n to force women to service men in the family:
It seems self-evident that men are the beneficiaries of women's oppression - that's why it's such a popular idea. The unequal relationships between women and men in the family, the discrimination against women in the workforce, plus prostitution, and sexism in general, mean that men can buy sex, can coerce their wives, lord it over the family, abrogate their responsibilities to their children, and yet be praised for their masculinity. Women who build a career, or simply take time away from the family are much more likely to be accused of В«neglecting the childrenВ».
However, capitalism is a society fundamentally divided by class, with a tiny minority in power over the vast majority through their ownership and control of the means of producing society's wealth. It follows that the ideas that dominate society are ideas propagated by that ruling class and their supporters. You only have to think of who owns and controls the mass media, who owns the publishing houses, who sets the curricula in schools and universities. But fundamentally, it is those who have the power over the right to work, wages and conditions, and the provision of social services (or not) who create the material basis on which the ideas flourish. It is employers, not В«menВ» in general, who fight to keep wages as low as possible. One way they do this is target groups which can be paid less, or employed with fewer rights, such as women (or migrants for example). It is employers and their managers who hire and fire in a way that keeps women at the bottom of the ranks, who deny maternity and paternity leave, who demand that men work long hours of overtime to reduce their outlays on extra staff. It is governments who refuse to provide quality child care for working class communities. It has been government policies of both Labor in the eighties and early nineties and the Coalition since 1996, combined with employers 'attacks on working conditions that have made low paid, part time or casualised work the norm for so many women. So it is those in power, both men and women, who have created the circumstances that entrench the gender stereotypes in the family.
The family is clearly not maintained and argued for in order to service men. Since World War II, it has suited capitalists to employ married women in ever increasing numbers. Did they ever consult working class men about how that would affect the В«servicesВ» to them? The whole history of the family under capitalism shows that it was considered by capitalists to be the best institution to feed, clothe and socialise working class children at the lowest possible cost. The unpaid labour of women (and to a lesser extent of men too) in the family saves the capitalist state billions of dollars every year. That is why it is governments, and not В«menВ» in general who appeal to В«family responsibilitiesВ» to justify education fees, denial of a living wage to unemployed youth, cuts to health care and appalling facilities for the aged. While the system was booming, the welfare state could take over some of the family's responsibilities. Now that boom is long past, the family can be called upon to fill the gaps left by cut backs to social services. Of course, in many less developed countries, welfare has never taken the burden from the family, which is why women take the brunt of poverty in the third world.
However, while the central role of the family is to rear children and provide a healthy workforce hopefully socialised into appropriate, submissive behaviour, the family does provide a place where adult workers aspire to rest, love, and recuperate from the dreariness of work. It is to a large extent this dream that ensures the continuing popularity of the ideal of the family even though increasing numbers of marriages end in divorce and many homes are anything but restful and loving. But it is the case that when it suits the needs of capitalism, men can be torn from the family with no regard for their needs, unlike children. For much of the early history of white Australia, men did itinerant work separated from their wives and children. Men are sent off to fight in wars, or in the Great Depression forced to roam the country looking for work. Their need to be В«servicedВ» did not entitle them to remain in the family. Theories which argue as Hartmann did that all men conspired to gain the services of women in the family cannot explain why working class men accepted this treatment. If they could influence the establishment of the family, surely they could insist they remain in it.
In the process of invasion and creation of a new capitalist state in Australia, the middle and upper class people who argued for the family recognised not just crude economic benefits in the family, but also its importance as an institution that could help stabilise the colonies. ...