often used to refer to biological sex. Most people can be assigned either male or female sex; for exceptions, see the section on intersex. Of course, there is a certain degree of variation in the development of sex organs, but this diversity of appearances does not call into question the, in most cases, clearly possible classification into one of two sexes, nor does it render biological sex a spectrum. In everyday life, we use outwardly visible differences, which are often related to sex but not essential for its determination, such as height, musculature, body fat, voice pitch and hair growth, to infer an individual’s sex. This classification by physical characteristics – and, where applicable, also by culturally specific markers such as clothing – usually succeeds and is also, in principle, necessary for reproduction. Errors can occur in this process, since these are only indicators of sex, but this too does not call into question biological binarity. Some animals, for example, fish like the clownfish, can switch from producing small gametes to producing large ones depending on external conditions. However, in the vast majority of animal species, their sexual classification is a disposition fixed at fertilisation and unchangeable over the course of life.
Depending on the species, biological sex can be associated with further characteristics. For example, among all mammals (with the exception of certain bat species), only the producer of large gametes, the female, is capable of lactation. Other tasks are not always bound to the same biological sex, such as brooding and caring for young in birds. In humans, biological sex is associated with physical differences. These relate to statistically significant differences in height, weight, hormone levels, body fat and muscle mass, and some other aspects that affect, for example, average physical strength as well as sensitivity to certain medications. But caution is needed here, as the differing social status of the sexes has often led to misjudgements. For instance, human female brains are smaller than male brains, which was once interpreted as an indication of male superiority. More recent studies refute this interpretation and, if anything, only identify weak direct correlations between behavioural patterns and differences in sex-specific brain structures.[2] It is important to stress that sex initially refers only to the body’s disposition to produce different types of gametes. At this point, Simone de Beauvoir rightly asks: “And what particular kind of female is the woman?”[3] The terms woman and man refer to more than just the classification into a biological sex; they are imbued with social ideas and expectations.
The Roles of the Sexes
Women and men are not simply human males and females; rather, this biological reality is complemented and partly overlaid by social norms, ideas and expectations. These sex-based roles, unlike biological sex, are considerably more flexible and, in the case of human beings, essentially historically determined. Sex-based roles reflect biological reality only to a very limited extent and primarily mirror social conditions. What is particularly worthwhile is the study of this complex relationship. The biological aspects of sex-based roles have increasingly receded into the background with the development of the productive forces: the development and production of formula milk enables all people to feed infants, and tasks that require significant strength have been and are increasingly carried out by machines, or at least by making use of mechanical advantages such as leverage. Nevertheless, the biological division of labour in reproduction, that only female organisms have the ability to become pregnant and give birth, still affects sex-based roles today, depending on its social significance.
Sex-based roles are diverse and can vary considerably depending on class affiliation, but also according to age and marital status. They have developed and changed over thousands of years in connection with the relations of production, and are passed on, consciously and unconsciously, instilled and imposed through upbringing.[4] Sex-based roles structure the social division of labour between the sexes; they define what men or women are deemed capable of and expected to do in a given society. In class society, sex-based roles always represent a relationship of violence and force individuals into a particular role.[5] Breaking out of this role is punished legally in some cases, but more frequently socially. Children are raised differently depending on their sex, different actions are judged, criticised or praised differently, and adults too are treated differently depending on their sex. Sex-based roles are often enforced through physical violence by guardians or others in their environment. The costs of this unequal treatment are borne primarily by girls and women, but boys and men also experience rejection and other sanctions when they do not conform to the role assigned to them by society. Sex-based roles are expressed in statistically demonstrable differences in behaviour. For example, men are responsible for 87 per cent of all murders and 99 per cent of all rapes.[6]
The term “sex-based role” is intended to emphasise that this concerns the attribution of roles to members of a particular sex, and not a separate sex that exists alongside biological sex as a replacement or alternative. For this reason, we do not use the term “social sex”, which is unclear in this regard, nor the term “gender”, which is laden with multiple meanings in the discourse (including attribution, identity, psychosocial sex). We also do not use the term “gender identity”, as this introduces further confusion into the discussion. It is important to examine how identification with one’s own sex is expressed, and how this reinforces or questions elements of socially imposed sex-based roles. Only in this sense can it be meaningful to speak of “gender identity”, since affiliation with a sex is not determined by identity in the sense of self-attribution, but primarily by biological-material reality.
We have presented our understanding of sex with reference to the biological disposition of a body, from which it follows that most people can be assigned either the male or the female sex. The notion of additional sexes or a sex spectrum obscures the real connection between sex and class society. As a consequence, it prevents a clear understanding of the oppression of women in capitalist society and of the necessary orientation in the struggle against this oppression. Part Four examines these ideas in more detail.
Desire and Sexual Orientation
Sexual reproduction is based on sexual interaction between individual members of each respective sex. In order to motivate this interaction, sexual desire has prevailed through evolution. However, this does not mean that desire can only find expression in the context of reproduction. There are also sexual acts between individuals of the same sex, for example, in almost every animal species, and the desire for same-sex sexual acts has also been a frequent phenomenon in human beings throughout all recorded history. Sexual orientation does not directly affect other character traits, strengths or weaknesses and should therefore play no role when it comes to taking on social responsibilities.
Evolutionary development is, however, only the biological foundation upon which the complex phenomenon of human desire has developed. Human desire, which includes a romantic dimension, is deeply shaped by ideology and social conventions, for example, ideals of beauty, heteronormativity, or the problematic relationship between power and sexuality. In general, the following applies: there is not only one correct way to experience sexuality, but nevertheless we consider it important not to automatically regard every desire and every consensual sexual practice between adults as unproblematic. If an individual is aroused by exercising violence or by degrading others in general, it is essential to reflect on what notions of power and sexuality are being expressed, rather than accepting them uncritically.
The influence of social conditions on sexual practices is also evident in the issue of consent. Women are more likely to disregard their actual needs and give their consent. Economic dependence on a man can be one factor. Moreover, due to the role of their sex, women are more strongly conditioned than men to agree to sex they do not actually want.[7]
In regard to desire and sexual orientation, it is a relatively recent development that this too has become a basis for personal identity. Same-sex sexual relationships have existed throughout all documented human history, and probably also in prehistory. However, the idea of homosexuality as an identity only emerged with the constitution of the gay and lesbian movements as political subjects.
Realities Beyond the Binary?
With the rise of queer feminism, and in particular with the publication of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1991), the notion has spread that not only the oppression of women but the very idea of a sexual dualism ought fundamentally to be questioned.[8] In the context of this discussion, various phenomena are repeatedly cited that point to lived realities beyond the male–female binary. We will now examine two frequently mentioned phenomena.
Intersex
Intersex refers to a spectrum of variations in the development of sex organs and other related physical characteristics, whereby a small number of affected individuals cannot be clearly classified as female or male.[9] These variations can have different causes, for example, trisomy of the sex chromosomes, that is, the presence of three sex chromosomes, or an immunity to testosterone or oestrogen, which leads to the development of sex organs that do not correspond to the existing chromosome pair, often accompanied by infertility.[10] Most intersex people only learn about their biological variations while seeking the cause of reduced or absent fertility. Only a fraction of intersex individuals develop noticeably atypical sex organs.[11]
Intersex does not call the binarity of biological sex into question: there can always be complex variations between two categories, but these do not necessarily negate the categories themselves. As outlined above, biological sex cannot be understood without reference to sexual reproduction. Genetic variations in individuals exclude some from sexual reproduction, but they do not occupy an additional third role within it. Sex describes the role in sexual reproduction, which does not mean that every individual must belong to one of these sexes.[12]
However, this biological classification must be supplemented by a social classification. The aforementioned violent enforcement of sex-based roles can exert immense pressure on intersex people in particular and trigger psychological crises. We must respond to this phenomenon by fighting for a society in which those affected are not subject to additional discrimination. Another point of controversy concerns the treatment of newborns with ambiguously developed sex organs. In many cases, surgery was carried out shortly after birth to surgically adjust the sex organs to the female or male norm, a risky intervention with consequences for the entire socialisation of a child too young to be able to participate in the decision. Since 2021, surgery on intersex children in Germany who are not capable of giving consent is generally prohibited. We must take seriously the suffering of people who have undergone such operations.
Trans Sex
Trans sex refers to a discrepancy between biological sex and one’s own sense of self, as well as the associated desire to live as and be accepted as a person of the experienced sex, sometimes through hormone therapy, surgical procedures, or other healthcare services to align the body as much as possible and as desired with the experienced sex. Trans sex identity is not a diagnosis in the ICD-11. The ICD-11 classification no longer defines sex incongruence as a mental illness, but as a health condition involving a perception of sex that differs from one’s biological sex.[13] Sex-variant behaviours and preferences alone are not grounds for assigning this diagnosis. The definition of trans sex is disputed among those affected, activists, and experts. We currently consider the understanding presented here, in the sense of sex incongruence, to be the most accurate and useful.
More research is needed into the causes and development of this incongruence. There is evidence that, alongside psychological and social factors, biological factors also play a role. It must be examined to what extent societal pressure to conform to existing sex-based roles can intensify or even trigger this incongruence. Statistical anomalies should also be taken into account in further research, for example, that transitions from female to male have only slowly begun to approach the frequency of transitions from male to female, and that the former on average begin at a younger age.[14]
Regardless of the causes, we must take a political stance on the phenomenon of trans sex. As has been practised in Cuba for decades, we must take seriously the suffering that can accompany experienced sex incongruence and advocate for medical and psychological support that is patient-centred and scientifically grounded. Transition through hormones or cosmetic surgery must be free and safe for those affected, as a means of reducing suffering, but it must also be well considered. It is a major intervention into the body, but depending on the study, the proportion of trans people whose distress has been alleviated by transition lies between 80% and 97%.[15] A transition is not always fully reversible, and fertility cannot be restored beyond a certain stage of transition. Therefore, clear guidelines must be established for what measures to initiate or carry out during childhood and adolescence, taking this into account. Even if there can already be positive reforms under capitalism, above all better physical and psychological medical care, an economy driven solely by profit necessarily stands in the way of a reasonable approach.
We must not oversimplify the phenomenon of transsexuality. Sex is a biological reality, and sex-based roles are a social reality. According to the definition of sex as the disposition to produce small or large gametes, this cannot be changed by a transition (through the use of hormones or cosmetic and surgical alteration of external sex characteristics). A trans woman is generally socialised as male, and a trans man is generally socialised as female, with the advantages and disadvantages such socialisation entails. Trans sex is not merely a matter of self-identification; the necessity of medical measures such as a transition must be professionally determined on the basis of criteria that are constantly reviewed. Such assessments are often rejected by trans activists as stigmatising and (re)traumatising. It is necessary to carefully examine which criteria are reasonable and which are based on discriminatory assumptions. Trans people are disproportionately often victims of violence and continue to suffer from societal discrimination. This is also a consequence of entrenched sex-based roles, which constrain behaviour and appearance according to biological sex and sanction deviation. Discrimination also frequently results in real economic disadvantage for trans people, who often find it difficult to secure employment and are therefore more frequently affected by poverty. The struggle against reactionary sex-based roles is therefore also a struggle in the interest of trans people.
Trans sex people also exist, of course, within the working class and among the poor, just as homosexuality exists, for example. What matters to us as the party of the working class is that we view these issues from a class perspective: trans sex members of the working class are our class brothers and sisters just like everyone else, and we aim to engage in the class struggle together with them for the shared liberation of the class.
For these reasons, we oppose the discrimination of trans people. We respect the decision to transition and also respect it when trans people wish to be addressed by different names and pronouns. However, scientific investigation and discussion of the definition, significance, and handling of the phenomenon of trans sex must not be suppressed by accusations of transphobia, we must firmly oppose supposed solutions from both queer-feminist and genuinely transphobic sides.
Discrimination against trans people can take many different forms. On the one hand, they are discriminated against solely on the basis of their trans sex, but trans women in particular can also be affected by discrimination against women, insofar as others perceive them as women. Nevertheless, it is worth making a distinction here, because the disadvantage of women includes a physical aspect that cannot be denied. Car seats are designed to fit the average male body, medications are often overdosed for women, and studies into how medication effects vary across menstrual cycle phases are neglected. Due to the social disadvantage of women, they are thus exposed to health risks that trans women are not, though trans men may be. The latter are also affected by other health risks, as, for example, the impact of transition on how medications work is rarely studied.
In social movements and other contexts, a variety of terms have emerged to express identities beyond the binary of sex. One relatively widespread term in English- and German-speaking contexts is nonbinary, non-binary, or nichtbinär. We see a need to critically engage with the concept of nonbinarity, the various ways it is used, and its relation to being trans sex. We do not identify with the (queer) feminist uses of the term known to us.
Key Insights
The women and men in our society are not simply human males and females, the sex-based roles we are concerned with here are social phenomena, shaped historically, and they restrict the full realisation of people’s potential in their development into revolutionary, socialist personalities. We must push back against this limitation of our development and, for that reason too, advocate for the full legal, economic and social equality of women.
Wherever discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex and trans people represents an obstacle to the class struggle and to preparing the working class as a whole for revolution, we must work to overcome it. To do so, we must combat all attempts to divide the class. Division is attempted on the basis of sex, sex-based roles and sexual orientation, and on all of these fronts we must reject it.
Our medium-term goal is therefore to enable all comrades to develop in the best possible way and to produce both male and female role models for our class. Under socialism, we must, on the basis of technological development, drive forward cultural development in a direction that assigns less and less significance to sex, so that sex-based roles beyond what is biologically necessary may wither away.
Part Two: Historical Development of the Position of the Sexes
The Women’s Question in Light of Historical Materialism
The condition, or more precisely, the oppression of women as part of our social relations can, like any phenomenon, only be explained through a comprehensive, dialectical-materialist examination of the relations of production in a given epoch. Accordingly, we base our approach, following Marx and Lenin, on the philosophical foundation of dialectical and historical materialism.[16] Its most important insights are that, firstly, there are social laws, secondly, these can be understood, and thirdly, they are tied to specific social formations and thus do not apply timelessly. A review, extensively and approvingly quoted by Marx, describes his position as follows:
“[One will] say, the general laws of economic life are the same everywhere; it doesn’t matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. That is precisely what Marx denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist […] In his view, every historical period has its own laws […] As soon as life has outgrown a given stage of development, and moves from one stage into another, it also begins to be governed by other laws.” [17]
With materialist-dialectical philosophy, we examine the condition of the sexes on the basis of material conditions, and not as the expression of eternal ideals or essential qualities that exist independently of the relations of production. Marx, for example, calls it “absurd” to regard a particular “form of the family as absolute.”[18] As with all other social phenomena, there are only historically specific forms of family relations: “It is not at all a matter of speaking of ‘the’ family.”[19]
Zetkin further concretises what this means for the analysis of the condition of women, she refutes the idealist ideas, still circulating today, of “eternal femininity” and unchangeable characteristics “of woman”, supposedly entirely independent of the prevailing relations of production:
“The position of women […] is a consequence of the social conditions, based on the relations of production, of a given time. These conditions, which in various historical periods assign to women a certain position out of economic necessity, in turn give rise to particular ideas about the social role of the female sex, ideas which simply serve the purpose of glossing over the actually existing state of affairs, presenting it as eternally necessary, and maintaining it to the benefit of those who profit from the prevailing conditions.” [20]
To explain the material foundations of the oppression of women, we therefore examine, following the methods of dialectical materialism, the development of the relations of production from the beginning of human history up to the present epoch of imperialism. In doing so, we fundamentally rely on the approach and theses developed by Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884).
Engels applied the Marxist method to existing archaeological, anthropological, and historical findings. On this basis, he developed his views on how and why the oppression of women arose, and consequently how women could be liberated. Central to this is the transition from primitive communism[21] to the development of class society. While in primitive communism all means of production were collective property and production was carried out jointly for the immediate reproduction of life, without generating any noteworthy surplus product, the increasing development of the means of production created the possibility of producing surplus product, and, on that basis, class society. This is characterised by the progressive transition of the means of production from collective to individual ownership. The emergence of classes and the oppression of women are inseparable:
“The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression with that of the female sex by the male.” [22]
Engels’ argumentation was based on archaeological finds and interpretations which have been partly revised by modern research; however, the central claims of his work have been confirmed, and his fundamental theses therefore remain valid.[23] It should be borne in mind that archaeological research and related disciplines are interpretative in nature. In addition, the limitations that particularly affect bourgeois humanities and social sciences must be noted: the interpretation of archaeological finds that are many thousands of years old is prone to error and shaped by bourgeois ideology, which results in contemporary conditions being perceived as natural and unchangeable and then projected onto all of history.[24] For example, grave goods such as scrapers or knives can be interpreted either as domestic or as hunting tools. In some cases, individuals found with hunting weapons or certain skeletons have been prematurely classified as male.[25]
Alongside the evaluation of archaeological data, Engels’ second methodological step was to examine Indigenous peoples living during his own time. This research approach is also used by modern archaeologists to draw conclusions about the social conditions at the beginning of human history.[26] Clearly, however, this too is an approach that must involve interpretation.
From Engels’ investigations it can be concluded that the material basis of the oppression of women lies in the social role that her body takes on within a particular social formation. The female body is characterised primarily by the potential for childbearing and other subordinate differences in the physical constitution of the sexes. The position of women in a society is therefore not determined by these physical differences and the potential for childbearing, but rather by the role these necessary functions of women assume on the basis of the material conditions of the given social formation. This is also confirmed by Kollontai in her lectures on the condition of women:
“No, the rightless and dependent position of women and the lack of equality cannot be explained by any ‘natural’ characteristics, but rather by the character of the work assigned to her in a particular society.” [27]
Relations of Production and the Position of the Sexes in Primitive Society
Beginning of Human Development
The society at the beginning of human development (around two million years ago[28]) was primarily characterised by the fact that initially no, and then only very primitive, tools were available. Without developed means of production, humans had to live as simple hunters and gatherers: no more food or other goods could be produced than was necessary for the survival of the group, meaning there was no surplus product, and every day was dominated by the bare struggle for survival. This essentially remained the case until the beginning of the Neolithic period around 10,000 BC[29]. For the survival of the group, therefore, the participation of all in the necessary work was required. Everyone had to contribute to food procurement according to their abilities. Even with developing tools (initially shaped stones, later the hand axe), hunting larger animals could only be managed collectively. No one could permanently take a special role or devote themselves to activities not directly related to survival, otherwise, survival would no longer have been guaranteed. Thus, there was no exploitation, as the means of production were collectively applied and owned, nor was there pronounced oppression within the society[30]. As Engels put it, there was accordingly no commodity production and corresponding alienation:
“The production of all previous stages of society was essentially communal, as was consumption under the direct distribution of products within larger or smaller communist communities. This communal production took place within the closest limits; but it carried with it the control of the producers over their production process and their product. They know what becomes of the product: they consume it, it does not leave their hands; and as long as production is carried out on this basis, it cannot grow beyond the producers, cannot produce ghostly foreign powers over them, as is regularly and inevitably the case in civilisation.” [31]
As mentioned, later research confirms the essential aspects of Engels’ findings: there were thousands of clan-based groups on the basis of collective land ownership in pre-state times, in which no exploitation took place[32]. Today, only a few examples of groups with rankings and ownership differences before the introduction of private property are known[33].
