The Deeper, Greater Cause

Feminism Underpinned by Marxist Ideology

Feminism as an ideological and political movement has largely become a dissolute spent force.  About the only issue feminists continue to get wound up about is abortion.  Any hint that abortion "rights" might be curtailed or reduced will stir up the old militancy and hatreds.  Our intention here is not to debate the fruits of feminism.  Rather, it is the ideological origins of Western feminism that interest us.

A number of folk have observed a strange connection between the ideology of leftist Marxism and feminism.  At one level that is easy enough to understand.  Simplistically, feminists believe women are oppressed; Marxists believe the working classes are oppressed.  Therefore, both Marxists and feminists want to dismantle the power structures of such oppressions.  They are "natural allies".  But which is more important: the feminist or the Marxist materialistic cause?

One clue is provided by the "feminist" response to the oppression of women in Islamic countries.
  Ironically, all that Western feminists allege to be the lot of women in the West is actually true in seriously Islamic societies, yet Western feminists are remarkably relaxed about the whole thing in such countries.  Apparently, sisterhood is not international.  Since Marxist movements and groups all around the world largely support Islamic militancy as a revolution against the oppression of the poor by Western capitalism, it would seem that when one peels off the skin of a Western feminist, one finds a heart commitment to Marxism that is more fundamental than sisterly affection.

The thesis that ideological feminism is actually an application of Marxist ideology gains greater credibility when one considers how the early feminist ideologues were so materialistically focused.  They found Marxist ideology to be a natural buttress for their ideology.  For them, marriage was oppressive; the new emerging revolutionary class would be promiscuous, for that was the more natural state.  Males had achieved this freedom; women had not.  Feminism was about enabling women to achieve sexual libertinism.  Marxist ideology added the broader principle, linking libertinism with economic liberation.

Susan Foh describes how sexual libertinism and Marxist ideology were intertwined in feminist ideology right from the outset.

In feminist theory, monogamous sex is unnatural; it is one of the bonds from which women need to be freed.  The double standard (men can sow wild oats, have extramarital liaisons without the social condemnation a woman would incur) must be eradicated; and the way to do it, according to the feminists, is to give women the same sexual freedom that men have.  To experience sexual freedom, women must have absolute assurance that they will not be required to bear children.  [Susan Foh, "Abortion and Women's Lib", Thou Shalt Not Kill: The Christian Case Against Abortion, ed. by Richard L. Ganz (New Rochelle: Arlington House Publishers, 1978), p. 171.] 

This helps explain why feminism has been committed to pro-abortion activity with such febrility.  To this day, organizations like Planned Parenthood and the National Organization of  Women  descend into paroxysms of rage at the mere suggestion that access to abortion be curtailed in any way, shape, or form.  Those who would move against abortion seek the enslavement of women, they reason.

But, as Foh points out, with such a narrow, superficial and materialistic view, an attack upon marriage itself cannot be far behind.

Feminists do not criticize marriage because of its sexual restrictions alone. Feminists have generally accepted Engels' analysis of the origin of the family as the chief cause of oppression of women.  Engels argued that the monogamous family "is based on the supremacy of the man, the express purpose being to produce children of undisputed paternity; such paternity is demanded because these children are later to come into their father's property as his natural heirs."  Monogamous marriage was not an expression of love; it was based on economic necessity.  [Ibid. p.171f.]

For Marxists, all reality is economically determined.  Every issue, every human practice can be traced back to capital--to securing it, and exploitatively keeping it from others.  The family was an institution of class conflict, whereby the male secured capital and passed it on to other males, and the females were kept in subjection as "have nots" to facilitate male economic power.  This explains why feminist ideologues have found Marxism such a condign ideology.  These days, it seems, for hard-core feminists, Marxism is more important than their feminism--hence their blind eyes and supine silence over women in Islamic countries, and their militancy in supporting Islamist revolutions around the world.

What, then, is the solution to this economic exploitation of men by women according to Engels?

. . . the first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry, and that this is turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society.  [Ibid., p. 172]

Women, as part of the Marxist revolution, must be forced out of the home into the workforce.  This will help achieve the feminist ideal of the "liberation of women"--by which is understood a Marxist liberation from economic exploitation.  Here is Simone de Beauvoir, writing to feminist idealogue, Betty Friedan in 1975:

No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children.  Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.  It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction. . . . In my opinion, as long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed.  [Ibid., p. 173.]

Women must be forced to be free.  Marxism always comes back to enslavement.   Feminist ideology underneath it all agrees.  The shedding of blood along the way is necessary in any revolution.  If it be the blood of unborn children, so be it.  If women need to be forced into the workforce, their children being compulsorily removed and placed in some child-raising state-kibbutz, so it be.  Someone's blood must be shed to achieve the revolution, which end will justify any human casualties along the way. 

Foh concludes:

Feminists advocate a total revolution, of which abortion on demand is an integral part.  The revolution involves complete sexual freedom, including lesbianism, the destruction of monogamous marriage and the family, government childcare, the end of occupation housewife and/or mother, and the obliteration of all distinctions between men and women, except physical difference, [which can now be altered by chemicals, enabling transgendering. Ed.]  [Ibid., p. 175.]

All this explains why feminists ally consistently with Marxists against oppressed women around the world.  The deeper reality is the achievement of the Marxist revolution against private property; when that is achieved the "liberation" of Islamic women, along with all females will inevitably follow.  For them, feminism is but one component of the end goal, which is a Marxist egalitarian utopia.

We do not argue that all feminists think in these terms.  But the hard-core feminist ideologues and theoreticians most certainly do.  And if they were to make enough progress in a society, it would certainly become apparent, except for one stumbling block--we expect that women in general would rise up in revolt against the revolution, muttering "that is not what we meant at all".