Gender Privilege under Capitalism
Gender relations in Amerika are based on the ill effects of the capitalist state. It’s a fact (that goes unheard) that the capitalist-materialist drive gives birth to “force”, “low morale” and in turn, the “demoralization of life.” On a large level, of that of a nation-state, the materialization of the “birth effects” of capitalism is militarism, imperialism, colonialism, oppression, and gender inequality. Plainly put, when one nation-state “rapes” another less developed nation for its labor and natural resources, going unabated by both inside and outside influence, this same train of thought and action is transferred to each individual of the oppressor nation, who not only thinks and acts in an oppressive manner, but fabricates their own level of morality.
This is seen in three “justifiable reasons” to exploit, oppress, and repress “minorities” or any other “weaker class of people”. The gender relations aspect in the capitalist system has downgraded the female gender into a commodity. There is an “open market” as well as a more “hidden market” for the female to sell her body. Examples of the open are pornography, institutions of prostitution and the whole media at large. Examples of the hidden are such as when women vie with one another for “the right catch” (a man for marriage) - in which she attempts to sell herself for a higher price than other women, which may be from the inequality of opportunities for women in the work-force versus men in Amerika or other nations. Even in homosexuality - it’s “allowed” on television and other media outlets, but, by law, as we witness today, it is not allowed as lawful unions.
As we see, everything and everyone is lowered to a monetary value, negated their freedom of expression and subordinated to the dictates of the ruling capitalist class. For the proletariat we must never take on the perspectives of the oppressor capitalist class. When issues arise, we must research, investigate, and question to come to a conclusion most fit to our class. Hence, MIM sets down the most productive line of thought/action for the oppressed nations and class, viz. the international proletariat.
-Ohio USW comrade
MIM(Prisons) responds: There is a lot of good analysis in this article but we make a point to distinguish class, nation and gender oppression while this comrade puts them all together as if they were interchangeable. There are, no doubt, many aspects of gender oppression that are very tightly intertwined with class and nation. But gender oppression is not just the result of commoditization from capitalism. There are aspects of gender oppression that could continue to exist even after the elimination of class and national oppression if they are not tackled head-on. For instance, much of gender privilege and oppression falls into leisure time activities. It is not just monetary value that determines the oppression of wimmin.
On the flip side, when we talk about how intertwined class, nation and gender are, we would go further than this comrade does in his/her discussion of First World wimmin, to point out that an analysis of gender is incomplete without mention of the relative privilege of First World biological wimmin and men compared to Third World wimmin and men. This is not to say men and wimmin in the First World are equal, but class and nation have so impacted gender oppression as to benefit First World wimmin with gender privilege relative to the rest of the world.
Check out MIM Theory 2/3 on Gender for a more in depth analysis of these issues.