From the collective organisation of tribes during primitive communism, one can conclude regarding the status of women that women were not dependent on individual male providers. Instead, society was divided into related groups organised as collectives. Because sex was with multiple partners, the father was usually unknown, and only descent through the mother was reliably traceable[34]. From this followed that kinship was generally determined through the maternal line (matrilineal)[35]. However, children were not assigned as firmly to their parents (or mother) as today; instead, their upbringing and education tended to be the responsibility of the entire clan, as Engels describes:
“The study of prehistory shows us conditions where men live in polygyny and their wives simultaneously in polyandry, and the common children are therefore considered as belonging to all of them; conditions which undergo a number of changes themselves before their eventual dissolution into monogamy.” [36]
Against a very strict division of labour based on sex studies showing “that the division of labour both within the tribe and between tribes was very variable and more flexible than commonly assumed … [the] division of labour occasionally followed, among other things, age, skills, and experience, and not only sex.” [37] Women especially took on tasks compatible with pregnancy or breastfeeding[38]. Outside these short periods, modern research shows that in most tribes women also hunted and in some tribes women were even large-game hunters[39]. Thus, one can speak of a focus and division of labour between the sexes, but not in as strong a sense as applies to the later period of domestication and breeding of animals as well as agriculture. As a consequence of this tendential division of labour, women of the tribe, with the development of society towards the Neolithic and sedentism, stayed more at the camp than men.
Transition to Class Societies
Only through the so-called Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC, when humans worldwide slowly became sedentary and began practising agriculture and animal husbandry, did a pronounced division of labour develop.[40] At that time, worldwide upheavals of human economy, that is the productive forces, were triggered over millennia by the Ice Age.[41] After the end of the last Ice Age, the reforestation of Europe began, changing living conditions. Migrating large game disappeared, forcing humans to rely on stationary game and fishing. Over time, through the development of tools, the gradual domestication of plants and animals emerged, initially in the form of shifting cultivation and fishing, later in the form of sedentariness and agriculture.[42] Compared with the lifestyle of hunters and gatherers in primitive communism, this enabled ten to a hundred times more people to be fed in the same area.[43] However, this development did not proceed at the same pace everywhere.[44] It has been proven that even after 10,000 BC, fields were still cultivated collectively in many areas; there were settlements with several thousand people whose architecture suggests an egalitarian system.[45] By around 6000 BC, agricultural lifestyles had developed in parts of the American continent, Africa, Northwest Europe, India, and the Caucasus. The original way of life was either displaced by invading tribes or had evolved due to changing climatic conditions and the development of appropriate means of production.[46] Engels observes about this period:
“But into this production process the division of labour gradually inserts itself. It undermines the commonality of production and appropriation, raises appropriation by individuals to the prevailing rule, and thereby produces exchange between individuals—as we have examined above. Gradually, commodity production becomes the dominant form.“ [47]
The slowly emerging and growing surplus product was still collectively managed at the beginning of this development. One consequence of the surplus was exponential population growth from around 2 million in 10,000 BC, to about 18 million in 5000 BC, and roughly 115 million in 1000 BC.[48] Sedentariness combined with the emergence of surplus product also allowed for the storage of food surpluses. Better nutrition and a more secure living situation increased fertility and reduced infant mortality. More frequent pregnancies were possible and even desired, as this provided more labour to generate even greater surplus product.[49] As a result, women had to spend more time than before with pregnancy and breastfeeding—that is, staying in the settlement.
These developments led to a more pronounced division of labour. Because of the surplus, a part of society could for the first time undertake tasks not directly related to food procurement and survival, enabling the formation of classes: for the first time in human history, developed means of production were in private hands, allowing exploitation of others. Food and means of production had to be managed and their use planned, leading to the emergence of different classes. Raids, conquest of foreign stores and lands, as well as enslavement, were further consequences.[50] Until the emergence of surplus product, it was common in conflicts between tribes to kill prisoners of war immediately or integrate them directly into the tribe, as there could be no roles such as slaveholders.[51] However, additional labour became desirable, as the new means of production enabled greater efficiency in producing goods. As Engels describes:
“The increase in production in all branches—animal husbandry, agriculture, domestic crafts—gave human labour the ability to produce a greater product than necessary for its maintenance. It simultaneously increased the daily workload for every member of the gens, the household community, or the nuclear family. The introduction of new labour became desirable. War provided it: prisoners of war were transformed into slaves. The first great social division of labour, with its increase in labour productivity and extension of the production field, under the given historical conditions, necessarily brought slavery in its wake. From the first great social division of labour arose the first great division of society into two classes: masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited.“ [52]
Thus, the actual responsibilities of the sexual division of labour did not fundamentally change but were consolidated and reinforced as the organisation of society changed. Various crafts developed and separated from agriculture; commodity production and trade over larger regions emerged.[53] Engels emphasises in explaining this shift especially the emerging trade under the responsibility of men and the domestication of livestock as the basis of the surplus product:
“The acquisition had always been the man’s affair, the means of acquisition [were] produced by him and [were] his property. The herds were the new means of acquisition, their initial taming and later maintenance of his work. Therefore, the livestock belonged to him, as did the goods and slaves exchanged for livestock. All the surplus that acquisition now provided fell to the man; the woman shared in it, but she had no part in the ownership. […] The division of labour within the family had regulated the distribution of property between man and woman; it had remained the same; and yet it now turned the previous domestic relationship upside down, solely because the division of labour outside the family had changed. The same cause that had secured the woman’s former authority in the household: her confinement to housework, now secured the man’s authority in the household: the woman’s housework now disappeared beside the man’s productive work; the latter was everything, the former an insignificant addition.” [54]
Kollontai also emphasises that here we are dealing less with a change in the actual tasks than with a change in their significance for society, or rather for their economic foundation:
“Private property would not necessarily have led to the enslavement of women if their previous role as the main responsible party for the tribe’s sustenance had not already been lost beforehand. But private property and the division of society into classes shaped and controlled economic development so that the woman’s role in production was practically reduced to zero. The oppression of women is connected to a division of labour between the sexes, in which productive work was the man’s task, while the woman took on secondary tasks. The more perfect this division of labour became, the more dependent the woman became, until finally her serfdom was a fact.” [55]
Modern research confirms this view:
“It is in the interest of the entire society that women do not engage in activities (such as warfare, long-distance travel, or later heavy agricultural work) that expose them to the greatest risks of death, infertility or miscarriage, or that endanger infants dependent on mother’s milk. The role of women thus gradually changes after they were central to production and reproduction in hunter-gatherer and early horticultural societies. Over time, they are excluded from some aspects of production. Anthropologist Ernestine Friedl found evidence that in horticultural societies, where men travel long distances for trade and are involved in wars, their status increases relative to that of women.” [56]
With the development of means of production such as the plough and the division of labour between the sexes, the collective organisation of society increasingly reached its limits. Thus, the question arose regarding the ownership and inheritance of the means of production and stored wealth. Private ownership of the means of production developed, along with smaller units within the tribes that managed this private property. The patriarchal family,[57] which is attributable to the more important position of the man in production, and along with it the patrilineal inheritance,[58] emerged:
“Such wealth, once it had passed into the private ownership of families and quickly increased there, gave a powerful impulse to the society founded on pair marriage and matrilineal gens. Pair marriage had introduced a new element into the family. […] According to the division of labour in the family at that time, the man was responsible for procuring food and the necessary tools for this, and thus also the ownership of the latter; he took them with him in the event of divorce, just as the woman retained her household goods. According to the custom of that society, therefore, the man was also the owner of the new source of food, the livestock, and later the new means of production, the slaves.” [59]
As Kollontai further explains, the
“most important consequence of private property was that the individual household broke away from the previous unified and communal economy of the tribe. The existence of such independent households reinforced an increasingly closed family form. Within this isolated, individual family economy, an additional division of labour took place. All productive outdoor work was performed by male family members, while it was the woman’s fate to stand by the hearth. Private property, which made the family household possible, thus contributed to the enslavement of women through limited and unproductive housework. From a national economic perspective, women’s work lost importance, and the notion of woman as a worthless creature and appendage to the producer of new values, the man, prevailed.” [60]
The emergence of the patriarchal family thus further intensified the loss of significance of the female role in society at that time: Her work related to the camp or the domestic sphere was no longer the basis for the survival of the collective but only of her own small reproductive unit. The displacement of women into the private sphere thus took place.
From the economic development that led to the formation and consolidation of classes, further changes arose in the superstructure of societies. They served to protect the wealth of the ruling classes and thereby maintain the oppression of the other classes and found their higher expression in the state:
“Only one thing was still missing: an institution that not only secured the newly acquired wealth of individuals against the communist traditions of the gentil order, that not only sanctified the previously so little-valued private property and declared this sanctification the highest purpose of all human communities, but also stamped with general social recognition the new forms of property acquisition that developed one after the other, that is, the constantly accelerating increase of wealth; an institution that not only eternalised the emerging division of society into classes but also the right of the owning class to exploit the non-owning and the rule of the former over the latter. And this institution came. The state was invented.” [61]
Relations of Production and the Position of the Sexes in Slaveholding Society and Feudalism
With the emergence of classes and new economic relations, forms of domination developed up to the states of ancient China, Greece, or Rome. As Engels put it, alongside the trade in goods, the trade in people as goods was central during this period. It formed the economic foundation of these first class societies. Kollontai on this:
“We are no longer dealing with wild tribes, with weak beginnings of civilisation, but with highly developed state entities that possessed significant and powerful armies and in which private property had prevailed: states with sharp class distinctions, flourishing crafts and trade. Their economic system was based on slave labour and a transitional form between subsistence economy and a more developed barter trade. For the first time, capital accumulation arose in its most elementary form.” [62]
In slaveholding societies, the status of women changed depending on their class affiliation: Although all women in antiquity were considered the property of men, as Kollontai formulates, it had now become “impossible to speak about the role of women in production without first determining their class membership.” [63] Thus, women of the ruling class were subject to the will of their husbands, but essentially their lives were determined by enjoying the wealth produced by the family slaves. Among the slaves, however, sex played little role in their status. What at first glance seems like progress was merely an expression of the fact that slaves “were equally lawless, unfree and oppressed, enduring uninterrupted severe and exhausting labour, constant hunger and other plagues.” [64]
Women who were not slaves were to play their role in the private sphere, that is, within the family. The so-called familia was the totality of slaves, women, and children belonging to a man, over whose life and death he had authority.[65] As we explained for the Neolithic period, the family arose as an economic unit primarily to secure the property and domination of the ruling classes and to increase production. Only in this way can the emerging concept of monogamy at the time be understood. It served to secure paternity and thus patrilineal inheritance within the families of the ruling classes.[66] Consequently, differing notions of sexual freedoms between the sexes also arose for the first time, leading to further restrictions and oppression of women that have lasting effects today: only the woman’s monogamy was relevant, not the man’s.[67] The emergence of prostitution was thus the flip side of monogamy, while at the same time, the contempt for prostitution is to be seen as an expression of domination and control over women of the oppressed classes.[68]
In slaveholding societies, the productive forces continued to develop until they again had revolutionary consequences, as Kollontai summarises:
“Over time, the first proletariat in history emerged in these ancient pre-Christian societies, and the class struggle ignited. The ancient states were destroyed both because of these class struggles and because of the imperfections of their production system, which was based on the highly unproductive forced labour of slaves.” [69]
In feudal societies, peasants were oppressed and serfs of the landowners, the noble class.[70] Here too, the position of women was primarily determined by their class affiliation. Noblewomen were respected as organisers of production and the entire estate, for example during military campaigns, and had power over the people working on their lands. However, this significance gradually diminished with the rise of trade, and the role of noblewomen became increasingly redundant:
“However, as this form of castle household began to decay with the increase of trade, their sphere of responsibility lost economic significance. The most important measure of wealth was now money. The [noble] woman was primarily degraded to a reproductive machine. She became a parasite, just as the legal wives of the Greek bourgeoisie once were. It was no longer her business to oversee work in the smithy or to ensure that the weavers invented new patterns for their linen.” [71]
At the same time, noblewomen were subordinate to their fathers and husbands. Peasant women, on the other hand, were “doubly oppressed” according to Kollontai, by their own husbands or fathers and by the estate owners:
“As private property began to assert itself within the peasant class, paternal rights and thus the man’s rights over wife and children were simultaneously strengthened. […] The peasant woman therefore had two masters to serve, both her breadlord, the estate owner, and her own husband.” [72]
What was crucial for their position was that they, like the peasant men, “toiled tirelessly day in, day out and, as a reward for their efforts, reaped only contempt and complete lack of rights.”[73]
With the development of crafts in the towns, women could increasingly take on roles with greater freedoms: that of the craftswoman. There were crafts in which women’s work predominated, for example weaving, the making of bobbin lace, fringes, stockings, purses, and so forth. Through this, women had certain rights in practising a productive trade, yet there was no question of equality with men as long as the majority of women, or at least a significant portion, did not independently produce goods themselves. Men remained the main producers and creators of surplus value.
Relations of Production and the Positions of the Sexes under Capitalism
In all the societal formations presented so far, the social status of women was primarily determined by the role they played in the production process.[74] Until the emergence of private property, a woman’s ability to bear children had no special consequences for her social status. The limited phase of pregnancy and breastfeeding hardly led to different sex-based roles during primitive communism. However, with the emergence of class societies, these roles became strongly defined; women of all classes were (with varying consequences) confined to the family and the private sphere, originally to ensure patrilineal inheritance of property. Thus, sex-based roles developed and generalised that were no longer essentially based on the biological foundations of pregnancy and breastfeeding, but had their origin in the historically conditioned social role of women in production. Over time, conceptions of sex emerged in the ideological and political superstructure that were therefore partly independent of biological factors. With the beginning of capitalism, the participation of women in production for the first time created the economic basis for their equality.
The vast majority of women therefore lived and worked during the transition from feudalism to capitalism primarily in peasant self-sufficiency and partly in urban crafts. However, they were increasingly forced to earn an income in the form of homework or wage labour in enterprises, which developed from crafts, through manufactory to industrial enterprises[75], and thus moved to urban centres.
The introduction of machines made it possible to employ unskilled and physically less strong labour forces. Capitalists increasingly employed children and women in the emerging factories because their labour was cheaper.[76] Until the integration of women into industrial production, the man’s wage had to suffice not only for the reproduction of his own labour power but also for the reproduction of the working class, that is, for the maintenance of his wife and children, which is why it was regarded as a “family wage”. The wages of women and children were lower because they were additional incomes that supplemented the “family wage”.[77] Due to their particular disadvantage, women from oppressed classes were more insecure and showed a lower degree of organisation than their male class counterparts. Furthermore, women’s work was established in sectors that required little training or resembled the tasks previously performed by women in the household[78], which also kept the value of the employed labour force low. Another advantage of these low wages for capitalists was to exert pressure on the wages of working men.
Women of the proletarian class were thus pushed into this work despite their poorer pay and their burden of household duties: the family breadwinner’s income was increasingly insufficient to provide for wife and children. The previous marriage as a community of provision thereby lost significance, and the role of women and children to work craftily and agriculturally within the household shifted. At the same time, the work that women had performed for family consumption within the household until then was increasingly replaced by purchasable industrial goods, services, and amenities with industrialisation. “What the large factory and modern trade with its department stores and bazaars began, water and gas supply, electric light, and telephone complete.” [79] Through the industrial production of food, clothing, and consumer goods, the previously necessary tasks performed by women of the oppressed classes in their own households became increasingly inefficient and replaceable.[80] This technological development is also a prerequisite for the liberation of women from their previous role as housewives, which capitalism does not, however, benefit all women equally.
The role of women in the modern family is, as part of their social role, the result of a historical development. Marx and Engels describe at the beginning of capitalism the gulf between the “bourgeois platitudes about family and upbringing, about the intimate relationship of parents and children” on the one hand and the harsh living reality of the proletariat on the other, since “due to large-scale industry all family ties for the proletariat are broken and the children turned into simple commodities and labour instruments”.[81]
Zetkin in turn refers at the beginning of the 20th century to the “numerous marriages that are merely contracted under the pressure of economic considerations and kept together by the compulsion of economic considerations, in which the relations of spouses are exhausted in the three words: prostitution, brutality and hypocrisy”.[82] She criticises the double standards of the prevailing morality, for which “bourgeois monogamy, based on paternal rights, the dominant position of the man” is the norm: Zetkin calls the defence of marriage as the ideal of the role of the sexes “moral hypocrisy”.[83] Bourgeois law still placed the married woman under the guardianship of her husband until the end of the 20th century, corresponding to what Zetkin termed the “paternalism of women by men, their treatment as minors, incompetent and incapable of business”.[84]
The ideal of the bourgeois family still plays a role today not only in the outsourcing of the reproduction of labour power but also has an ideological function in the oppression of proletarian women under capitalism. From the beginning, the working class was ideologically presented with the ideal of the bourgeois family, in which the woman as a carefree housewife should support the man and bear children.[85] In reality, the doubly burdened proletarian woman could not care for her children. Engels gives the example of maternity leave lasting three to four days at the beginning of industrialisation. Sometimes women even gave birth in the factory.[86] Small children were taken to work and pacified with opium or involved in the work processes, which often led to accidents and deaths.
The ideological subordination of women in the family had multiple benefits for capital. For a part of the working class, namely children and women, oppression was realised until a few decades ago mainly through the control of the proletarian man: the proletarian man was especially vulnerable to blackmail during strikes as long as he had the role of the main breadwinner of the family, which is still the case in certain social groups today.
Marx and Engels also recognised that capitalist development created the possibility of progressively changing sexual and family relations. The greater importance of science for capitalist production also had an effect on the superstructure and targeted traditions and prejudices. Family structures tended to dissolve with the development of capitalism, as women and young people became economically more independent and their role in social production contradicted their previous subordination.[87]
Relations of Production and the Position of the Sexes in the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
That the far-reaching liberation of proletarian women and women from the popular classes is possible within just a few decades has been shown in the countries where socialism was built in the past century. From the beginning, proletarian women and men fought side by side, as we present in one of our statements:
“On 8 March 1917, female workers, soldiers’ wives, and for the first time poor peasant women went on strike in Petrograd. They demanded bread and peace. These strikes were part of the February Revolution; later, workers and soldiers also joined in and, in the October Revolution, ultimately smashed the old power relations and built a socialist soviet republic. Women were also allowed to vote for the first time here, and there were for the first time equal wages.” [88]
As we further write, equality between women and men was also an important goal in the GDR:
“[It] was implemented both politically and economically. Lenin recognised that education played an essential role in enabling women to work. In the GDR, there was a unified school system where both girls and boys received the same education. Boys had to learn how to sew and girls had craft lessons, there was no sex-specific separation. Girls were also encouraged to learn professions that, under capitalism, were male-dominated. Women were also supported at universities. In 1951, only 21.3% of students in the GDR were women; by 1984, this had risen to 52.5%. So there was continuous improvement. To make it possible for women to reconcile professional life with starting a family, there was (financial) support for pregnant and breastfeeding women and enough free nursery places for all children.” [89]
The German Democratic Republic was a state under the leadership of the working class in alliance with the peasantry. Proletarian and peasant women were therefore above all workers and peasants, and their objective interests stood at the centre of the state and society: the aim of social production was not the increase of profits for a few, but the raising of the living standards of all working people. These economic conditions created the basis for the equality of women in many areas of life.
