ave won significant gains, on the other women remain oppressed. Like all social movements, it took militant, bold and determined political actions to force reforms from the system. Without the movement, women's rights would be even fewer.
Even though we can win reforms, while capitalism continues to exist, there will continue to be women's oppression. Capitalism is a dynamic, changing society and is able to absorb all manner of protests. Many of the demands of the Women's Liberation Movement fitted with the needs of the developed world fairly easily, as employers and governments drew in millions of women to cope with labour shortages caused by the massive boom. However, the fundamentals of the system did not change. Social relations still rested on exploitation and oppression. The driving force of society remained competition for profits for the minority who make up the capitalist class, rather than human need. So while women's increased participation in the paid workforce was actually encouraged, it had to be on the terms of capitalism. Employers and governments are not interested in ensuring women work in an environment that fits with their need to breast feed their child, or of families struggling to find the time for long hours on the job and still carry the responsibilities in the home. On the other hand, women's oppression plays a vital role in maintaining the system and the power of those who rule. So this minority have a very real material interest in the perpetuation of sexism. That is why ultimately we will need a revolution to completely overthrow capitalism and build a new society in order to end women's oppression. In a society based on collective and democratic control of all wealth so that human need can be the basis for social decisions, it would be possible to organise work and the socialisation and care of children on the basis of people's needs. There would not be any social group who could benefit from women's oppression. Then women's liberation will be possible. p> These are the themes of this pamphlet.
Why are women oppressed?
Frederick Engels, friend and collaborator of Karl Marx, showed that women have been oppressed ever since the beginning of class society. Using copious notes Marx had made throughout his lifetime trying to understand why women were oppressed, in his path-breaking book The Family, Private Property and the State , published in the 1880s, Engels gave the first materialist explanation of women's oppression. He argued that with the rise of classes, the ruling class found it necessary to control, for the first time in human history, women's sexuality in order to determine their heirs for the inheritance of property. The need to control women of the upper classes led ultimately to ideas and laws which, to be effective, had to apply to all women, and so established the oppression of one half of humanity. So sexism and the kind of discrimination against women we see everywhere today is deeply embedded in social and cultural traditions which stretch back many centuries before capitalism. However for the sake of brevity, this pamphlet will only look at how women's oppression is perpetuated under capitalism.
One of the main institutions of capitalism is the nuclear family - two heterosexual people living with their children. In some cultures the extended family continues, but it plays a similar role as the nuclear family in perpetuating the gender stereotypes which are central to women's oppression. The stereotypes of man the protector, the provider, and woman the caring, loving wife and mother dependent on the man and devoted to her children underpin the treatment of women as sex objects, the idea that women are by nature more passive and nurturing than men, and provide a rationale for lower wages and fewer job opportunities. From these stereotypes follows the oppression of lesbians and gay men, but also the sexual oppression of heterosexual women. The emphasis on monogamy and women's role as child bearers lays the basis for the denial of women's sexual needs, and the idea that women are mere sex objects for men's pleasure.
The family promises a haven from the pressures of work, a refuge where love is the driving force rather than competition and exploitation. Unfortunately, the reality is nothing like the promise. Because the family is not separate from and insulated from society. Men tend to earn more, have more job opportunities, and their role in the paid workforce is valued more highly than work done in the home. Therefore, the relationship on which the family is based is from the very start unequal. For the vast majority of families, the gender roles are impossible to escape. Even if they would like the man to take time off from paid work to play more of a role doing child care and housework, most families cannot afford to sa...
