Feminism and Marxism: Class view of women’s oppression

In 1971, Dorothy Ballan, a founding member of Workers World Party, wrote the groundbreaking pamphlet, “Feminism and Marxism,” as the U.S. women’s movement was gaining momentum. Not only did the pamphlet point out the importance of recognizing the special oppression amongst women, but it answered the still-heard, erroneous idea that men are the enemy to women’s liberation. The pamphlet shows that patriarchal oppression was formed after the development of wealth in the form of private property. The following are excerpts from Ballan’s pamphlet read by LeiLani Dowell at the March 28 women’s forum in New York:

At the dawn of humanity ... paternity was not even understood, let alone determined. Therefore ... the gens, a unit of blood relatives, descended through the mother.

There came a point when the men no longer went hunting[, l]earning from the women to domesticate and breed animals. ... For the first time in history, they produced more than what it cost to maintain themselves.

This accumulation of wealth increased the importance of the status of the man. But as long as mother-right prevailed, he could never bequeath his wealth to his children. ... This became intolerable and as we know all too well, mother-right was overthrown and replaced by father-right.

Part of the struggle for the success of the revolution for socialism is an imperative necessity of swiftly raising the level of women to equal participation in the struggle and obliterating all manifestations of male chauvinism and male supremacy in that struggle.

The women’s struggle is not subordinate to the class struggle. It is itself a form of class struggle, especially if consciously conducted against the bourgeoisie. ... Marx said that every political struggle is a class struggle.