The expansion of canteens and laundries, as well as better household technology, were important measures to improve the compatibility of family and career. As even the Federal Agency for Civic Education admits, in 1989 there were twenty times as many nursery places in the GDR as in the FRG, and 20 percent more kindergarten places.[90] These and many other achievements in the area of equality and education, however, could not completely penetrate the world of work: the high proportion of employed women in the GDR was unevenly distributed in terms of job qualifications.[91] For instance, 60 percent of unskilled and semi-skilled industrial labour was done by women.[92] The Heinrich Böll Foundation, an institution of the Green Party, notes:
“direct consequences of a consistently higher level of female employment participation in the East [were] a significantly lower pay gap between the sexes, it is more than three times higher in the West of Germany than in the East, a smaller pension gap, and in comparison with the West, also a higher absolute pension level (over €800 average pension for women in the East versus under €500 for women in the West), and therefore a higher economic independence for women.” [93]
Regarding the position of women in politics, it can be critically observed that women were underrepresented in important political bodies of the GDR. In 1949, 23 percent of the People’s Chamber were women, and in 1979 it was 34 percent, albeit with a strong upward trend.[94] In the Central Committee (CC) of the SED, from the 1960s onwards just over 10 percent were women; in the Politburo, the leading body of the CC, at times not a single woman was represented.[95]
This is, however, put into perspective when compared with the West German Federal Republic, where between 1949 and 1979 women consistently made up between 5 and 9 percent of the Bundestag.[96] Especially in comparison with West Germany, women therefore had significantly more say in politics, and the development from 1949 onwards was positive in most areas. However, it must be noted that the liberation and equality of the proletarian woman is not automatically achieved at the beginning of socialism but must be consciously approached and planned, and even in the GDR, despite massive achievements, it was not fully realised.
Also remarkable at the legal level is the fact that decades before marital rape was made a criminal offence in West and unified Germany, this was already a reality in the GDR. There, women also no longer needed a “work permit” from their husband, and the rights of women who gave birth to children out of wedlock were already strengthened in 1950 as part of the fight against the ideology of National Socialism:
“Illegitimate birth is not a disgrace. The mother of an illegitimate child is entitled to full parental rights, which may not be curtailed by the appointment of a guardian for the child.” [97]
Furthermore, the equal distribution of household labour was already established by law as a duty within marriage in 1966:
“(1) Both spouses share responsibility for raising and caring for the children and for managing the household. Their relationship to each other shall be arranged in such a way that the woman can reconcile her professional and social activities with motherhood.
(2) If a previously non-working spouse takes up a profession or if one spouse decides to pursue further education, the other shall respect this decision and support them.” [98]
Here again we can observe that these progressive approaches had a clear effect in practice, but full emancipation of women was still not achieved. For example,
“in the Federal Republic in 1985, 76 percent of young employed wives under the age of 25 stated that they mainly took care of housework, cleaning, washing, ironing, making the beds, cooking, doing the dishes, and shopping, themselves; in the GDR, by contrast, only 40 percent of wives in their fourth year of marriage had to handle cleaning the flat, shopping for groceries, washing the laundry, preparing meals, doing the dishes, and keeping house rules alone.” [99]
A full 72 percent of men in the territory of the former GDR agreed in 1990 with the statement “my partner should have the same career opportunities as I do, and household and childcare responsibilities must therefore be equally shared between us,” whereas only 46 percent of West German men agreed.[100] This shows that socialism makes equality for women possible, but that their inequality is also ideologically deeply rooted, continues to exist in certain aspects as a birthmark of the old society, and must be actively combated in order to be completely overcome.
The promotion of women was therefore deliberately pursued in the GDR. In conclusion, even the managing director of the “Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship” must admit:
“Although during the GDR era many women wished for relief in balancing full-time work, housework, childcare, and family responsibilities, very few could imagine withdrawing from working life entirely. It is no coincidence that, in light of their individual experiences during the period of upheaval after 1990, women remember the opportunities for participation and equality in economic matters in the GDR as particularly positive.” [101]
Part Three: Current Situation of Women in Germany and the Mechanisms of Their Oppression
The presentation of the historical development of the relations of production and the associated social formations shows that the position of women has not always been the same. The capitalist mode of production has significantly improved the economic basis for the equality of women through their integration into social production. The revolutionary movement of female and male workers played an important role from the second half of the 19th century onwards in the struggle against the legal discrimination of women, who were initially not only economically dependent but also politically without rights. With the growing role that women workers played in capitalist production, the organised movements of bourgeois and proletarian women gained political traction. Bourgeois equality has now been largely achieved, civil rights such as freedom of assembly and the press, as well as the right to vote, were gradually won for women as well,[102] and later the legal guardianship of men in the family and in marriage was abolished. As a result of economic and political changes, the working woman has become more independent from her husband, and traditional patriarchal values, like the Church, have lost authority and significance, as predicted by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto. At the same time, however, the causes of women’s oppression have not been eliminated but continue to exist in the form of private ownership of the means of production and the position of women within production.
In this chapter, we will focus particularly on the current situation of women in Germany. To this end, we will draw on data available to us concerning the economic and social situation of women. These are data compiled by research institutions that are not Marxist. A bourgeois analysis of social structure naturally brings with it certain problems, which we cannot discuss in detail at this point. The statements are therefore approximate reflections of reality, which allow conclusions to be drawn about the situation of women, particularly working women in Germany.
Economic Dependence
Slightly more than half of the over 80 million people living in Germany are women.[103] Of the nearly 35 million workers subject to social insurance contributions, that is, regularly paid workers, 18.7 million are men and 16.2 million are women. The number of employed women has increased over the past decades, so the integration of women into working life is an ongoing process. At the same time, however, part-time work has also increased: in 2023, around 50 percent of employed women worked part-time, compared to only 13 percent of employed men.[104] Many factors contribute to part-time employment among women. Particularly worth highlighting here is the historically developed division of labour regarding housework and care work: this reinforces the financial dependence of women workers and is associated with a lower social status, more on this later.
The proportion of women in the DGB trade unions in 2023 was only 34 percent. As organised wage workers, women are thus underrepresented.[105] In 2018, on average, three times as many women as men had a mini-job.[106] Women therefore work far more frequently than men in precarious employment conditions, in which they are not only poorly paid but also less protected under labour law. In terms of unemployment, the situation of women workers in Germany is also particular. Men are more often unemployed: 1.5 million men and 1.3 million women are out of work.[107] However, the proportion of long-term unemployed (more than 1 year) among the unemployed was slightly higher among women in 2018.[108] The level of unemployment benefit is, on average, lower for women than for male recipients, which is also an effect of women’s low-wage and part-time employment. More than twice as many women workers as male workers receive a very low payment (under 700 euros).[109] It can therefore be stated that women workers more often than men live and work under precarious conditions; they receive lower wages and social benefits during unemployment and in old age.
The labour market is highly sex-segregated in terms of training and the occupations practised, although the significance of this for economic status is not always clear-cut. In 2023, women were significantly overrepresented in office and service jobs. Sixty-five percent of all office staff and clerical workers were women. Among those employed in service occupations, women made up 62 percent.[110] In 2024, women accounted for 83 percent of workers in childcare, social work, domestic service and theology, and 75 percent in cleaning jobs.[111] Women were strongly underrepresented in trades as well as in industry and agriculture. Only 10 percent of those employed in skilled trades were women. Industrial work (for example, operating machinery and equipment as well as assembly tasks) was performed by women in only 15 percent of cases.[112] Women are therefore primarily employed in occupations that are often characterised by flexible working hours and part-time options, in which they tend to be paid less and enjoy less social recognition.
The income difference between the sexes, the so-called “gender pay gap”, varies depending on the calculation method. In 2023, women earned on average 18 percent less than men overall (i.e. regardless of occupation, education, or working hours), with the difference significantly lower in the federal states of the former GDR.[113] For equal work, the figure is around 7 percent.[114] According to the Federal Statistical Office, men’s average annual net income is approximately 1,000 euros higher than that of women.[115] The so-called “gender pension gap”, i.e. the difference in retirement income between men and women aged 65 and older, was 40 percent in 2023.[116]
In summary, it can be stated that the sectors and occupations in which women predominantly work tend to be lower paid. Women are also more often in poorly paid positions; despite comparable qualifications, they are underrepresented in management and executive boards,[117] and even when performing comparable work, they are paid less. The situation of women is therefore particularly characterised by lower pay, combined with generally poorer working conditions, which shapes women’s economic dependence. From a bourgeois perspective, explanations for the income gap include women’s lower overall working hours due to part-time employment, fewer overtime hours, shorter weekly working hours, and fewer bonuses above collectively agreed rates (such as for shift work or other difficult working conditions). These factors point to the special position of women in capitalist production but do not explain their roots in the bourgeois class society, which is based on private property.
Family and Household
According to the Federal Statistical Office, there are around 12 million families in Germany. Of these, 9 million are married and unmarried couples, and just under 3 million are single parents.[118] Between 1998 and 2023, family structures changed significantly. The proportion of married couples fell from 80 to 66 percent, the proportion of single parents rose from 15 to 25 percent, and the share of so-called “cohabiting partnerships with child(ren)” almost doubled (from 5 to nearly 10 percent).[119] Among single parents, around 80 percent are women, who must simultaneously juggle work, family, and domestic responsibilities.[120]
Since the so-called baby boom of the 1960s, birth rates in Germany have declined sharply.[121] In 2023, the average number of children per woman over her lifetime (birth rate) stood at 1.35, 7 percent lower than the previous year.[122] The proportion of women aged between 45 and 49, near the end of the so-called fertile phase, who have no children is currently around 20 percent; in 2018 it was 17 percent.[123] The fact that fewer and fewer women are having children, and that they are having fewer children overall, is at least partially linked to their position in capitalist production: on the one hand, the increasing integration into production, and on the other, the lack of social support for care and upbringing responsibilities. In this context, the collapse of the fertility rate in East Germany after 1990 is particularly revealing: within five years, birth rates fell by 60 percent. East German women perceived the living conditions under capitalism as “extremely hostile to children”.[124]
The so-called “Gender Care Gap” describes the difference in the amount of time men and women spend on unpaid work such as childcare, care work, or housework. In 2022, it stood at 44 percent, meaning that women spent on average 44 percent more time per day on such tasks than men. On average, men spent just under 21 hours per week, and women just under 30 hours (a difference of 79 minutes per day) on this type of work.[125] Compared to the previous survey from 2012/2013, the gap has narrowed, it was 52 percent at that time. Overall, the gap between men and women has steadily decreased since 1990, the year it was first recorded, but the difference remains significant. In total, women therefore work longer and are paid less.
Parental allowance (Elterngeld) continues to be claimed primarily by mothers (in 2022, 73 percent of recipients were women); the proportion of fathers claiming parental allowance, even if only for a short period, has risen only slightly. Mothers overwhelmingly receive parental allowance for ten months or more, while a large share of fathers claim it for a maximum of two months.[126] This is another indicator of the unequal division of labour between men and women, in which various aspects of women’s status intersect. One such aspect is the biological fact that, in most cases, the woman breastfeeds the baby while her body recovers from childbirth. Even if breastfeeding does not take place and recovery is swift, the woman is often still the newborn’s first primary caregiver.[127] Added to this is the fact that she is usually the one with the lower income and therefore more likely to claim parental allowance, while the man continues to work for “full pay”.[128]
Women also tend to remain solely engaged in domestic work for longer periods. In 2018, only around 36 percent of mothers with at least one child under the age of three living in the household were employed. Among fathers, the figure was around 88 percent.[129] Similarly, although childcare coverage for toddlers has improved, it remains at about 34 percent nationwide, meaning only about one third of children under the age of three attend childcare.[130] Coverage is still significantly higher in the eastern federal states.[131] Regardless of children’s age, around 38 percent of mothers are not active in the labour market, and nearly half are in part-time or marginal employment.[132] The main responsibility for raising children therefore falls on women in most families. Mothers also face a significantly higher risk of unemployment than childless women or men. In 2010, for example, the risk during pregnancy was around 70 percent higher than for women without children.[133]
Women therefore generally find themselves in a more insecure and precarious situation than men, not only economically but also socially. The unequal distribution of housework and childcare between men and women is closely linked to women’s weak integration into production and leads to an intensification of women’s dependence within the family. Measured by criteria such as income, wealth, housing situation and integration into the labour market, women fare worse[134], particularly when they have children. As Kollontai already pointed out: “A woman’s position in society determines her position in the family. This close and indissoluble connection exists at every stage of socio-economic development.”[135]
Sexism and Violence Against Women
The oppressed, economically dependent and, as a result, ideologically devalued position of working-class women under capitalism can force them into marriage or even prostitution. Even outside of overt, traditional prostitution, the sexual self-determination of proletarian women is sometimes hindered by their economic dependence. If women do not defend themselves against assaults in the workplace, this may be due to the economic situation creating a power imbalance. Here too, legal equality alone does not help proletarian women. Zetkin’s words remain relevant on this matter: without economic independence, “a woman’s right of disposal over her own person, her freedom to choose whom to love, and the possibility of easily dissolving a marriage, shrivel up into a hollow formula.”[136]
Sexism, that is, discrimination based on sex, and violence are crucial aspects of the discussion of sexual inequality and a reality in the lives of the vast majority of women: in Germany, two out of three women experience sexual harassment during their lifetime; around one in four women is at least once a victim of physical or sexualised violence by her current or former partner. One in seven women becomes a victim of severe sexualised violence.[137] However, the number of unreported cases is likely significantly higher, as many women do not dare to press charges. Violence against women often also results in death. Almost every day, a woman in Germany is murdered by her partner or ex-partner.[138] In comparison, the murder of a man within a partnership occurs around four times less often than that of a woman.[139] The difference is therefore drastic, and to eliminate this danger for women, its causes must be correctly identified. Many of these murders of women can be described as femicides, insofar as they involve the killing of women because of their sex or due to specific notions of femininity. However, we do not classify every murder of a woman by her current or former partner as femicide, as it is not necessarily a killing only because she is a woman.[140]
Sexism and violence are phenomena that can affect women of all classes, even though their consequences are heavily shaped by class. While women from the ruling class have many resources at their disposal to avoid or cope with the consequences of sex-based violence and discrimination, it is working women who are left to deal with existential, social and psychological problems alone.[141] A consistent struggle against sexism is therefore a struggle against the roots of women’s oppression. Capitalism is capable of making concessions to benefit working women and implementing measures against sexism without addressing its underlying causes. At present, it manages to present itself as progressive and modern through related legislation.
Compared to other phenomena that shape the situation of women, the economic roots of sexism are less visible. A nuanced approach to the struggle against sexism is therefore necessary: of course, all women can be affected, but it is important to highlight the vastly different impacts on women from the working class and the bourgeoisie, and at the same time to emphasise the impossibility of abolishing sexism under capitalism. From this fact we draw the conclusion that it is impossible for us to fight for women’s rights together with women from the ruling class, even if we agree with some demands of the bourgeois women’s movement. Immediate measures are needed to protect affected women, but we always view such reformist demands only as a stage in the struggle and never as the final goal.[142]
The number of victims of domestic violence recorded by the police in Germany continues to rise and stood at around 168,000 in 2023, of whom approximately 79 percent were women.[143] In the same year, around 256,000 victims of domestic violence were recorded by the police, with around 71 percent of these being women.[144] Sexism is not a new phenomenon, rather, awareness of it is the result of struggles against the objectification and degradation of women, which ultimately stem from the economic basis of society. Social sensitivity to the issue has significantly increased in recent years, but the root causes of the problems are often obscured. Idealist explanations tend to dominate: sexism is often presented in various forms as a problem “in men’s minds” or as a consequence of “male dominance”. While we welcome progress that improves women’s everyday lives, these interpretations must be challenged as they prevent a correct understanding of the issue. The topic also finds expression in family life: women who have to leave their households, and sometimes even their families, due to violence are frequently victims of their partners. According to 2022 statistics (multiple responses were possible in the survey), 51 percent of the women who sought shelter in women’s refuges were victims of violence by their husband.[145] The lack of women’s shelters, and affordable housing in general, as well as bureaucratic institutions that make it harder to escape a violent partner, and the frequently slow-moving legal process involved in reporting an assault, all represent additional challenges for working women dealing with violence.
Moreover, women are not simply victims of any kind of violence, this violence often includes the objectification and sexualisation of women. In 2023, around 12,200 rapes, sexual assaults, and severe cases of sexual coercion were recorded by the police in Germany. Here too, a significant number of cases likely go unreported. The number of rapes increased for the fifth year in a row, reaching a new record high.[146]
The consequences of such violence are, of course, manifold. Depending on the form of violence, 56 percent to more than 80 percent of those affected suffer psychological aftereffects, including sleep disturbances, heightened anxiety, reduced self-esteem, depression, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and eating disorders. On average, three to four different psychological symptoms occur simultaneously. In addition, increased alcohol and medication use, as well as a significantly higher rate of tobacco consumption, were observed among affected women.[147]
The social nature of sexism and violence against women thus encompasses multiple dimensions: on the one hand, the relative disadvantage of women and the reactionary ideological fragments[148] that enable violence against them can only be understood in the context of societal, that is, economic, conditions. Violence against women arises from the oppression of women, which is itself linked to their unequal position in the production process. On the other hand, sexism and violence are phenomena that fundamentally affect all women, though with particularly severe consequences for proletarian women, both economically and socially. A consistent struggle against the oppression of women, that is, against their degradation and objectification, against sexism and sexualised violence, is only possible by confronting the root causes of this oppression, and doing so as a class.
Prostitution and Pornography
The practice of prostitution[149] is, in principle, legal in Germany. Currently, around 30,000 prostitutes are officially registered, though the number of unreported cases is likely much higher. They are primarily women aged between 21 and 44, most of whom are not German.[150] The emergence of prostitution as the flip side of monogamy was already explained earlier. It often leads to alienation, psychological and physical harm, and violence against prostituted women, as many data reports still indicate today.[151] The overwhelming majority of prostitutes have no alternative to this work,[152] live in isolation,[153] feel unsafe both at home and at work,[154] and suffer from various health problems.[155] An above-average number of prostitutes have experienced abuse in childhood and adolescence, which often results in trauma and a lack of self-determination, and in their work they face a central life domain in which both physical and sexual violence are frequent.[156]
Among prostitutes, the reported rates of experiences with violence are significantly higher than among other women: in 2005, 92 percent reported having experienced sexual harassment, over 80 percent reported psychological and physical violence, and 59 percent reported sexual violence. Furthermore, 46 percent of all respondents said they had experienced rape at least once.[157] The prevalence of psychological and physical violence among prostitutes is therefore around two to three times higher, and that of sexual violence nearly five times higher, than in the general female population in Germany. Clients are most frequently cited as perpetrators in the workplace context.
In prostitution, the right of disposal over a person’s body, primarily women’s, is purchased. In the regular sale of labour power, the commodity is defined by its purpose: labour is used to produce something. In prostitution, by contrast, the point is not to apply labour to produce a use-value; rather, the use-value of prostitution is the use of the female body. In this sense, prostitution is not a normal profession. This is also evident from its effects: no other job results in such high rates of psychological disorders; in no other job do so many women workers experience psychological and physical violence; no other job requires exit programmes. Furthermore, the effects of the power dynamic, which exists in all professions between employee, employer, and client, are particularly extreme here due to the specific nature of the work. Large-scale prostitution is also unthinkable without human trafficking, especially when the demand from paying clients is to be met.[158]
Pornography must be viewed in a similar light to prostitution. Here, the depiction of sexual acts with the intention of arousing others is central. Again, it is primarily women’s bodies that are controlled, while economic pressure means consent cannot be guaranteed. In addition to the relationship between the men who possess women’s bodies and the woman herself, pornography includes a mass-cultural dimension. Through the internet, pornography is easily accessible.[159] The effects can be seen, for example, in the fact that sexual practices between adults are becoming increasingly extreme, as the content of pornography is largely shaped by degradation and violence against women, as well as racism.[160] This phenomenon is also observable among young people, and the pressure on girls, and to a lesser extent on boys, to perform specific sexual acts is increasing.[161] In a study conducted in 2016, the likelihood of boys committing sexual abuse was found to be significantly positively correlated with the regular consumption of pornography.[162] Moreover, the pornography industry is closely connected to prostitution and human trafficking.[163] Porn producers, like clients, pimps, and traffickers, are perpetrators of violence, and their crimes must be recognised politically and legally as such. The consumption of pornography demonstrably contributes to the brutalisation of the masses and is based on the fetishisation of the exploitation of women’s bodies.
