Women and their struggle for liberation

1. Previous forms
of domination…
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2. • Had a natural or technical basis
• Low levels of development of
forces of production:
– Emphasised natural and
biological differences
– Sexual division of labour placed
women in inferior role, mainly
because of their role as child-
bearers
– Later with rise of private
property, this role was
consolidated and women became
men’s property
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3. • Capitalism took over previously
established sexual division of labour and
the family, despite its capacity to abolish
their natural/technical basis
• It was able to dismantle ancient customs
that stood in its way
• BUT traditional institutions that could
serve a new function were integrated into
the system instead
• These included: the family; the state; class
oppression; domination of women
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4. • The family and the
domination of women
carried on
• BUT they took new forms
• Their persistence today is
the result of social not
economic factors
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5. So what does this
mean for us?
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?

6. The abolition of
women’s
oppression needs
a social
revolution
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7. • Oppression of women today
is specific to capitalism
• Not due to under-
development of forces of
production but to
restrictions imposed by
capitalist social relations
• Capital directly benefits
from oppression of women
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8. Discuss this with particular
reference to conditions in
South Africa today:
What are the consequences
for women of the economic
crisis?
8
?

9. • NB feature: women’s role as workers
outside the household is severely restricted
• Before capitalism, the sexual division of
labour was a direct reflection of the social
division of labour
• Women played a full role in work of society
• No longer the case in capitalist society
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10. • Under capitalism social
production exists in isolation
from family life
• There is a privatised sphere of
housework or domestic work
• Women are forced into the
home
• Their participation in social
production is restricted by the
necessity to perform domestic
work
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11. • Freedom and equality between men and
women is a fiction
• Domestic work turns women into domestic
slaves
• Deprived of right to play a full role in social
life, women become less equal than men
• The existence of a distinct sphere of
privatised domestic work, not the law, is the
root of women’s oppression
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12. Discuss:
Why can
Constitutional
guarantees not
ensure equal rights
for women? 12
?

13. • Is raising kids; daily maintenance
of family
• Capitalism didn’t invent it
• It pre-dates the rise of
capitalism
• But capitalism changed its
status in society
• It was transformed from a social
activity into a private service
• How do capitalists benefit?
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14. • Capitalism needs domestic work
• Without women ensuring
physical survival of working
class, capitalists would soon
have no workers to exploit
• Capitalists leave the drudgery of
survival and reproduction of
working class to the class itself,
particularly to women
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15. • In the factory, to survive in the market place the
boss must:
– Maximise productivity
– Cut costs
– Cut waste
– Introduce latest technology
– Supervise use of labour
• Only work done efficiently and meeting the
average set by others in the market is worth
paying for
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16. • In the capitalist factory:
– Inefficient companies are eliminated
– Investment moves to more profitable
areas
– Through this continuous process of
destruction and reconstruction the
system maintains its own dynamic
– Each boss intensifies work and
watches every minute
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17. But… How does
domestic work
differ from work in
the factory? 17
?

18. • BUT in the home:
– Work remains individualised
– Rather than working as part of a
productive system, the woman
works alone
– Work remains drudgery
– Countless hours are spent cleaning,
ironing, looking after kids, with no
regard to cost and little help from
technology capitalists use to
survive
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19. • Different criteria for work operate in the
capitalist firm and the working class home
• The distinction flows from the nature of the
modern working class:
– It is ‘free’ in a double sense
– To sell its labour power to the boss
– From ownership of the means of production
– It is therefore forced to sell its labour power to a
boss for a wage in order to live
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20. How did
conditions for
workers differ
under slavery?
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21. • In societies based on
slavery the worker was sold
once and for all, in person
to the employer
• The slave owner had to pay
to maintain the slave in a
condition fit for work
The original caption on this 1863 photograph of a slave read: "Overseer Aarayou Carrier whipped
me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped; he
discharged the overseer The very words of poor Peter, taken as he sat for his picture."21

22. • The capitalist employer buys the free wage-
labourer only for a specific period of time
• He buys only the worker’s labour power – the
capacity to work – for a certain period of time in
exchange for a wage
• The wage tends to equal a value equivalent to
the cost of goods the worker must buy in order
to live
• While this value has to be handed over by the
boss, he does not have to take into account the
work required to turn these goods into actual
means of subsistence
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23. What does this
mean?
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24. In other words…
• The capitalist employer pays the worker a
wage with which to buy the necessities of
life (food, clothing etc)
• But does not have to concern himself
with the time spent by the worker’s family
in cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing,
etc…
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25. • Capitalists rely for their profits on the fact that
the money they pay workers in wages is less
than the value workers create in production
• They aim to minimise wage costs to maximise
profits
• They prefer a system under which the need
for female drudgery at home is met at the
expense of the working class, and at no cost
to capital.
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