The feminist pro-porn movement attempts to counter this with films that centre consent and portray sex in a supposedly more natural way and from a female perspective. However, these serve more as a fig leaf than as a counter-strategy, and they do not address what is essential in pornography, namely, the availability of the female body in combination with economic coercion.[164] Even if, in some films, the actress’s performed consent is more prominently featured, women are still treated and portrayed as sexual objects in this form of pornography. For the profit-oriented mass market, it makes no difference; such content offers a soft entry into a world where what is increasingly extreme is consumed, and thereby monetised.
This is, of course, not about condemning or prohibiting the human need to express sexuality. An artistic depiction of sexuality in films, books, and other cultural forms, one which excludes the objectification and degradation of women, is certainly possible and fundamentally different from pornography.
Economic Integration Is Not Liberation
The portrayal of the current situation of women in Germany highlights the various areas in which women, especially working-class women, experience disadvantage, discrimination, and violence. Despite important improvements in women’s living conditions since the emergence of capitalism, they still suffer today from the effects of unequal integration into production and significant ideological devaluation. However, women of the ruling class occupy a fundamentally different role than women of the working class.
Women of the bourgeoisie are not necessarily driven into precarious living conditions, financial insecurity, or poverty due to their sex; they are not forced to tolerate potential or actual violence, nor are they compelled to neglect their children due to wage labour.[165] Bourgeois and some petty-bourgeois women are less affected, or not affected at all, by the burden of housework, as they are able to delegate these tasks to women from the working classes. As a result, they often have the option to consciously choose between spending time with their family or pursuing fulfilment in a job. Oppression, therefore, does not apply equally to all women regardless of class affiliation, even though women of the ruling class are disadvantaged in comparison to men, as expressed, for example, through their exposure to sexism.
The proletarian woman is subject to the same exploitation under capitalism as male workers, yet the reproduction of labour power still takes place primarily at the expense of working women within the private sphere. As such, working women face a heavy additional burden due to motherhood and household responsibilities. The inequality between men and women within the proletariat does decrease with the integration of women into production, but the condition of working women under capitalism remains marked by injustice, sexism, and violence, as illustrated above. Unlike the working day of the male proletarian, the working day of the proletarian woman still often “has no bounds; it begins long before paid work and ends long after it, deep into the night.”[166] Rising prices, housing shortages, malnutrition, illness, poor living conditions, and exploitative working environments all affect the health of proletarian women, especially mothers and their children.
Zetkin emphasised that the integration of women into social production under capitalism is a necessary precondition for their emancipation. But despite increasing economic independence, the proletarian woman continues to be subjected to multiple forms of oppression and “as a human being, as a woman, and as a wife, she has no opportunity to fully realise her individuality.”[167] Political equality represents an important step forward but does not yet mean liberation for all women. Today we can see that bourgeois rights do not alter the economic foundations on which women’s oppression rests. Moreover, depending on the economic situation, sexist ideologies gain traction, and there are repeated attempts to restrict women’s rights, for example, concerning access to abortion.
Women’s liberation is not automatic, though the great historical tendencies “are moving unmistakably in the direction of equality of the sexes”,[168] as Zetkin stated. Women’s participation in capitalist production lays the initial groundwork for their legal equality and for their involvement in the struggle against capital, and it cannot be permanently reversed. However, their exploitation, the draining of their strength and energy for the creation of private wealth, and the shifting of reproductive labour overwhelmingly onto their shoulders persist. Only in a classless society can the oppression of women be completely abolished. It is only when the working class has seized power that a consciously organised form of production will become possible, one in which women achieve equal status and the roots of their oppression can finally be eliminated.
Part Four: Critique of Feminism
On the Relationship Between Class and Sex
The relationship between the sexes differs fundamentally from the relationship between the classes, this must also be reflected in the terms we use, so that reality is accurately described and misunderstandings are avoided. In the writings of Engels and Bebel, there are occasionally unclear formulations that sound as if the situation of women could be equated with the oppression of one class by another, thereby suggesting an analogy between class and the roles of the sexes.[169] Zetkin’s theoretical and practical work is credited with clarifying the relationship between the class question and the women’s question. Especially in her later works, she largely avoids such analogies and speaks, in reference to proletarian women, for example, of “their class position as the exploited and their sex-based position as those with fewer rights.”[170]
The term “class” describes one’s position in the production process. The entire working class, of both sexes, is subjected under capitalism to exploitation and oppression by the men and women of the ruling capitalist class. Exploitation is the economic relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Furthermore, the proletariat is subjected to bourgeois domination, for example through state power, but also through the media, which ensure the maintenance of capitalism. It experiences oppression because, due to its class position, it suffers from reduced quality of life and limited life chances, its access to healthy food, medicine, housing, culture, education, and other resources is restricted. Oppression is the exercise of power and violence through social institutions and measures. The objective interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are in irreconcilable conflict. This contradiction exists between the classes as such and can only be overcome through the revolutionary struggle of the working class by abolishing private ownership of the means of production, and with it, class society as a whole.
The term “sex” describes the biological predisposition of male and female human bodies to produce small or large gametes and thereby play complementary roles in sexual reproduction. The term “sex-based roles” refers to the norms, expectations, social functions, and stereotypes that have developed on the basis of biological sex and the position of men and women in production. In everyday usage of the terms “man” and “woman,” sex, and sex-based roles are often conflated. For us, however, distinguishing between the two is important: we accept the existence of two biological sexes as fact, while we aim to overcome dominant sex-based roles as expressions of oppressive relations. Sex-based roles, though based on a biological foundation, are primarily products of social relations; they have changed historically and can continue to change.
In early communal society, there was no particular oppression of women, since all members of the tribe depended on one another and largely carried out the same tasks to survive. The oppression of women emerged in connection with, and on the basis of, class rule, the contradiction does not exist between the sexes per se. Therefore, we do not understand existing relation of the sexes as an insoluble contradiction like the class conflict, but rather as an expression of specific relations of production and ownership. Women’s liberation is possible through overcoming the social causes of their oppression, and this does not require denying the reality of biological sex.
As shown in the section on the historical development of the relation of the sexes, the sexual division of labour was only solidified with the emergence of class society, based on advances in productive forces, the resulting surplus, and private ownership of the means of production and surplus product, and became the basis for women’s oppression. However, even in slave-owning societies, not all women were oppressed in the same way, their situation varied by class. In feudalism, too, the women of the ruling class found themselves in a fundamentally different situation than that of the serf women or female artisans. While all were disadvantaged compared to the men of their own class, the women of the feudal lords ruled over serfs of both sexes and, even in their role as women, held different responsibilities and entitlements. Under capitalism as well, the life circumstances of all men and women are shaped above all by their class position, that is, their role in the production process and their ownership (or lack thereof) of the means of production. All men and all women may share the biological traits of their sex, but their social position differs according to class. Zetkin emphasised: “Depending on the class to which an individual woman belongs, she will encounter the most contrasting social conditions for her development from the moment of her birth, indeed, even before her birth.”[171]
The women and men of the working class are exploited, dominated, and oppressed by the bourgeoisie of both sexes. They share an interest in overcoming capitalist exploitation and advocate the same demands for higher wages, shorter working hours, and workplace protections. In addition to capitalist exploitation, proletarian women are subjected to sex-specific forms of disadvantage, oppression, and violence. As working women, and especially as mothers, they receive lower wages than their male counterparts and thus have even less independent access to resources such as healthy food, medical care, housing, culture, education, and other goods, putting them in a particularly vulnerable position, especially, though not exclusively, with respect to men. They are exposed to oppression in the form of violence and the exercise of power through social institutions and structures. This intensified oppression of the working woman, which results from the interplay of her biological sex with the mode of production, poses a danger to her health and life. It forms the basis of sex-based roles, prevailing prejudices, disadvantage and discrimination of women in many areas of life, and, in part, of sex-based violence. While bourgeois women may also be affected by these things, their experience is qualitatively different from that of proletarian women. Based on these concepts, we can clarify the connection between women’s interests and those of the working class, and explain our critique of feminism.
The relationship between the sexes is not a relationship of exploitation. The exploitation of labour is the fundamental relationship between the two classes of capitalist society. Labour power as a commodity can generate more value than is required for its own reproduction. The value of labour power itself is made up of the value of necessary goods and a so-called “historical and moral element.” While the first is quantifiable (via a basket of consumer goods), the second depends on the cultural development of society, the achievements of the workers’ movement, and so on. In most working-class households, it is women who bear primary or sole responsibility for housework (washing, cleaning, cooking, shopping, childcare, etc.). Does this mean they are “doubly exploited”? In our view, this is a mistaken assumption. While this sole responsibility for the household and family is an expression of women’s oppression in this society, it is not a form of exploitation. Exploitation occurs within the capitalist production process; housework, like other forms of concrete labour, lies outside of this process, it is not commodified in working-class families. Exploitation, in the Marxist sense, does not take place here, neither between man and woman, nor is the woman “doubly” exploited by the capitalist, since that would imply a direct relationship to the capitalist in which surplus value is extracted from her domestic labour. This is not the case. However, as mentioned above, the “historical-moral element” plays a role: the extent to which domestic labour (primarily by women) is reflected in wages, that is, in the value of labour power, is a result of class struggle. Historically, improvements have been won in this area. Working-class men do not own the means of production and cannot exploit the women of their class, but they can exercise violence and oppression. There is no double exploitation of working women. Only the relationship between classes is one of exploitation of one group of people by another. While capital has an interest in privatising the reproduction of labour power and in paying lower wages to segments of the working class, this does not constitute a second form of systematic exploitation.
In most working-class families, women are primarily or solely responsible for housework (washing, cleaning, cooking, shopping, childcare, etc.). Does this mean they are “doubly exploited”? In our view, this is a mistaken assumption. While sole responsibility for household and family life is an expression of women’s oppression, it is not a form of exploitation. Exploitation occurs within the capitalist production process; housework lies outside this process and is not commodified in working-class households. Exploitation, in the Marxist sense, therefore does not take place here, neither between man and woman, nor does the capitalist “doubly exploit” the woman, since this would imply that he extracts surplus value directly from her housework. However, as previously described, the question of the “historical and moral element” is relevant here: the extent to which housework (especially by women) is reflected in wages, i.e., the value of labour power, is a result of class struggle, and improvements have historically been won in this area.
Our Programmatic Theses state: “Under capitalism, working-class women are doubly oppressed, as women and as workers. Working women are still, almost everywhere, severely exploited, economically and socially disadvantaged; they are condemned to unpaid reproductive labour in addition to wage labour, often do not enjoy equal rights, and their specific needs are not met by the bourgeois state.”[172] The phrase “doubly oppressed” highlights the particular situation of proletarian women in comparison to their male class comrades, but this should not be interpreted as equating exploitation with sex-based oppression. In this respect, the formulation in the PT, which remains part of our adopted political basis, is somewhat ambiguous. We caution against conceptual vagueness and misleading formulations that suggest an analogy between class and the roles of the sexes and obscure the decisive importance of class position over sex. This is not a matter of linguistic nit-picking, it has real implications for strategy: Do all women share common interests? Can and should working women unite with their male comrades to fight capitalism, or do irreconcilable interests exist between men and women? In this sense, proletarian women are not “doubly oppressed.” It is more precise to speak of intensified oppression.
All members of the working class are oppressed, but not all women are. Women of the bourgeoisie may experience sex-based violence and discrimination, but we do not describe this as oppression because they belong to the ruling class, they themselves participate in the exploitation and oppression of the entire working class, and they hold power even over male proletarians. They also possess the means to protect themselves and mitigate the impact of their disadvantage. By no means are all women oppressed, or exploited, by all men. Ultimately, class position is decisive; the interests of the working and capitalist classes are irreconcilable.[173] Zetkin stated: “The bourgeois, regardless of whether man or woman, insists on the privileges of their socially advantaged position, and the proletarian, whether wearing trousers or a petticoat, hates the bourgeois as parasites who live in abundance at his expense, while he himself starves.”[174]
The terms “woman” and “man” do not describe homogenous, class-neutral groups in reality. Given the antagonism between classes, there can be no common struggle of all women for liberation.[175] In connection with the idea of such a supposedly shared struggle, the term “patriarchy” is often used in feminist theory to describe a system of male domination over women, a concept in which class affiliation plays little or no role.[176] This concept does not identify the root of women’s oppression in private ownership of the means of production, ignores the crucial distinction between women of the working class and those of the bourgeoisie, and promotes false ideas about the path to liberation.[177] Zetkin stressed that the abstract, class-neutral category of “woman” cannot be the foundation for the struggle against women’s oppression: “To fight for the emancipation of the female sex, we cannot rely on the socially unknown X of an average woman, a ‘typical woman’ who floats as a socially featureless shadow through the cloud-cuckoo-land of ideological and theoretical abstraction”, on the contrary: “We are confronted with two very concrete, clearly recognisable figures, the bourgeois woman on the one hand, the proletarian woman on the other.”[178] In her view, the goal of the women’s movement should be to create the social conditions necessary for the development and flourishing of all women, conditions that do not exist in bourgeois society and which can only be fought for through revolution, not through reform of the capitalist order. Zetkin’s achievement was to clearly outline the conflict of interests between bourgeois and proletarian women and to draw the necessary conclusions for the struggle for women’s emancipation. She showed that the bourgeois women’s movement views “woman” and “man” as class-neutral categories and pursues a politics serving the women of the petty bourgeoisie and capitalist class. This analysis remains essential today for clarifying the class perspective of feminist approaches. For this reason, we summarise her main arguments below in order to develop our own assessment and critique of contemporary feminism.
Clara Zetkin’s Critique of the Bourgeois Women’s Movement
For the bourgeois women’s movement, “woman” and “man” are class-neutral terms, from which a politics directed at the women of the better-off petty bourgeoisie and the capitalist class automatically follows. Due to its class character, the bourgeois women’s movement, as a reform movement, stands in opposition to the revolutionary proletarian women’s movement, even if its representatives may at times make radical-sounding promises or theoretical claims to the contrary.[179] While the bourgeois women’s movement objectively represents the interests of bourgeois women, it promotes, both internally and externally, the illusion that it stands for all women, for “women” in general. It does not take into account the irreconcilable class antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, nor the significance of the exploitation of the working class for women’s social position. Rather, in line with its own economic interests, it wages a struggle focused on the role of the sexes and regards the conflict between women and men as the most important social contradiction.[180]
The bourgeois women’s movement seeks legal equality of the sexes through reforms within the framework of bourgeois democracy.[181] It demands that the capitalist order be reformed in favour of the women of the owning classes, “while the vast majority of proletarian women, the women of the working people, are still left, as unfree and exploited beings, to the degradation and neglect of their humanity, their rights and their interests.”[182] According to Zetkin, women of the exploited and oppressed class, just like the men, do not gain “genuine, full social and human freedom and equality” through formal legal equality.[183] The bourgeois women’s movement responds to the suffering of the exploited and oppressed with pity and charity, but, true to its class position, rejects the overthrow of capitalism as the root cause of that suffering.[184] Bourgeois women proclaim the unity of all women, but “for them, the concept of ‘woman’ seems to end the moment the woman belongs to the exploited class of workers.”[185] Referring to Marx, Zetkin explains the contradiction in the interests and demands of women from different classes:
“Like iridescent soap bubbles, the ‘sisterhood babble’ of one great union that supposedly binds bourgeois ladies and proletarian women together bursts in the air of the materialist conception of history. Marx forged the sword and taught its use, which severed the tie between the bourgeois and proletarian women’s movements; but he also forged the chain of understanding that links the latter inseparably to the socialist workers’ movement, anchoring it in the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat.” [186]
Class affiliation is decisive for women’s position and interests, not their shared sex, through which they may be more or less rightless and oppressed for the sake of male dominance and privilege.[187] The bourgeois women’s movement is, both in theory and practice, objectively opposed to the interests of working women and men. At the same time, it feeds the illusion of shared interests across class lines among all women and promotes the division of the working class by exerting a “deceptive, paralysing influence on large numbers of working women, whose will and action are channelled into the struggle between the sexes for reforming the bourgeois order, instead of the struggle between the classes for revolution.”[188] Zetkin emphasised that although the proletarian and bourgeois women’s movements may occasionally share certain demands, bourgeois women do not support the broader, more fundamental and comprehensive demands of proletarian women for real liberation: “We do not reject the bourgeois women’s rights advocates because we don’t want the small gains, but because they do not want the greater ones, the very substance of our demands.”[189]
For the bourgeois women’s movement, equality with men is the final goal, but for working women, it is not full liberation, merely an improvement in the conditions under which they can fight to overcome the existing system of domination and exploitation by the bourgeoisie. Therefore, according to Zetkin, working women may agree with some of the demands of the bourgeois women’s movement, but only “as a means to an end.”[190] In doing so, proletarian women must never forget that the bourgeois women’s movement actively prevents the real liberation of all women by upholding the capitalist order.
On the basis of her analysis of class interests under capitalism, Zetkin exposes the contradiction between bourgeois and proletarian women, unmasking the supposed harmonious unity of all women as an empty claim of the bourgeois women’s movement. Due to its class character, it stands in opposition to the socialist revolution, and thus to the liberation of all women. It objectively serves the interests of the bourgeoisie by obscuring class contradictions and preventing proletarian women from recognising and fighting for their own interests.
Feminism and the Bourgeois Women’s Struggle
The organised women’s movement originated in the 19th century, when women from the bourgeois middle and upper classes and the petty bourgeoisie, whose right to paid work was largely restricted, began to demand education, freedom to work, and equal civil rights.[191] The bourgeois women’s movement aimed for legal equality of the sexes through reforms within bourgeois society, which it sought to implement through struggles against the men of its own class. The term feminism emerged around 1900 and referred to this movement, also called Frauenrechtlerei (women’s rights advocacy) in the German-speaking world.[192] Feminism was sharply criticised by the proletarian women’s movement, above all by Clara Zetkin. It did not share the fundamental demands of working women for a society free from exploitation and class rule, on the contrary, it opposed them. Although both bourgeois and proletarian women occasionally advocated for the same reforms, such as women’s suffrage,, the danger of distraction from the essential goals of revolution was ever-present, precisely because feminists regarded such reforms as a final goal, rather than as a means to an end.[193]
Moreover, some demands of bourgeois women directly contradicted the immediate interests of working women, for example, the (petty) bourgeois demand for occupational freedom clashed with the working women’s fight for labour protection laws. Similarly, the bourgeois call for birth control was at times justified with the argument that limiting the number of children could alleviate the suffering of working women, a dangerous line of argument for the workers’ movement, as it denied capitalist exploitation as the root cause of poverty and hunger among working-class families.
The class character of the feminist movement has, in essence, remained unchanged to this day, despite major progress in legal equality of the sexes since the early 20th century. Many of these gains were only achieved thanks to the strong support of the wider workers’ movement, as in the case of women’s suffrage, and some were driven forward in capitalist countries through the example of socialist transformation in the Soviet Union and the GDR, such as the right to abortion and public childcare. Accordingly, the demands of bourgeois and proletarian women have changed over time. Yet even today, in the Federal Republic of Germany, society is still decisively shaped by the economic basis of capitalism, and thus by class relations. The bourgeois women’s movement continues to represent the interests of bourgeois women and, regardless of the far-reaching legal equality now in place, remains focused on improving women’s position within capitalist competition with men, and on demanding reforms within the framework of capitalism.
What Zetkin observed about the bourgeois women’s movement still applies today. Her predictions about the impact of political equality have come true, and bourgeois feminist organisations continue to support the existing capitalist order. As such, they do not represent the interests of the exploited and oppressed women of the working class, despite their claims to the contrary. Campaigns such as “More Women in Leadership,” career networks for women, “Girls’ Days” in technical professions, and the justification of imperialist foreign policy have no effect, or even negative effects, on the situation of most women and girls. Even movements such as One Billion Rising distract from the root causes of violence against women. At best, such efforts achieve relative advantages for a small minority of women, but these gains are neither sustainable nor generalisable across society, as they do not address the root causes of women’s oppression.
Today, as in the past, the feminist movement attempts to speak to the particular concerns of proletarian women. Yet due to its essentially reformist character, such approaches only serve to integrate the proletariat into capitalism rather than oppose it. Instead of identifying the root of women’s oppression in capitalist class society, it puts forward reform demands as ends in themselves and redirects the struggle against oppression into politically harmless channels. The bourgeois women’s movement promotes illusions, recruits parts of the working class for its aims, and distracts the broader masses of women from the revolutionary class struggle. It also fosters an anti-feminist image among some working-class men, leading them, in turn, to reject the struggle for proletarian women’s interests. It is, therefore, our adversary when it comes to the question of revolution and liberation.
We thus assess the bourgeois women’s movement not on the basis of its self-image, but on the basis of its actual class character, which is revealed in its actions. Zetkin witnessed how, following the split between Social Democrats and Communists in the early 20th century, parts of the formerly socialist women’s movement abandoned their revolutionary aims and practical orientation and “in terms of both aim and content, became merely a reform movement, a particular variety of bourgeois women’s rights advocacy.”[194] Even today, there are forces which present themselves as representatives of the working class, of its women and men, but in fact act in the interests of the bourgeoisie and uphold capitalism. This includes reformist parties and organisations such as the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, which promote a “left-wing feminism” and call for action against women’s economic disadvantage and sex-based violence, but in practice do little to seriously advance organisation toward the overthrow of capitalism. The problems involved in combining feminism with materialist approaches will be addressed below using the examples of “Marxist feminism” and queer feminism.
The ideology of the bourgeois women’s movement is feminism, which appears in numerous variants. What is essential is that feminist ideologies fail to acknowledge the decisive role that exploitation of the working class plays in the oppression of women. Our Programmatic Theses state:
“The many forms of bourgeois feminism treat the women’s question either in complete separation from the class question, or place it side by side with the class question as if it were of equal weight. This also applies to various ‘postmodern’ theories, which romanticise the issue and interpret women’s oppression only in terms of individual attitudes, male behaviour, or issues of ‘culture’ or ideology, without addressing the material basis of this oppression. This obscures the real relationship between the sex question and the class question and obstructs the struggle for women’s liberation. The fight against such ideologies is therefore also part of the fight for women’s liberation and a task of the workers’ movement.” [195]
In this text, we have outlined in detail the material basis of women’s oppression in order to clarify the relationship between sex and class relations and the respective struggles. On this basis, we reaffirm the assessment of bourgeois feminism found in our Programmatic Theses. Feminist approaches treat the women’s question as independent from the class question or place the two side by side without mediation. They deny that women of different classes have different interests and cannot fight together for their emancipation. For them, the class question is of equal, lesser, or no relevance compared to the women’s question. For us, the women’s question cannot be understood or resolved independently of the class question.
We therefore call on all those who are serious about fighting for the liberation of all women, not only bourgeois women, to join us, because feminism cannot achieve that goal. We criticise feminism as the ideology of the bourgeois women’s movement and aim to reach and persuade all those with a sincere interest in women’s emancipation through our critique.
Such ideologies and associated movements are not only incorrect, but also dangerous to the interests of the working class, because they divide it and mislead proletarian women into believing that they can achieve liberation as women rather than as a class. We therefore oppose the spread of feminist ideology and fight to sharpen awareness within the working class of the true causes of women’s oppression. Feminism represents the interests of the bourgeoisie, because of its class character, it is an opponent of the working class. This fundamental critique must be applied and tested against concrete examples. In what follows, we will critique some commonly held feminist concepts and positions. A detailed critique of the stances of particular groups or individuals is still to come. For now, we limit ourselves to so-called “Marxist feminism” as represented by Silvia Federici, and queer feminism as represented by Judith Butler, since both are major currents in contemporary feminist debate.
The so-called “Marxist Feminism” of Silvia Federici
Silvia Federici is known as a prominent “Marxist feminist”. Her 2004 book Caliban and the Witch is intended to provide a critical alternative to Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation, an alternative that centres women. The word “alternative” is no coincidence. For Federici, Marxism must be revised above all due to a “blindness to reproductive labour”.[196] Federici thus aligns herself with other authors who declare the intention to “renew” Marxism.[197] Her explicit aim is to determine “what contribution a revised Marxism can make to feminist theory”.[198]
Federici places central emphasis on the significance of the sphere of reproduction within the process of capitalist accumulation. Alongside Federici, some other feminists also use the term “reproductive labour”.[199] This refers to the concrete activities undertaken in order to produce and reproduce labour power, including daily care for and provision of people, and which thus have a substantial influence on the value of the commodity labour power. These areas are exclusively or predominantly carried out by women. Federici writes: “Reproductive labour is the basis of all other forms of labour. And it is still unpaid. Because it is not recognised as labour at all: it is not perceived as labour. This has left many women impoverished and dependent on men.”[200] Let us take a closer look at the concept of reproduction.
Marx does not use “reproduction” in Capital as a standalone term, but always in relation to social production: “Whatever the social form of the production process, it must be continuous, or periodically pass through the same phases anew. […] Viewed in its continuous connection and in the constant flow of its renewal, every social production process is therefore at the same time a reproduction process.”[201] “Reproduction” here refers to the repetition of production, including the renewal of the means of production on the one hand and the individual and social labour power on the other. The term does not describe a distinct sphere separate from production. The production and reproduction of labour power is merely one part of the social production and reproduction that takes place under the rule of capital in capitalism and is based on the labour of the exploited class.
In order to stay alive and fit for work, the working class must buy and consume commodities that it has itself produced. For this, workers use the wages they receive from the capitalists in exchange for applying their labour power. As already mentioned above, the wage is determined by the value of the commodity labour power, which in turn is defined by the socially average amount of labour time required for its production: “The value of labour power, like that of every other commodity, is determined by the labour time necessary for the production and therefore also the reproduction of this specific article.”[202] Labour power is, however, always tied to the existence of a living individual. Assuming this, a certain amount of means of subsistence is required for the maintenance of the working individual, satisfying the locally and historically specific needs for food, clothing, heating, housing, but also culture.[203] The production of labour power also includes the reproduction of the working class, i.e. means of subsistence for its offspring. Depending on the branch of industry, costs for the education or training of the workforce also arise. Put simply, the value of labour power is determined by the average social labour time necessary to produce the means of subsistence required for its maintenance. The value of labour power thus also changes when the value of these means of subsistence, i.e. the labour time necessary for their production, changes.
The drive of capital to keep the costs of reproducing labour power as low as possible expresses itself both in the shifting of reproductive activities into the private sphere of the working-class family and in the tendency to minimise the time necessary for this reproduction. Since the capitalist’s profit increases the lower the wage paid, capitalists are interested in keeping the labour time required for the reproduction of labour power to a minimum. The pronounced role of women as those primarily responsible for the unpaid completion of these tasks plays into this drive. In addition, jobs that contribute to the reproduction of labour power are still poorly paid today.[204]
Even though Marx analytically lays out the work primarily performed by women in the household under capitalism and sketches the role of the family in this regard,[205] he does not use the term “reproductive labour”. Federici is seemingly aware of this, as she uses the term reproductive labour in the context of what she claims is Marx’s “lack of theoretical consideration for reproductive labour”.[206] For Federici, Marxist theory adheres to an understanding that ignores the significance of domestic labour in the capitalist accumulation process and develops a “bodiless conception of labour”, a conception that excludes crucial sex-specific characteristics.[207] This means that Marx, “although he disapproved of patriarchal conditions, left behind an analysis of capital and class that is thought from a male perspective, that of ‘the working man’, the predominantly white industrial worker.”[208] The author acknowledges that Marx and Engels do address the specific situation of working women in their writings, but for her, they do so only descriptively, not analytically. An analysis of “gender relations”, i.e. the “power relations between women and men”,[209] is, according to Federici, entirely absent in Marx and Engels. With the quotations from Marx and especially Engels provided earlier in this text, we hope to have shown that this is not the case.
However, what Federici expects from Marx and Engels is a very specific type of incorporation of women’s perspective into the analysis of capitalism. For Federici, this would mean placing the production and reproduction of labour power at the centre of Marxist categories. This is linked to her critique of wage labour and commodity production as the “gravitational centre” of Marxist theory. But what does all of this mean in concrete terms?
For Federici, the reproduction of labour power, as with Marx, is part of the social production and reproduction process. But unlike Marx, Federici sees the production and reproduction of labour power as a sphere of capital accumulation: since labour power, which produces capital and enables capital accumulation, is produced and reproduced through domestic work, housework itself becomes a field of accumulation, or so Federici argues. As already mentioned above, we consider this to be a false assumption: for capital to be generated through domestic labour, women would have to be exploited in the process, since there can be no capital or capital accumulation without the production of surplus value. Women’s responsibility for household and family is an expression of their oppression in bourgeois society, but it does not constitute a form of exploitation. Domestic labour, like other forms of concrete labour, lies outside the production process and, in working-class families, does not take place in the form of commodities.
Accordingly, Federici argues that the contribution of women who do most of the domestic labour remains unrecognised and undervalued, not only in capitalism, but also in Marxist analysis. According to her, it is an achievement of her theory and other attempts to combine Marxist and feminist theory that they have made “a new terrain of accumulation and struggle”[210] visible. Federici thus links her theory to a real issue, the relative social invisibility of domestic labour compared to wage labour, but derives from it an understanding that sees domestic labour as a field of capital accumulation.
Let us take a closer look at the process of reproducing labour power: the worker, more often the working woman, purchases the everyday necessities. The working-class family must also pay rent, heating, and other utilities. All of these expenses combined constitute (in simplified terms) the value the worker needs in order to reproduce their labour power. In addition, the flat must be cleaned, food cooked, and children cared for. It may appear as if all these tasks, which are still performed in the overwhelming majority of cases by women in working-class families, add value to the food items, as living labour is expended and objectified, for example, in a cooked dinner. However, “value” is a purely social category and presupposes that a product like dinner is offered as a commodity on the market in order for its value (in simplified terms) to be realised. This does not occur within the working-class family. While the use-value of the food is increased by preparing the meal, the meal itself does not become a commodity and does not acquire the dual character of use-value and value. Thus, the woman’s domestic labour is productive in the sense that it creates a use-value, but not in the sense of capitalist commodity production, as the goods produced directly (e.g. food, a clean home) are not sold and do not enter into a relation with other products, and therefore have no exchange value.
Moreover, there is no sale of the working-class woman’s labour power; she is not employed directly by the capitalist in production. The food she purchases for the family does not retain its value but is consumed. The command of capital is not directly present here, even though the working-class family, which is “doubly free”, is nonetheless subject to social compulsion at all times. From the purchase of food to washing the dishes, no value is produced that a capitalist could extract surplus value from.
The worker regenerates his labour power by eating dinner, by recovering in a clean home, and by sleeping in a freshly made bed. When the working-class woman takes care of the children, the labour power of the family is also reproduced in a broader sense. If the worker only ate uncooked food, lived in a dirty home, fell ill as a result, slept poorly, and if his children were neglected, then his labour power would be reproduced more poorly, these are merely examples of the conditions that make for better or worse reproduction of labour power.
However, it is precisely the specific character of labour power as a commodity that it is not a “thing”, not merely an accumulation of dead, previously expended labour, but instead potential living labour. For this reason, the conditions of its reproduction are far more complex than for any other commodity. To assume that a woman reproduces the value of a man’s labour power directly through her own labour implies that labour power itself, like any other commodity, is the product of labour. This understanding renders the capitalist concept of labour absurd; even the movement of the man’s jaw as he chews his food would have to be included as value-producing, since it makes the food digestible. Anyone attempting to declare reproductive labour as value-producing labour will find no reasonable measure to distinguish value-producing labour from concrete physical activity. Is, for instance, doing sport, which can also contribute to restoring labour power, value-producing labour? Why or why not?
We uphold the position that the socialisation of domestic labour is a crucial demand in the women’s question, and that we as communists must fight for this demand. For example, more nursery places and affordable or free school and canteen meals are needed. The struggle for these demands must be waged from the perspective of the entire working class, aimed at abolishing exploitation. The false understanding of “value-producing reproductive labour” criticised here leads to a far-reaching problem: it ultimately renders a correct analysis of capitalism impossible, as it loses sight of the specific role of wage labour and thus of exploitation and surplus value production. A false analysis necessarily leads to false conclusions in both strategy and practice.
Another important aspect of Federici’s critique of Marx concerns the progressive character of capitalism, particularly regarding the emancipation of women. According to Federici, Marx claims that the situation of workers under capitalism improves continuously through mechanisation until “we gain control over our existence and our natural environment”.[211] This claim is also linked to the view that Marx failed to adequately assess the significance of domestic labour, since care and educational activities cannot be sustainably mechanised. Federici also criticises Marx’s theory for disregarding “the knowledge and wealth”[212] of non-capitalist societies. Her writings thus reflect an idealisation of pre-capitalist times, especially in relation to the condition of women. She writes:
“[…] the witch hunts destroyed an entire world of female practices, collective relationships, and systems of knowledge which had formed the basis of women’s power in pre-capitalist Europe and constituted the precondition for their resistance in the struggle against feudalism. From this defeat emerged a new model of femininity: the ideal woman and wife, passive, obedient, frugal, silent, always busy with work, and chaste.” [213]
Federici implies that women were not systematically oppressed in other class societies, for example under feudalism (“women’s power”). Certainly, the witch hunts were a particularly violent expression of women’s position in that epoch, yet the upheaval of the economic base progressively led to the integration of women into social production. Federici idealises pre-capitalist class societies in which women were already oppressed, as we have elaborated in detail in the second part of this text. At the same time, she wrongly accuses Marx of idealising capitalism. In fact, unlike Federici, Marx understood the history of humanity, and thus the historically changing situation of women, on the basis of economic relations, in a dialectical way: he and, referring to his work, figures such as Engels, Zetkin, and Kollontai, extensively explained the connection between relations of production and ownership, the position of women, motherhood, and domestic labour. In doing so, they also recognised both the advances and the new problems that capitalism brought for women’s conditions.
Regarding the situation of women, Federici is accordingly sceptical that their integration into capitalist production was and is a step towards emancipation. As already mentioned, in our view this integration into productive labour enables women to make a contribution to society as a whole, since they produce socially useful values. Participation in production creates the economic foundation for equality, which finds expression in some areas in the recognition of rights under capitalism. For Federici, however, the new capitalist society means “a historical defeat” for women: “every woman (with the exception of those who were privatised by bourgeois men) [was] transformed into a common good, since as soon as women’s activities were defined as non-work, women’s labour began to appear as a natural resource, available to everyone.”[214] With her focus on domestic labour, which she regards as a central aspect of capitalist production, Federici fails to recognise the emancipatory role of women’s integration into production, which, as already mentioned, is only one element on the path to genuine emancipation.
Federici also identifies a changed class antagonism in capitalism, due to a “new patriarchal order” which she calls “wage patriarchy”: “Class antagonism was considerably defused because men could recoup at home, at women’s expense, the power they had lost in the workplace.”[215] However, from the previous discussion of her theory, it is not entirely clear what practical consequences this defusing has for the struggle as a class, i.e. for working men and women together. One thing can be said: Federici’s approach, by employing some Marxist categories while unjustifiably rejecting others in our view, is not Marxist and is not an approach that enriches our struggle against women’s oppression.
To return to the concept of reproductive labour: in Federici and other authors, it must be understood in the context of efforts to revalue the activities related to the reproduction of labour power, which are primarily carried out by women. She does so by assigning reproduction a role in capital accumulation, a role which, in our view, it does not possess. From this follows a false understanding of the oppression of women under capitalism. In combination with a view of historical development that fails to recognise progress, this leads to a misdirected orientation in the struggle against the oppression of women. The term “reproductive labour” and its variants also invite misunderstanding, since the reproduction of the working class requires more than what is created through housework and care work, and since it suggests that there are two kinds of labour: productive and reproductive.[216] But reproduction must not be thought of as separate from production, rather, the one is a moment of the other, since the production of labour power also includes its own reproduction or maintenance.[217]
The Queer Feminism of Judith Butler
Judith Butler, who became well known through Gender Trouble (originally published in English in 1990), is a prominent theorist of the poststructuralist strand of feminism. Characteristic of so-called poststructuralism is the idealist notion that discourse[218] or language is the site where social reality is constituted.
According to Butler, gender[219] consists of three dimensions that are relatively independent from one another: the anatomical materiality of the body (sex), the felt identity, or self-understanding of one’s own gender (gender identity), and the enactment of one’s gender identity and sexual desire (gender performance). According to Butler, all three dimensions are discursively constructed, that is, expressions of cultural interpretation, which calls into question the notion of a natural biological sex.[220] Butler writes: “Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; indeed, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself.”[221] Culture is placed above nature; nature cannot be conceived independently of culture. The fact that certain anatomical characteristics are relevant for classifying people into a sex is, according to Butler, a socio-cultural dimension, not one predetermined by the materiality of the body itself. It is thus a construction of society, including science, that chromosomes, zygotes, and secondary sexual characteristics are understood as sex. Butler argues that the binary sex order is not a material fact or natural truth, but a cultural construct.[222]
Butler’s theory therefore also opposes feminist approaches that portray women as a group with shared characteristics and interests and assume a pre-discursive givenness of biological sex.[223] While we also criticise the feminist notion of shared interests among all women, unlike Butler, we base our analysis on a materialist understanding of class relations, which are decisive for the condition of women. The “radical questioning of a biological and binary construction of the gender binary”[224] as developed by Butler in Gender Trouble is something we criticise as a false constructivism, since biological sex is not an arbitrary construction but can be determined by the capacity to produce small or large gametes.[225] The link between biological sex, on the one hand, and sex-based roles, attributions, and sexist ideologies on the other is also not incidental but can be explained through historical materialism.[226] It is necessary to uncover these lawful connections and causes in order to find the correct strategy for overcoming existing oppression.
Butler aims to create an “emancipatory” feminist theory that does not invoke the material givenness of the body.[227] One issue is her inadequate historical analysis and contextualisation, as well as the lack of consideration of social conditions.[228] Ultimately, Butler critiques society only on the ideological level: according to her, the problem lies in society’s construction of the three dimensions of gender as congruent. Moreover, society carries out a “disciplining” of bodies via a societal norm of a physical ideal of gender that corresponds to a particular self-conception of gender and a specific behaviour, including heterosexual desire. This social norm is so powerful and operates so insidiously that people internalise it and restrict themselves in their gendered openness. Accordingly, Butler derives the political conclusion that it is necessary to deconstruct the congruence of gender dimensions and consciously introduce ruptures between them. This is meant to serve the development of an open concept of gender as infinite diversity, which would end the oppression of genders that deviate from the norm. According to Butler, gender is therefore a construct that must be overcome at the level of discourse and performance. She thus recommends parodying gender norms and destabilising existing male and female roles. The fixed sexes are to be performatively altered “by throwing gender binarity into confusion”.[229] To break out of existing structures, one must “shift those gender norms that enable repetition […] through a radical proliferation of gender identity”.[230] If gender is performative or “discursively constructed” and is to be “deconstructed”, then social change is ultimately to take place within the individual. This bourgeois theory obscures the actual causes of the current relation of the sexes and the path to liberation through revolutionary class struggle for socialism.
We therefore criticise Butler’s political conclusion, which is based on a false understanding of sex. It is idealist in that it does not challenge but rather conceals the material conditions on which the roles of the sexes are based. Butler does at times point to structural aspects of power and oppression and argues that individual actions and discourses interact in a complex interplay with social structures and mutually influence each other.[231] However, contrary to her assertions, her recommendations for action relate solely to the evaluation or questioning of traditional notions and remain on the level of theory and discourse. She concedes that there are social and economic power issues but maintains that these too are best understood through her own theoretical approach.[232] The understanding and critique of Butler’s theory is made more difficult by her at times ambiguous and contradictory writing. For example, she claims in one place that sexual difference has a clear material binary basis and is not an illusion, a position that contradicts the one outlined above.[233] We also criticise this poststructuralist tendency towards contradiction, ambiguity, obscurity, and complexity of expression, as it prevents broad debate on contested issues. As a result, different interpretations and currents have emerged, all claiming to be based on Butler.
“Materialist” Queer Feminism
Queer feminism is arguably the most significant current which, following Butler, rejects biologically given sex, any reference to the binary nature of sex, and thus also the category of woman, in favour of a plurality of genders. Despite the incoherence and diversity of queer feminist approaches, we attempt here to highlight some of the issues that generally characterise queer feminism. Queer feminism lacks not only a concept of the material, in this case also biological, foundation for the emergence of sex-based roles and the oppression of women, but also, like all feminist approaches, the materialist class analysis necessary for a successful struggle for liberation. Moreover, the critique that has been formulated from within our ranks against the “postmodern identity left”, using anti-racism as an example, also applies to queer feminism: the channeling of spontaneous indignation into directions that pose no threat to the system as a whole, the fuelling of reformist ideas and illusions in the bourgeois state and capitalism, the emphasis on dividing lines along identity boundaries, which prevents the formulation of a shared class interest and thus obstructs a simultaneous struggle against current specific forms of oppression and disadvantage as well as against capitalist exploitation in general. Conclusion: “Most positions of the postmodern identity left are not compatible with a Marxist analysis of social conditions.”[234]
What follows are a few rough thoughts on the attempt to reconcile Marx and Butler in the so-called “materialist queer feminism”.[235] This cannot fundamentally succeed, as Marx’s materialist-dialectical scientific approach is not compatible with Butler’s idealist postmodern-deconstructivist approach. Butler questions material and ideological realities in a relatively arbitrary way. Marx, on the other hand, and following him also Engels, Zetkin, Kollontai and ourselves, analyses the causes of the emergence and development of existing conditions, assuming the ultimately determining role of the base over the superstructure, as we also did in the second part of this presentation. We know that the oppression of women and the emergence of sex-based roles, which in turn negatively affect all those who do not conform to these norms, have their roots in the interplay between the division of labour between the sexes due to women’s capacity for childbirth, on the one hand, and the emergence of property due to rising labour productivity (and thus classes), on the other. Queer feminist approaches, by contrast, have no scientific understanding of the causes of existing relations of the sexes, but believe instead that sex-based oppression and the very existence of sexes are constructed more or less arbitrarily from material conditions and can therefore be just as arbitrarily deconstructed. The queer feminist strategy is thus individualist and ultimately idealist and bourgeois, as it fails to account for the decisive significance of class struggle from below. This remains the case even when the term “class” is used but not applied in a scientific sense: as with so-called “Marxist feminism”, it amounts merely to a superficial reference to Marxist theories and terminology, while the essential components of historical materialism are either missing or actively denied.
Part Five: Strategy for the Liberation of Women
The Path to the Liberation of Women
The Path to Socialism
The strategy and tactics of the Communist Party together form the plan of action for the conquest of power by the working class.[236] Following Stalin, we understand strategy as “the determination of the direction of the main blow of the proletariat on the basis of the given stage of the revolution, the working out of a corresponding plan for the deployment of the revolutionary forces (the main and secondary reserves), [the] struggle for the implementation of this plan throughout the entire course of the given stage of the revolution.”[237] Today, monopoly capitalism has established itself globally. In almost all countries, the bourgeoisie clearly holds political power, even if remnants of pre-capitalist social structures still exist (for example, the caste system in India). Therefore, the question of national liberation and cooperation with bourgeois forces to achieve this goal generally no longer arises.[238] In many countries, as the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM) has formulated for its own country, poor peasants and oppressed national minorities also play an important role as “part of the alliance with the popular sectors.”[239]
As we formulate in our Programmatic Theses, the Communist Party, in the struggle for socialism, strives for an alliance between the working class and the social strata that are objectively in contradiction with capital, and not for an alliance with other organisations.[240] The goal, then, is the united front from below, led by the working class as the revolutionary subject. The focus here is on organising workers of various beliefs, regardless of ideological preferences, voting behaviour or even party affiliations, for their shared objective class interest in a common struggle. The goal of the united front from below is to achieve the greatest possible striking power of the workers’ movement in its daily struggle against the bourgeoisie, and thereby to forge the closest possible bonds with non-communist colleagues, build mutual trust, engage in discussion, and ultimately win them over to socialism. In Germany, the allied but wavering petty-bourgeois strata of the people include, for example, owners of small snack bars, intellectuals, and small self-employed individuals. They are pressured by the capitalist class and pushed down into the proletariat, while at the same time struggling to maintain private property.[241]
Strategy Regarding the Women’s Question
As was formulated by the Third Congress of the Communist International in 1921, there can be no “special women’s question” and no separate women’s movement detached from the struggle for socialism-communism.[242] Historical experience shows that the struggle for the liberation of women is inseparably linked with the struggle of the working class for socialism, and is a struggle of the whole class for the benefit of the whole class. When we say that only under socialism is the complete liberation of women even possible, and that the participation of women in the struggle for socialism is necessary, then the strategy for women’s liberation cannot consist of separate, isolated struggles and issues, but must be part of our overall strategy. The struggle for women must advance the struggle for socialism as a whole, and vice versa. Otherwise, we will not be fighting the root cause of the oppression of proletarian women and their allies: private ownership of the means of production.
At the same time, it is clear that there are certain issues which primarily affect proletarian women. We must always highlight the concerns of proletarian women as specific concerns in our orientation. What that means for us, we will try to clarify more precisely in this chapter.
The workers’ movement has historically proven to be the most consistent and powerful support for women’s liberation. Within the workers’ movement, especially at the beginning of capitalism, reactionary attitudes had to be combated and the realisation had to be established that the equality of women is in the interest of the whole working class, and that the revolutionary class struggle can only succeed with the participation of proletarian women. Against the bourgeois women’s movement, it had to be asserted that there can be no joint movement of all women, and that only the overthrow of capitalism can make the complete liberation of oppressed women possible. As we have shown in our critique of various strands of feminism, this is still relevant today: struggles that are not oriented towards the interest of the entire working class divide the class and weaken its fighting capacity against attacks by capital and, for example, fascist ideology.
From our strategy for socialism follows the perspective for the struggles of women:
- These struggles must above all have the content goal of exposing the connection between capitalist exploitation and the particular oppression of women. In doing so, demands for economic equality in the interest of working (and not bourgeois) women must be at the forefront. Relatedly, these struggles must contribute to uniting the working class against the bourgeoisie and its ideology, rather than dividing it further. The goal must be to strengthen proletarian women’s consciousness of their revolutionary power: precisely because of the still entrenched societal roles of women as dependent and confined to the private sphere, this is a particular challenge that we must address deliberately.
- As we have shown in our reflections on the oppression of proletarian women under capitalism, they have a material interest in overcoming private ownership of the means of production: they are expected to work in lower-paid professions, to carry out the majority of reproductive labour in the private household, and are particularly defenceless in the face of structural violence and contempt. But small self-employed women, small shopkeepers and (where still present in Germany) small-scale female farmers also suffer from these problems at least in part. Their material situation also makes them, albeit inconsistent, allies.
- From the direction of attack and the identification of main and secondary reserves also follows the organisation of these strata: in social alliances as an extension of the united front from below. Instead of alliances between the Communist Party and other organisations, the focus must be placed on organising proletarian women and their alliance with women from other social strata who are objectively in contradiction with capital. We must build the class alliance “from below” by developing the various struggles for better living conditions for the people: by merging these through contact between the struggling individuals and placing them under the same strategic objective.
The Relationship Between Reform and Revolution
We derive our tactics from our strategy. In implementing the strategic orientation, national particularities must of course be taken into account on the tactical level: the configuration of capitalists and production, the size of the working class and other classes (such as small farmers), issues of national and popular culture as well as ethnic and linguistic minorities. Overall, our tactical considerations must focus on the material causes of oppression. We have established that the sexual division of roles historically developed on the basis of the woman’s potential for childbearing and that these roles over time became entrenched and elaborated ideologically on the level of production. In this process, the woman was confined to the private sphere, which in turn intensified her economic dependency and led to her being taken less seriously than men as a social force. We determined that a reduction in the economic dependency of proletarian women and their participation in working life can be the necessary precondition for further steps toward women’s emancipation. Kollontai also reports this with regard to the situation of peasant women at the beginning of the construction of the Soviet Union:
“Before the October Revolution, divorce in the countryside was virtually non-existent. Occasionally a man would abandon his wife; but for a peasant woman to leave her husband happened only once in a century and caused tremendous stir in the village community. Since divorce was made significantly easier by the 1917 decree, it is no longer so unusual, especially among the younger generation in the countryside, for a couple to divorce. This fact clearly shows that even in rural areas the seemingly unshakeable foundation of the institution of the family has begun to falter. Today, when a peasant woman leaves her husband, it no longer causes a great disturbance in the village. The more the peasant woman carries out independent labour within the communist agricultural economy, participates as an elected member in the local soviet, and takes part in collective work deployments, the easier it becomes for her to overcome the traditional notion of female inferiority.” [243]
In summary, it can be said that during the construction of the Soviet Union, the loosening of divorce laws and their practical implementation was only made possible through the increasing participation of women in production and social organisation. Struggles concerning the working conditions of proletarian women should therefore be at the centre of our orientations. This is also important with regard to our strategic goal of building workers’ councils in the workplaces.[244]
As with all tactical matters, our orientations in the struggles around women’s and sex questions must not foster illusions, but nor should they pursue demands that are too small and easily implementable without greater resistance. Otherwise, we would fail to achieve our strategic goal of shaping the consciousness of revolutionary layers regarding their class position and the limits of capitalism. Reforms that improve the life of the working woman are possible under capitalism, but they do not have a lasting character and cannot resolve the fundamental problems.
Nevertheless, the struggle for reforms is necessary, because only through struggle can the working class and other oppressed segments of the people be united, gain the necessary experience of struggle, learn the solidarity of the entire class, and begin to understand themselves as a class, as a collective, common force capable of truly changing the world. We must neither, like right-wing opportunists, abandon the strategic goal of revolution in favour of tactical aims like reforms, nor, like left-wing opportunists, forgo the laborious daily work of organising the working class in the fight for better living conditions in favour of radical slogans.
Tactical orientations must therefore start from the current situation here in Germany and the consciousness of the working class and allied layers, without running after the masses and their at times reactionary views, or the supposedly progressive attitudes prevailing among petty-bourgeois intellectual layers. The latter are essentially superficial, overly moralistic or hypocritical, without addressing the root of the problem, and are thus part of capitalism’s strategies of integration.
Last but not least, the struggles and demands should of course aim to improve the situation of proletarian women, as we have also formulated in our Programmatic Theses as a commitment: “Even today we fight against the economic disadvantage of women and the forms of misogyny resulting from it.”[245]
Proposals for Concrete Tactical Orientations
We must primarily derive our tactical orientations from the criteria outlined thus far in this chapter. If our aim is to develop the consciousness of proletarian women regarding themselves as revolutionary subjects and the class contradiction, then we must not only speak about the correct content of our slogans, but also about how we intend to organise the struggle around them. Workplace and trade union struggles must be at the centre of our focus, as it is there that the direct opposition between the interests of the workforce and capital becomes most visible. Of course, the obfuscating ideology of the ruling class also operates here, in the form of social partnership, conciliatory attitudes, and the ideal of a family with a clear division of labour between the sexes. Yet it is precisely our task to combat this. As we showed in Part Three, the reality today is that a large proportion of proletarian women are, by necessity, employed at least part-time, and constitute the overwhelming majority in particularly low-paid jobs, making struggles in these sectors directly relevant to improving the living conditions of a large portion of proletarian women.
Wages and Working Conditions
For this reason, the central battleground for us must be the question of wage and working conditions for proletarian women. The struggle for “equal pay for equal work” is not only aimed at reducing women’s economic dependence. Equal pay for equal tasks is also intended to prevent a division within the working class, where women would otherwise become wage-depressing competition.[246] But of course, we cannot stop there; instead, the primary focus must be on securing higher wages in poorly paid professions. The greatest pay inequality between the sexes does not lie in equal work, but rather stems from the fact that women, on average, work in lower-paid professions—often in sectors such as care, education, and early years.[247] We must therefore make use of workplace struggles both in these sectors and in typically “male-dominated” occupations, to raise awareness of this issue and also to provide education about the function of care, education, and early years sectors under capitalism. The medium-term goal must be solidarity-based actions and cross-workplace strikes in support of wage struggles in these poorly paid professions. One potential approach could be to advocate, together with colleagues, for social components in wage struggles: instead of percentage increases, equal pay rises for everyone—which particularly benefits those in the lowest-paid roles. Other possible orientations include demands for higher job classifications, for example for team assistants, cleaners, or canteen staff.
Beyond wage struggles, the fight for better working conditions plays a central role: women are significantly more likely to be employed in temporary agency work, fixed-term contracts, outsourced jobs or “mini-jobs”, so it is especially in their interest to fight against precarious employment conditions. Single mothers, who are responsible for children without the direct support of a second income, are especially at risk of poverty. Agency workers earn, on average, one third less than their permanently employed colleagues. Planning for the future is therefore only possible to a limited extent: multiple terminations and rehirings in quick succession are not uncommon; around half of all temporary agency jobs last only around three months.[248] The correct orientation here would be a ban on temporary agency work, the establishment of an entitlement to permanent employment after a certain period, and ultimately the abolition of agency work altogether. Outsourcing typically affects workers in areas such as company canteens or cleaning services, and often results in employment under inferior collective agreements or outside of collective bargaining altogether—thus in most cases having a wage-depressing effect.[249] For all of these precarious forms of employment, it holds true that workers are often harder to organise—due to the very short duration of employment, minimal contact with the core workforce, and, above all, a heightened fear of and dependence on the capitalist side.
The foregoing discussion shows concretely how a key part of our struggles to improve the situation of proletarian women directly overlaps with the struggles of the working class as a whole—and therefore must be waged jointly by proletarian men and women.
Family and Household
The statistical disadvantage of women in working life, their absence from employment due to childbirth, and the expectation that they take on housework and childcare at home, shape the role of women within the family. Here, we must lead a cultural struggle within the working class for the shared responsibility of housework, childcare, and care work. This also includes agitational education about the backwardness of the housewife role, the high value of childcare, and the social importance of work in the home. However, the focus should not lie on the individual division of labour between woman and man within the household, as this could lead to an individualisation and division of the sexes. Moreover, it would neglect the burden borne by proletarian single mothers. Instead, we must, insofar as it is possible under capitalism, fight for the transfer of housework and the reproductive sphere into the hands of public institutions. This also means that such services must be as affordable or free as possible, since otherwise only the situation of women from the labour aristocracy and petty-bourgeois layers would be improved.
To avoid stopping at appeals to the government, creating illusions about capitalism, and thereby weakening our capacity for struggle, these struggles should be integrated into strikes and workplace actions at nurseries, schools, and universities. Again, we should seek to overcome divisions within the working class and, for example, bring together affected parents and striking staff in relation to nurseries and schools, rather than allowing them to be played off against one another. The COVID crisis once again showed who suffers first in times of crisis: during nursery closures, proletarian women who could not afford private childcare had to stay at home. Even today, particularly in western Germany, the need for childcare places is so unmet that many women are unable to work or can only work reduced hours. Many local councils are advertising for new staff, but due to the stressful, demanding and poorly paid working conditions, these efforts have met with little success. The struggle for free and genuinely universal early years childcare thus once again coincides with the struggle for higher wages in these sectors. Another part of shifting housework into the public realm is the fight for free canteen meals in schools, universities, and workplaces.
Since proletarian women in particular are especially frequently affected by poverty, affordable rents and general living costs, such as heating and electricity, are especially in their interest. These should be raised during workplace struggles or, as a next step, form the basis of political strikes. Other possible forms include neighbourhood-based struggles and rallies organised jointly with trade unions.
Marriage, as the legal framework of a family unit, can have varying effects on the position of women. We oppose the calculation of social benefits (Bürgergeld) based on household income, as this often keeps women financially dependent on their husbands or partners. Separation must always be possible unilaterally and without financial risk; through maintenance payments and state support, the financial independence of the financially disadvantaged person, typically the woman in heterosexual couples, must be guaranteed.
Health and Sexuality
Here too, in contrast to bourgeois movements, part of the struggle must include raising awareness about the limitations and nature of these institutions and of the capitalist system as a whole, and how quickly hard-won gains can be reversed during times of crisis.
Fundamental to this is the introduction of truly comprehensive free healthcare, equipped with sufficient resources and good working conditions to ensure equal medical care for all women. Maternity protection and the protection of young children should be further expanded, by ensuring these apply to all forms of employment, including for unemployed women, and by introducing an immediate work ban for pregnant women engaged in dangerous or strenuous work.
Within the working class, also as part of our workplace struggles, we must address the issue of sexual violence, particularly by male colleagues and superiors. At the legal level, rape and other sexual assaults must be clearly prosecuted, with a focus on supporting the women affected. Sexual violence by superiors should be treated as a particularly serious offence. For women experiencing violence within relationships, women’s shelters and rapid access to alternative housing must be made available to ensure their safety.
Moreover, the purchase of sex must be banned, with the focus placed on punters and pimps. This must be accompanied by economic and social measures aimed at eliminating the underlying causes of prostitution and promoting exit programmes. This includes, for example, the creation of training opportunities, the abolition of university tuition fees, as well as integration and follow-up support measures for prostitutes, particularly migrant women.[250] Part of this is the banning of the production, advertising, and distribution of pornography, as it promotes the objectification of women. Within the constraints of capitalism, access to safe and free abortions, vasectomies, and tubal ligations must also be ensured. There should also be straightforward medical and psychological counselling on these issues.
An aspect of this struggle is targeted educational work on prostitution and the living conditions of prostitutes, in order to help reduce their social exclusion. Another important part of educational work is raising awareness about different forms of sexual orientation and actively combating discrimination. Sexuality in general should be addressed openly and factually in schools, in order to dismantle outdated notions such as the fixation on women’s chastity or virginity. In many places, this is already being implemented. At the same time, it is essential to counteract the normalisation of pornography-influenced sexual behaviour, particularly among young people. The aim is to promote a healthy and respectful understanding of sexuality.
Furthermore, the free distribution of contraceptives and menstrual products must be guaranteed, to reduce the financial burden on women. Finally, it is important to advance the research and distribution of contraceptives that temporarily render men infertile, in order to distribute the responsibility for contraception equally between the sexes. Abortions must be fully legalised and funded by the health insurance system. Doctors who refuse to perform abortions should have their licences revoked.
Our Relationship to the Challenges and Struggles of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Trans People
We oppose reactionary views of the role of women as housewives, the rejection of abortion, and sexual education in schools. However, we also reject notions of sex as a spectrum, as outlined in the first part. The concept of biological sex is important to understand the material basis of the oppression of proletarian women. This understanding and the struggle against it are not possible if the category “woman” is no longer recognised and, for example, replaced by “FLINTA”[251]. This also includes, for instance, dedicating International Women’s Day to the struggles of proletarian women worldwide rather than equating it with struggles against various forms of discrimination.
Our focus lies on the struggle with and for proletarian women, as this struggle aligns with our fight for socialism. The discrimination of trans people, homosexuals, and bisexuals is ultimately also a consequence of sex-based roles and the oppression of women, and can only be overcome within this context. Therefore, compared to the oppression of proletarian women in reproduction, it plays a subordinate role in maintaining capitalism. We fight against disadvantage, discrimination, and violence directed at homosexual, bisexual, trans, and intersex people—both within our own ranks and as part of our workplace struggles among the masses. Not only because this discrimination and violence make life harder for our class siblings, but also because it divides the class and thereby weakens us all.
Our previously outlined strategic and tactical orientation also applies to the proletarian segment of homosexual, bisexual, and trans people—for example, advocating for free and well-organised healthcare systems. Additionally, this includes, for instance, easy access to medical and psychological support for transsexual individuals, as well as the principle that homosexual couples should and can take on the same social responsibilities as heterosexual couples and be treated equally as couples. This implies the right to marriage and adoption. We reject the notion of a “right to children” and consider it correct to centre the welfare of children in these discussions. There will always be institutions needed to recognise potential dangers to child welfare and, if necessary, to temporarily or permanently separate children from their parents. Fertile heterosexual couples can conceive children without societal scrutiny, whereas homosexual couples cannot.
We must oppose surrogacy and similar arrangements that commodify pregnancy and childbirth. These practices contradict the interests of proletarian women, who are economically pressured into surrogacy. We believe it is beneficial for children to have both male and female close caregivers. However, we do not see this as sufficient justification to exclude homosexual couples from the responsibility of child-rearing. There will be economic, financial, or other personal reasons for a long time to come for mothers to choose to place their children for adoption. These children require a stable environment and close trusted persons. There is no sufficient basis to assume that homosexual couples would perform this task worse than heterosexual couples, whose ideas are also shaped by the sex-based roles of our capitalist society. Historically, child-rearing by both a man and a woman (especially before puberty) was not always the norm; often, women or groups of women alone took care of raising children. Therefore, we should not assume that children can and must only grow up in a father-mother-child constellation, and we must advocate for legal frameworks supporting other family constellations.
What Are We Fighting For? Women and Sex in Socialism
“No liberation of women without socialism, no socialism without the liberation of women”, or as Zetkin put it: “Without the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat, no true and full emancipation of women; without the participation of women in it, no smashing of capitalism, no socialist renewal.” [252] Since the beginning of the proletarian women’s movement, this slogan has been upheld repeatedly, but how can we understand it? We need to look more closely at the second half of the slogan. Even though socialism creates the economic and political foundation for the liberation of all, the liberation of women is not automatic. The new society is shaped by the cultural and moral ideas of the old society. The oppression of women has developed over millennia, and ideas about what women “in themselves” can or cannot do better or worse than men do not simply disappear, even when the means of production are in the hands of the working people. Yet under socialism, the ruling proletarian class does indeed have an interest in freeing women (unlike in capitalism, where the oppression of women benefits the ruling class), so that they can make the best possible contribution to society.
The struggle against reactionary ideas of sex-based roles will therefore still have to be fought under socialism, as we also express in our Programmatic Theses: “Socialism as a society not based on private ownership of the means of production is [merely] the prerequisite for the liberation of women. The attitudes, ideologies, and habits brought over from previous societal formations can be pushed back on this basis, although this must also be a conscious and active struggle.” [253] The first step will be to fully enforce economic, political, and legal equality.
“No liberation of women without socialism”, what does this mean? Some seem to believe that in parts of the world today, full emancipation of women is still achievable under capitalism: at least the social expectations of sex-based roles are changing. Concrete effects can be seen, for example, in the increased number of men taking paternity leave[254] and in men tending to take on slightly more housework[255] in recent decades. These developments must initially be seen within the overall picture of inequality between the sexes, as outlined in the third part. Above all, however, it is crucial that under capitalism, liberation of working-class women (or, in some countries, women of poor peasant strata) is impossible. Instead, alongside hard-won achievements, there are only temporary measures enacted by the ruling class to obscure conditions and integrate revolutionary demands.
In any case, such reforms are only temporary improvements that we as communists must defend and extend. These achievements are not guaranteed forever. Capitalism is fundamentally crisis-prone, which inevitably leads to situations of overproduction, war, state cutbacks, privatisations, and reductions in public services. Therefore, we will never permanently achieve free nursery places for all, outsourcing of housework to society, or wages in care and education that are sufficient to live on. Even if such gains are partially fought for, they would not equate to the liberation of women. As explained in detail in the fourth part, liberation of women also means freedom from exploitation.
Fundamentally, sex-based roles are extremely useful for capital as a mechanism of division, to keep the costs of reproducing labour power as low as possible and to weaken the fighting strength and unity of the working class. Above all, the role of women in biological reproduction, their ability to become pregnant, is the historical root of oppression and current limitation in the capitalist labour market. This will no longer be a vulnerability for women in a society of planned production based on social ownership of the means of production. Because then, society will no longer be determined by created surplus value. Instead, the proletarian class (or later, in communism, society as a whole) will consciously decide on all surplus labour that creates the surplus product. Thus, individual conditions such as the ability to bear children will play a smaller role, or none at all in communism.
In the early stage of socialism, products will still be distributed according to the principle “from each according to their performance,” but reproductive labour, including pregnancy and birth, will be recognised as important social tasks and therefore count as work. Essential parts of reproductive labour are to be organised socially, as has historically been implemented. Those unable to work in production will be supported through social surplus product. This includes children, students, apprentices, pensioners, people with disabilities, the ill, and also women on maternity leave or work bans.
Since work activity is the goal for everyone (as far as health allows), socialism also creates the material basis for the liberation of women in this regard. Lenin formulated it as follows:
“Women remain house slaves, despite all liberation laws, because they are crushed, stifled, numbed, and degraded by the petty housework which binds them to the kitchen and nursery and makes them waste their creative energy on a barbarically unproductive, petty, nerve-wracking, numbing, and oppressive toil. The true liberation of women, true communism, will only begin when the mass struggle (led by the proletariat at the helm of the state) against this petty housework, or rather, its massive transformation into socialist large-scale economy, begins.” [256]
This was also, according to Engels, the “first prerequisite” for the liberation of women, alongside “the abolition of the character of the nuclear family as the economic unit of society.” [257] This does not mean dissolving the family in socialism, understood as the connection between parents (heterosexual or homosexual) and their children. Instead, nuclear families should no longer play the fundamental role as economic units of production. The “classic” family should no longer be held together by economic necessity, but should rest, like all other forms of familial or partnership relationships, on mutual affection. Engels said:
“The private household transforms into a social industry. The care and education of children become a public matter; society takes care of all children equally, whether born in or out of wedlock. […] Full freedom of marriage can only be universally implemented once the abolition of capitalist production and the property relations it created has removed all economic considerations that still exert such a powerful influence on mate selection. Then no other motive remains but mutual affection. […] What will definitely disappear from monogamy are all the characteristics imposed by their origin in property relations, namely first the dominance of the man and second the indissolubility.” [258]
This will also have consequences for today’s depiction of prostitution as a socially “normal” form of work; the “purchase” of a woman will become unacceptable:
“What we can speculate about the order of sexual relations after the impending sweeping away of capitalist production is mostly negative, mainly concerning what will disappear. What will be added remains to be seen, when a new generation of men and women will have grown up: men who have never in their lives resorted to buying a woman with money or other social power, and women who have never given themselves to a man for any reason other than genuine love, nor refused love out of fear of economic consequences. When such people exist, they will not care one bit what people today think they should do; they will develop their own practices and the public opinions about each person’s behaviour will be based on these practices, period.” [259]
Overall, the liberation of women in a socialist society means a free and good health and education system organised by the state in the interests of the proletarian class. Housing is to be fairly distributed, so everyone has enough space according to their needs. To use all strengths and create a basis for equality, there is a duty to work for all who are able. The unemployed may receive training or further education. At the same time, working hours and retirement age are to be gradually reduced so that people have more free time.
Women and men will be paid equally, and there will be free, all-day care options for children, the elderly, and those in need of care. This will relieve women of much housework. Moreover, canteens in schools and workplaces will help reduce the need for cooking at home. Married couples will no longer receive special financial benefits, and pregnant women as well as small children will receive special protection. Campaigns will be conducted to overcome existing ideas about sex-based roles.
Everyone will have free access to contraceptives, and research into male contraceptive methods will be promoted. Every person will be able to decide on the beginning or termination of a pregnancy themselves. Therefore, abortions, vasectomies, and sterilisation will be offered free and safely. Violence against women and children will be fought decisively. There will be enough women’s shelters so that affected women can quickly find a safe place. Counselling and therapy services will also be provided free of charge. Prostitution will be banned without punishing the women affected. The goal is to end violence and exploitation. For such a society, where all those oppressed today hold their fate in their own hands and organise their lives collectively, we want to fight.
Concluding Thoughts
The oppression of women is not a random or isolated problem but is deeply embedded in capitalist society. It manifests itself in economic dependency, discriminatory structures, and cultural ideas that reduce women to specific roles. This oppression cannot be overcome through reforms within capitalism; it requires a revolutionary transformation of society as a whole.
A strategy for the liberation of women must therefore question the fundamental economic and social relations. Mere integration of women into the existing system is a first step toward emancipation, but it is not enough, as the basis for their heightened oppression still exists. Rather, a profound societal change is needed, in which housework, like all other necessary tasks, is collectively organized, the sex-specific division of labor beyond biological necessities is dissolved, and equal participation of all people, regardless of sex, in all areas of social life is ensured.
Overcoming the oppression of women, a brake on the workers’ movement and a weapon in the hands of reaction, must be understood as a central goal by all communists. Together, as a class, we fight against the favoritism of parts of the class at the expense of others. The oppression of women involves material and ideological aspects that we must understand and combat. In our struggle, we must focus on working women, who make up the majority of women and are decisively affected by oppression. Our slogans and demands must be aligned with their interests as part of the broader class interests of the proletariat and the popular classes. The fight against this oppression must be led by both men and women together and will take us directly into conflict with rigid ideas of sex-based roles, which we must combat both propagandistically and in the development of our comrades.
Capitalism will never allow for the liberation of women, as private ownership of the means of production and production aimed at maximizing profit inevitably leads to their oppression. The struggle for women’s equality is therefore inseparable from the struggle for a classless society. Now is the time to act! Organize yourselves, join the trade unions, and become active in the Communist Party. The path to liberation is not an easy one, but it is necessary. Our future does not lie in the hands of the rulers but in our own!
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[1] Hughes & Deeb (2006); Witchel (2018).
[2] E.g. van Eijk et al. (2021)
[3] Beauvoir (1999), p. 28.
[4] The material conditions under which sex-based roles have developed and changed are explained in the second part. There, the concrete relationship between biological sex and sex-based roles is also presented.
[5] Cf. Scheu (1981).
[6] Meuser (2010).
[7] Impett & Peplau (2002). See also the third part on pornography.
[8] For a brief assessment of queer feminism see the fourth part.
[9] According to a United Nations report, between 0.05 and 1.7 percent of the world population are born with intersex characteristics (UN, 2024a). There are no reliable figures or statistics on the number of affected persons in Germany.
[10] However, trisomy does not necessarily lead to intersexuality. The decisive factor for sex determination in terms of chromosomes is rather the presence or absence of the Y chromosome and not the total number of chromosomes (see Stock, 2021, p. 47).
[11] Ainsworth (2015). It should be noted here that the article is frequently cited to claim an alleged consensus among biologists for the critique of binarity, although it does not state this.
[12] Griffiths (2020).
[13] WHO (2022).
[14] Leinung (2020).
[15] GenderGP (2021).
[16] A brief classification by Lenin: “Historical materialism of Marx was a tremendous achievement of scientific thought. The chaos and arbitrariness that had prevailed until then in views about history and politics were replaced by a surprisingly uniform and harmonious scientific theory, which shows how one form of social life develops into another, higher form as a consequence of the growth of the productive forces, for example, how capitalism emerges from feudalism. Just as human knowledge reflects nature independent of man, i.e., developing matter, so social knowledge of man (i.e., various philosophical, religious, political, etc. views and teachings) reflects the economic structure of society. Political institutions are a superstructure upon the economic base.” Lenin (1913).
[17] Marx (1867), p. 18, cited after KO (2022). See there a classification of the scientific method.
[18] Marx (1867), p. 514.
[19] Marx & Engels (1846).
[20] Zetkin (1889a).
[21] Primitive communism, also “primitive society”, denotes in historical materialism an early human form of social organisation, in which communal ownership of essential resources and goods prevailed.
[22] Engels (1884), p. 68.
[23] See e.g. Holborow (2024).
[24] This is not necessarily intentional in concrete research but mostly corresponds to the state of the art. Especially in humanities and social science knowledge production, the influence of ideology is relevant.
[25] Hollasky (2021), p. 59; Gill-Frerking (2014), p. 70.
[26] Draper (2019).
[27] Kollontai (1921), 1st lecture: The Position of Women in Primitive Communism.
[28] Meaning the development of the genus Homo, which differs by a series of features from all earlier hominids (larger brain, smaller teeth, longer childhood, etc.). Bojs, (2022), p. 30.
[29] The surplus product is the excess produced beyond need.
[30] Schaik et al (2020), p. 185.
[31] Engels (1884), p. 164. By “communist community” Engels means the earlier organisational form with communal ownership. Civilisation, on the other hand, is understood as the stage of society “in which the division of labour, the exchange between individuals arising from it, and the encompassing commodity production come to full development and overturn the entire previous society.” Engels (1884), p. 168.
[32] See e.g. Thomas (2012), p. 34; Diamond (1997), p. 47; McGregor (2021); Bojs (2022); Cummings et al. (2014), p. 590.
[33] Lee (1988), p.119.
[34] Engels (1884), p.53.
[35] Bentley (2022), pp. 138 ff.; Knight (2009), pp. 66 ff.; Kraemer (1991).
[36] Engels (1884), p. 37.
[37] Bloodworth (2018), own translation.
[38] Brown (1970), Friedl cited after Harman (1994); Kollontai (1921), 1st lecture: The Position of Women in Primitive Communism.
[39] Venkataraman (2021), Anderson et al (2023).
[40] Corresponds to the end of the middle stage of barbarism in Engels.
[41] “Over the long time period for which archaeologists can trace the history of tools, humans have not only changed their tools but also the entire way in which they made their living (their economy), and consequently also the way society was organised for cooperation.” (own translation); Childe (1936), p. 40.
[42] Schaik (2020), p. 182; Childe (1956), p. 59.
[43] Diamond (1997), p. 42.
[44] On this Kollontai: “The first approaches to productive work and economic householding were the result of a lengthy process during which humanity diligently searched for the best way to secure its existence. […] For climatic and geographical reasons, depending on whether a tribe ended up in forested area or steppe, one tribe became sedentary while another turned to animal husbandry. This is the next stage of economic development following the original hunting and gathering collective. Alongside this new form of householding, new forms of social community arise.” Kollontai (1921), 1st lecture: The Position of Women in Primitive Communism.
[45] As for example in Mohenjo Daro in the area of present-day India, among the Linear Pottery culture in Central Europe, or in the area of present-day Scotland. Hollasky (2021), pp. 108, 122, 133.
[46] Krause (2021) pp. 185–201; Diamond (1997), p. 40.
[47] Engels (1884), p. 168.
[48] Federal Statistical Office (2025a).
[49] Diamond (1997), p. 43; Harman (1994), p. 200; Smith (1997).
[50] Hollasky (2021), p. 86.
[51] Engels (1884), p. 58.
[52] Engels (1884), p. 157.
[53] Engels (1884), pp. 158 ff.
[54] Engels (1884), pp. 157 ff.
[55] Kollontai (1921), 2nd lecture: The Role of Women in the Economic System of Slavery.
[56] Bloodworth (2018).
[57] Meaning the development of a family form in which women are subordinated.
[58] This denotes the inheritance and transfer of property and the family name exclusively through the male line of fathers.
[59] Engels (1884), p. 59.
[60] Kollontai (1921), 2nd lecture: The Role of Women in the Economic System of Slavery.
[61] Engels (1884), p. 106.
[62] Kollontai (1921), 2nd lecture: The Role of Women in the Economic System of Slavery.
[63] Kollontai (1921), 2nd lecture: The Role of Women in the Economic System of Slavery.
[64] Kollontai (1921), 2nd lecture: The Role of Women in the Economic System of Slavery.
[65] Word stems from the Roman word “Famulus” meaning “house slave.” Engels (1884), p. 62.
[66] Engels (1884), p. 67.
[67] “The form of the family corresponding to civilisation and definitively coming into power with it is monogamy, the rule of man over woman, and the nuclear family as the economic unit of society.” Engels (1884), p. 170.
[68] Engels (1884), p. 76.
[69] Kollontai (1921), 3rd lecture: The Position of Women in the Closed Natural Household. The term “proletariat” is here to be understood as the revolutionary class. Strictly speaking, slaves and later peasants are the oppressed classes of their time, not to be confused with the proletariat as the revolutionary class in capitalism.
[70] Kollontai (1921), 4th lecture: Women’s Work in the Village Community and in Handicraft Production.
[71] Kollontai (1921), 3rd lecture: The Position of Women in the Closed Natural Household.
[72] Kollontai (1921), 4th lecture: Women’s Work in the Village Community and in Handicraft Production.
[73] Ibid.
[74] “There is an extremely close and organic connection between women’s involvement in production and their position in society.” Kollontai (1921), 1st lecture: The Position of Women in Primitive Communism.
[75] Marx (1867), p. 358.
[76] Marx (1867), p. 485. In Germany, according to the German Women’s Archive, 20 percent of all industrial workers in 1875 were women, see also Wenzel (2022).
[77] “The lowest and only necessary rate for the wage is the subsistence of the worker during work and so much more that he can support a family and that the working race does not die out.” Marx (1844), p. 471.
[78] See also Kollontai (1921), 6th lecture: Women’s Work in the Development Period of Capitalist Large-Scale Industry.
[79] Zetkin (1906a), p. 113.
[80] “With the emergence of large-scale production, the importance of the family economy shrinks. One function after another disappears. Important tasks of the household, which were previously inseparable parts of housework, vanish. […] Through this process, women’s work for the family becomes increasingly superfluous, both from a national economic point of view and from the family’s perspective. Therefore, the family, especially in the city, dissolves.” Kollontai (1921), 7th lecture: The Causes of the Woman Question.
[81] Marx and Engels (1848), p. 478.
[82] Zetkin (1898c), p. 59.
[83] Zetkin (1906c), p. 64.
[84] Zetkin (1896c).
[85] Thomas (2012), p. 55.
[86] Thomas (2012), p. 56.
[87] Marx (1867), p. 514. Of course, there are also reciprocal tendencies in the superstructure, usually as reactions to shifts in sex=based roles.
[88] KO (2021).
[89] Ibid.
[90] Geißler (1991).
[91] Over 70 percent of all women aged 15 to 60 were employed in the GDR in 1964. By 1989 it was over 90 percent. Women were increasingly found in “male professions.” Conversely, this did not happen equally. Particularly care and nursing professions remained, as mentioned, “female professions” (kindergarten teacher, after-school carer, nurse).
[92] Ibid.
[93] Domscheit-Berg (2016).
[94] Furthermore, 23 percent of all judges of the Supreme Court and 29 percent of all directors and judges of the district courts were women. In the GDR government, there were three female ministers and five female members of the State Council.
[95] Bock (2018).
[96] Feldkamp & Sommer (2003).
[97] GDR (1950).
[98] Family Code of the German Democratic Republic (1965), §10.
[99] Geißler (1991).
[100] Federal Statistical Office (2006).
[101] Kaminsky (2019). Anna Kaminsky is the managing director of the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship.
[102] With the decisive contribution of the proletarian women’s movement as well as the entire labour movement. See Zetkin (1971) and the fourth part.
[103] Of about 83 million people, in 2022 nearly 41 million were men and over 42 million women (Federal Statistical Office, 2024a).
[104] Federal Statistical Office (2023a).
[105] DGB (no date).
[106] Each 10.7 percent of women and 3.1 percent of men. Here, persons with mini-jobs are exclusively those marginally employed aged 30 to under 55 years (core working phase). Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2020).
[107] Unemployed is defined as having no employment (less than 15 hours per week), seeking work, being available to the labour market, and registered as unemployed with an employment agency or basic security provider. Federal Employment Agency (2024).
[108] 36 percent of women and 34 percent of men are unemployed. Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2020).
[109] In November 2023, 26 percent of women and nearly 10 percent of men received unemployment benefits of less than 700 euros; only 12 percent of women but 25 percent of men received 1600 euros or more (Social Policy Update, no date a).
[110] Federal Statistical Office (2025b).
[111] Federal Employment Agency, cited in Berufsbild (2024).
[112] Federal Statistical Office (2025b).
[113] Women thus earned on average €4.46 less per hour than men. The income difference (so-called unadjusted Gender Pay Gap) was 19 percent in the former western states, but only 7 percent in the new states (excluding Berlin). Federal Statistical Office (2025c).
[114] The so-called adjusted Gender Pay Gap, which calculates wages based on comparable occupation, education, and working hours, correspondingly shows a smaller wage difference. Federal Statistical Office (2025c).
[115] Federal Statistical Office (2020a). The figures refer to equivalised income, i.e., not directly to actual income, but weighted by family composition.
[116] East 19 percent and West 44 percent. Federal Statistical Office (2025c).
[117] Only just under one in three executives was female in 2023. Between 1992 and 2011, the proportion of women in leadership positions rose from 25.8 to 30.3 percent (Federal Statistical Office, 2023). Of course, these are almost exclusively bourgeois women who take leadership positions. We are also aware that demands arising from this, which mainly focus on the representation of women and other groups in leadership roles, are a conscious strategy of the bourgeoisie to present a “progressive” image on the one hand, and on the other, to completely empty ideas of social progress of their content and disconnect them from the class question. Nevertheless, the low proportion of women in leadership positions is a sign of women’s situation, though not a central one. Federal Statistical Office (2025c).
[118] About half of families have one child, one third have two children, and just over 10 percent have three or more children. Federal Statistical Office (2023b).
[119] Social Policy Update (no date).
[120] Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2025).
[121] A baby boom is a period marked by a significant increase in births. Here it refers to the increased birth rate after the Second World War. In 1964 there were 1.36 million births, in 2023 there were a total of 692,989 newborns. In 2011, with 663,000 newborns, the lowest birth rate since 1946 was recorded. Federal Statistical Office (2025d).
[122] In 2022 there were 1.46 children per woman. The average number of children per mother fluctuated only slightly around the value of 2.0 over the last almost four decades. In East Germany women are still more often mothers than in the West but less often have more than two children. Federal Statistical Office (2025d).
[123] Federal Statistical Office (2022).
[124] Ghodsee (2019), p. 116.
[125] The Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth uses the term “care work” for all household and garden work, the care and supervision of children and adults, as well as voluntary engagement.
[126] Federal Statistical Office (2024b).
[127] It is known, for example, that men can also be the primary caregiver for babies after birth, which is reflected, among other things, in their hormone levels. This fact has so far not significantly influenced the role attributed to women after birth.
[128] Parental allowance corresponds to 66 percent of the average salary of one parent in the previous year.
[129] Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth July (2020).
[130] Ibid.
[131] The difference ranges from 58 percent in Saxony-Anhalt to 29 percent in Baden-Württemberg. Federal Statistical Office (2023c).
[132] Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2021).
[133] Grunow (2010).
[134] As of 2018 (Statista 2021).
[135] Kollontai (1921): 1st Lecture, The Position of Women in Primitive Communism.
[136] Zetkin (1905), p. 37.
[137] Sexualised violence is defined here as “any assault on sexual self-determination,” including not only physical assaults such as rape, sexual coercion or sexual abuse, but also sexual harassment and any form of unwanted sexual communication. In comparison, according to representative surveys by the BMFSFJ, every third man has already been a victim of such an assault (Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, BMFSFJ, 2024).
[138] In 2023, there were 360 women (Federal Criminal Police Office, 2023).
[139] Federal Criminal Police Office (2023).
[140] The widespread understanding of femicide as the death of a woman in a partnership or even simply as the death of a woman is considered inappropriate here, as other aspects beyond sex can also play a role. This prevents a correct handling of the problem. For a brief classification of the term see Vásquez (2021).
[141] More detailed, for example, here: “While companies and the bourgeois state attempt to profile themselves by promoting some women into leadership positions, it is women from the working class who silently tolerate sexualised violence at work in order to secure their own and their family’s livelihood. It is proletarian women who, due to economic dependence, do not leave their partner in cases of violence and painfully experience the shortage of places in women’s shelters, while bourgeois women have many options to become economically and socially independent if they are not already. It is also working women who take on housework and stay at home when childcare is lacking, while women of the ruling class voluntarily choose personal development in production or at home. The oppression of and violence against women therefore affects women from the working and capitalist classes in fundamentally different ways.” KP, 2024b.
[142] The topic of the general common or separate struggle with bourgeois women is also discussed in the fourth part. Concrete demands are listed in the fifth part.
[143] These figures are only conditionally meaningful as the dark figure is probably large (Statista 2024a, 2024b).
[144] The figures on domestic violence additionally include, besides partnership violence, also intra-family violence, e.g., against children, violence of children against parents, or violence between siblings. Although this covers a much broader spectrum of conflicts, it is relevant here as women are most affected (Statista, 2024c).
[145] About one quarter of respondents named the boyfriend or partner as perpetrator; 12 percent each named either the former husband or partner or another male family member as perpetrator. About seven percent said they had been victims of violence by female relatives; in less than 0.5 percent the current or former partner or wife was violent (Statista 2024d).
[146] Statista (2024e).
[147] Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2005).
[148] Ideological fragments, because it is not about a coherent and holistic ideology that exclusively devalues women, but about individual ideas. It should be remembered that ideologically both the degradation of women and their elevation as workers are useful for their exploitation in capitalist society.
[149] We do not use the term “sex work” or “sexarbeit” because it understands prostitution as a consensual sexual service. Through a supposed focus on “decriminalisation” and “women’s self-determination,” important aspects of the problem are silenced, as most women in prostitution neither have access to the legal system nor can freely decide about their profession. But more on this shortly.
[150] About 75 percent are between 21 and 44 years old. Only 18 percent of prostitutes have German citizenship (Federal Statistical Office, 2020b).
[151] Unfortunately, in recent decades, especially since the legalisation of prostitution in 2002, hardly any detailed statistics on the situation of prostitutes in Germany have been published, except for a short report in 2013. The detailed report by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in 2005 is still frequently used as a reference and contains very important information on the situation of prostitutes. No significant improvement is assumed since then, which the short 2013 report partly confirms, although the public discourse around sex work attempts to obscure various facets of the problem.
[152] About three quarters of women pursued no other occupation and lived solely from prostitution. One third of women stated that they also received social welfare (compared to about 9 percent in the general female population in Germany). Slightly more than half of the women had their own children. Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2005).
[153] More than half of respondents (53 percent) rarely or never received visits from friends or acquaintances (other female population at 17 percent). Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2005).
[154] The majority of women feared physical or sexual assault by clients, pimps, and strangers. One third of women had been confined for longer periods against their will, tied up, or otherwise restricted in their freedom of movement. Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2005).
[155] “About half of respondents also show symptoms of depression, a quarter frequently or occasionally have suicidal thoughts, almost a third have anxiety attacks and panic attacks, and about one in seven had self-harm intentions in the last 12 months. The very high psychological and health burdens in this survey group are also indicated by high drug use (41 percent had taken drugs in the last 12 months) and increased tobacco consumption.” Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2013).
[156] In childhood and adolescence, 43 percent. Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2013).
[157] Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2005).
[158] As with some other aspects of prostitution, no direct connection can be proven here either. Only a fraction of prostitutes are known, and there are no reliable data on how the vast majority of those coming from abroad became prostitutes. A hint: 60 percent of girls and 66 percent of women who are victims of human trafficking worldwide are used for sexual exploitation. UN (2022).
[159] According to some estimates, about one third of the internet consists of pornographic content (Stalder 2018).
[160] Studies from various countries suggest that men who regularly consume pornography become sexually much more aggressive and increasingly trivialise violence against women. Waltman (2016).
[161] The first contact with pornography in Germany occurs on average at the age of 12.7 years. In a 2018 survey, for example, almost half of 14- to 20-year-olds reported having seen “hardcore pornography,” half of them unintentionally. Quandt & Vogelgesang (2018). For the effects of consumption, see Dines (2011).
[162] Study with adolescents aged 14 to 17 from five European countries. Stanley et al. (2016).
[163] Significantly many prostitutes reported in a somewhat older study that they had already been exploited in pornography before prostitution. They also report how rapists repeatedly referred to pornographic material they had seen. Waltman (2016).
[164] Some research findings also indicate that pornography produced by female producers contains just as many degrading and aggressive acts against women as films produced by men. That is, misogynistic, but also racist and other forms of inhuman imagery. Sun et al. (2008).
[165] The risk of downward social mobility naturally exists for bourgeois women, but they are generally not excluded from property ownership because of their sex.
[166] Hervé (1981), p. 35.
[167] SPD (1896), p. 163.
[168] Zetkin (1906b), p. 120.
[169] Bebel uses the term “sex slavery” in analogy to “class slavery” (Bebel 1996, p. 240). In her earlier statements, especially before 1900, Zetkin draws similar comparisons, for example: “Just as the worker is oppressed by the capitalist, so the woman by the man; and she will remain oppressed as long as she does not stand economically independent” (Zetkin 1889b, pp. 4ff). Engels wrote: The man “is in the family the bourgeois, the woman represents the proletariat” (MEW 21, p. 75). Already in 1846 Marx and Engels formulated: “The first division of labour is that of man and woman for procreation” (MEW 3, p. 31). Engels later commented on this with the statement: “The first class antagonism that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism of man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression with that of the female sex by the male” (MEW 21, p. 68). In (feminist) literature Engels is partly interpreted as if class and sex were analogous and of equal rank for him.
[170] Zetkin (1921), p. 539. Due to widespread equality, we no longer use the term “disenfranchisement” today. We speak of “oppression” to describe the situation of the working woman as a woman. It is important that the difference between class and sex situations is also reflected in our terminology.
[171] Zetkin (1894b), p. 103.
[172] KO 2018.
[173] Zetkin on this: “The mass of bourgeois women will and must be hostile to social democracy, so dictates their class position, and this has a more compelling influence on their attitude than the position of their sex, than the fact that they are women” (Zetkin 1894a, p. 63). “Ultimately, it is not the position of their sex, their status as women, that hinders the expression of their individuality, but rather their class position, their belonging to the proletariat. Although they may as women legally possess all rights for the free development of their being, their class slavery as proletarians, their poverty will mean that they are unable to make use of these rights” (Zetkin 1894b, p. 103).
[174] Zetkin (1894c), p. 115.
[175] “Not the bitterness of social struggles clouds the view of the goal common to all women, but class antagonisms prevent there even being such a goal” (Zetkin 1894c, p. 115).
[176] Unlike the term “patriarchy,” the term “patrilineality” merely refers to inheritance following the paternal line, i.e. a paternal kinship system in which the inheritance of property, titles, and family name passes along the male line from fathers to sons, that is, unilineally by descent from the man. The opposite is “matrilineality,” a system of kinship and inheritance following the female line, formerly also called “matriarchal.” There are also mixed forms such as the today usual bilateral descent from father and mother.
[177] The term “patriarchal family” or household is used by Engels only to describe the subordination of unfree family members under the paternal authority of a family head (MEW 21, p. 61). In an article by the PCPE (currently PCTE, Communist Party of the Workers of Spain) from 2018 it is stated that the theory of patriarchy formulated from the 1960s assumes a social system distinct from the mode of production, which is incompatible with a historical-materialist understanding of the capitalist social formation. However, it is conceivable to speak of a “patriarchal ideology” which designates the legal, moral, religious and normative superstructure as an ideological reflection of the concrete sex-based division of labour in capitalism and which serves to maintain the conditions of oppression of working women and with them capitalist exploitation as a whole (Martínez & Quintillán 2018).
[178] Zetkin (1894b), p. 103.
[179] Zetkin (1894a), p. 63; SPD (1896), p. 164; cf. Gaido/Frencia (2018), pp. 289f.
[180] Zetkin (1971), pp. 203ff; cf. Zetkin (1894b), p. 103.
[181] Zetkin (1971), p. 206.
[182] Zetkin (1971), p. 532.
[183] Zetkin (1971), p. 203.
[184] Zetkin (1971), p. 205; SPD (1896), pp. 161, 173.
[185] Zetkin (1896a).
[186] Zetkin (1903), p. 50.
[187] Zetkin (1971), p. 203.
[188] Zetkin (1971), p. 210.
[189] SPD (1896), p. 173.
[190] SPD (1896), p. 163.
[191] Hervé (1979), p. 35.
[192] Evans (1983), pp. 247ff.
[193] On the relationship of reform and revolution see also the fifth part.
[194] Zetkin (1971), p. 213.
[195] KO 2018a.
[196] Federici (2021), p. 11. More detailed here: “By understanding capitalist production and wage labour as the central fields of class struggle and neglecting some of those activities that are most important to reproducing our lives, Marx gave us only an incomplete view of the capitalist system” (p. 8); “There is, however, no doubt that Marx’s categories require revision” (p. 79).
[197] See also Antonio Negri’s “Marx beyond Marx” (1991).
[198] Federici (2021), p. 13.
[199] Other variants are “care work” and “care labour,” which in their designation want to emphasise the aspects of reproduction that are less visible in relation to economic production, for example relational aspects.
[200] Cited after Boddenberg (2019).
[201] MEW 23, p. 591.
[202] MEW 23, p. 184.
[203] “Within the limits of the absolutely necessary, the individual consumption of the working class is therefore the reconversion of the foodstuffs sold by capital against labour power into labour power exploitable anew by capital. It is the production and reproduction of the most indispensable means of production for the capitalist—the worker himself. The individual consumption of the worker thus remains a moment of the production and reproduction of capital.” MEW 23, p. 597.
[204] Over time—depending on national factors such as the economic situation and the balance of power in the class struggle—the share of work performed by the working woman within the family without direct remuneration changed in relation to the share of waged work in production. The consistent assignment of women to reproductive tasks in any case indicates that real emancipation is only possible in a different economic system.
[205] Cf. MEW 23, p. 417 fn. 121: “[certain] functions of the family, e.g. caring for and nursing children, etc., [that] cannot be completely suppressed, [for which] the family mothers confiscated by capital more or less have to hire substitutes. The work […] like sewing, mending, etc., must be replaced by purchasing finished goods. The reduction in domestic labour thus corresponds to increased monetary expenditure.”
[206] Federici (2021), p. 13.
[207] Federici (2021), p. 8.
[208] Federici (2021), p. 52.
[209] Federici (2021), p. 51. Here she resembles other approaches that criticise Marx for not dealing enough with topics such as race and sex. For a more detailed critique of this position, see Textor (2020).
[210] Federici (2021), p. 85.
[211] Federici (2021), p. 92.
[212] Federici (2021), p. 98. The author also believes that modern industry cannot be meaningfully adopted in building a new society: “One must also emphasise that none of the means of production created by capitalism can simply be taken over and redirected to another purpose.” (Federici 2021, p. 96).
[213] Federici (2004), p. 117. Own translation.
[214] Federici (2004), p. 109. Own translation.
[215] Federici (2021), p. 9.
[216] This should not be confused with the distinction between productive and unproductive labour: the former is labour that generates surplus value.
[217] “Labour power exists only as a capacity of the living individual. Its production therefore presupposes his existence. Given the existence of the individual, the production of labour power consists in his own reproduction or maintenance.” (MEW 23, p. 185).
[218] The concept of discourse is central to many poststructuralist theorists, e.g. Foucault. Here, discourse refers not only to linguistic exchange, but to a social system of meaning which is both produced by and productive of power relations. In this context, the material basis of power and domination in class relations tends to be obscured, and the influence of discourse on them is absolutised in an idealistic manner. Power relations are thus located within “systems of meaning” and “discourses” themselves, instead of recognising discourses as products and instruments of power relations.
[219] Translator’s note: In this part we have maintained the use of ‘gender’ as not to alter Butler’s theoretical framework.
[220] Butler (1987), p. 134.
[221] Butler (1991b).
[222] Butler (1987), p. 142.
[223] Butler (1987), p. 139f.
[224] Bublitz (2010), pp. 53, 57.
[225] See Part One.
[226] See Parts One and Two.
[227] Butler (1993a), pp. 31f, 51ff.
[228] Bublitz (2010), pp. 136f.
[229] Butler (2021), p. 218.
[230] Butler (2021), p. 217.
[231] Butler (1993a), p. 44.
[232] Butler (1993b), p. 132.
[233] Butler (1987), p. 135.
[234] Textor (2020). What is here called “postmodern identity left” is characterised by “no longer placing the analysis of economic exploitation structures and class domination at the centre, but shifting their social critique to the field of culture and ‘discourse’. Instead of focusing on relations between social classes, the focus is placed on relations between individuals or between the ‘majority society’ and discriminated ‘communities’. Economic exploitation as the core of social power relations is replaced by individual and structural discrimination based on certain identity characteristics.”
[235] One example is the anthology Materialist Queer Feminism (2023), edited by Friederike Beier.
[236] KO (2020), Chapter 6.2 Strategy and Tactics.
[237] Stalin (1924), p. 82.
[238] See KO (2023), Chapter 2.1 “Right and Left Deviations in the Question of National Liberation” and KP (2024), p. 13.
[239] Communist Party of Mexico (2017); Communist Party of Mexico (2022), Thesis 108.
[240] KO (2018a), Thesis 10: The Revolutionary Strategy.
[241] KO (2020), Chapter 6.2.3.
[242] Communist International (1921), Thesis 4.
[243] Kollontai (1921), p. 10. Lecture: Women’s Labour Today and Tomorrow.
[244] Under socialism, workers’ councils are the lowest and most fundamental level of popular power. The workers of the enterprises elect the councils from their own ranks. In Germany, workers’ and soldiers’ councils were formed during the November Revolution of 1918 but were later dissolved due to the absence of a strong Communist Party. See also KO (2018b).
[245] KO (2018), 7th Thesis.
[246] Zetkin (1893).
[247] See Part Three.
[248] DGB (2021).
[249] Hans Böckler Foundation (2015).
[250] Thus we commit to the main principles of the so-called Nordic Model: recognising prostitution as sexual violence against women; complete decriminalisation of the prostituted woman; the creation of exit programmes; the introduction of penalties for clients and pimps; and public education about prostitution. It should be noted that the model has been implemented with varying consistency and success in different countries.
[251] Term intended to include women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans, and agender people.
[252] Zetkin (1971), p. 228.
[253] Ibid.
[254] Suhr (2016).
[255] Samtleben (2019).
[256] Lenin (1919), p. 419.
[257] Engels (1884), p. 76.
[258] Ibid., p. 77.
[259] Ibid., p. 83.