By Lee Nan-hee
Since the late 1960s, many women activists and theorists have argued that the Marxist concept of production or the economy was too narrow. They asserted that the concept of production should include not only the production of things and goods, but also the reproduction of humans and the care for humans usually done by women.
In the 1970s, there appeared a debate on sexual differences between men and women. Radical feminists regarded those sexual differences as large, deep and fundamental, while liberal feminists regarded men and women as almost the same. I will look at the processes of how feminism, its movements and its ideas have evolved out of a number of social and cultural contexts that were diverse as well as possessing similarities.
Shulamith Firestone wrote the book, "The Dialectic of Sex: the Case for Feminist Revolution." According to her, patriarchy is the longest and most prevalent system of oppression in history. Firestone viewed the root causes of women's oppression as biological differences such as women's reproductive abilities. But some women disagree with her, arguing that biology should be understood not in itself but in the context of culture and society.
Radical feminists learned a lot from Marx and Engels, which means that they appropriated the dialectical materialism of Marx. Radical feminism saw the world as a process, a flux of actions and reactions, conflicts of opposites that were interconnected, and also put historical change on a real base, which was economics.
As Marx and Engels were different from previous utopian socialists, radical feminism tried not to posit a virtuous, idealistic society where male privilege ought not to exist by the goodwill of human beings.
Nonetheless, Marx's method of analysis seemed in some ways to be partial and narrow. For example, Engels admitted dimly that there existed a sexual substratum besides an economic stratum and that the original division of labor was between man and woman. However, Engels did not delve deeply into such aspects. His main interest must have been the liberation of the working class and the building of a socialist system by the working classes of the world.
Regarding this sexual substratum, renowned radical feminist Firestone argued that class based on sex sprang directly from biology. The reproductive functions based on these biological differences led to the creation of a class system based on sex. From this reproductive function, sprang the psychosexual formation of each individual, which led to the need for power and thus a class system. The family contains within itself in the embryo all of the antagonisms that will develop later on a wider scale in society and the state. In this class system, inside an individual family, the woman depends on the man.
Compared to Marx's vision and using his terms, radical feminism asserts that women should revolt and acquire the means of reproduction, with its end goal being to eliminate sexual division itself. In other words, she argued that the women's liberation movement should aim not just to abolish men's privileges but also to eradicate the very division of sex itself. Thus, she suggested and advocated for artificial insemination and children conceived through artificial reproductive technologies.
When I first learned about such radical arguments, I could not wrap my head around them. They seemed to be beyond reality. How can everyone bear children via artificial insemination? They sounded so unrealistic that they looked like science fiction. But nowadays, about 30 years after having first read Firestone's work, many women do not want to get married and give birth to babies. Some women do artificial insemination and children born through artificial reproductive technologies have become much more common. Society has changed and women's lives have changed too.
Dr. Lee Nan-hee studied English in college and theology at Hanshin University.
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In the 1970s, there appeared a debate on sexual differences between men and women. Radical feminists regarded those sexual differences as large, deep and fundamental, while liberal feminists regarded men and women as almost the same. I will look at the processes of how feminism, its movements and its ideas have evolved out of a number of social and cultural contexts that were diverse as well as possessing similarities.
Shulamith Firestone wrote the book, "The Dialectic of Sex: the Case for Feminist Revolution." According to her, patriarchy is the longest and most prevalent system of oppression in history. Firestone viewed the root causes of women's oppression as biological differences such as women's reproductive abilities. But some women disagree with her, arguing that biology should be understood not in itself but in the context of culture and society.
Radical feminists learned a lot from Marx and Engels, which means that they appropriated the dialectical materialism of Marx. Radical feminism saw the world as a process, a flux of actions and reactions, conflicts of opposites that were interconnected, and also put historical change on a real base, which was economics.
As Marx and Engels were different from previous utopian socialists, radical feminism tried not to posit a virtuous, idealistic society where male privilege ought not to exist by the goodwill of human beings.
Nonetheless, Marx's method of analysis seemed in some ways to be partial and narrow. For example, Engels admitted dimly that there existed a sexual substratum besides an economic stratum and that the original division of labor was between man and woman. However, Engels did not delve deeply into such aspects. His main interest must have been the liberation of the working class and the building of a socialist system by the working classes of the world.
Regarding this sexual substratum, renowned radical feminist Firestone argued that class based on sex sprang directly from biology. The reproductive functions based on these biological differences led to the creation of a class system based on sex. From this reproductive function, sprang the psychosexual formation of each individual, which led to the need for power and thus a class system. The family contains within itself in the embryo all of the antagonisms that will develop later on a wider scale in society and the state. In this class system, inside an individual family, the woman depends on the man.
Compared to Marx's vision and using his terms, radical feminism asserts that women should revolt and acquire the means of reproduction, with its end goal being to eliminate sexual division itself. In other words, she argued that the women's liberation movement should aim not just to abolish men's privileges but also to eradicate the very division of sex itself. Thus, she suggested and advocated for artificial insemination and children conceived through artificial reproductive technologies.
When I first learned about such radical arguments, I could not wrap my head around them. They seemed to be beyond reality. How can everyone bear children via artificial insemination? They sounded so unrealistic that they looked like science fiction. But nowadays, about 30 years after having first read Firestone's work, many women do not want to get married and give birth to babies. Some women do artificial insemination and children born through artificial reproductive technologies have become much more common. Society has changed and women's lives have changed too.
Dr. Lee Nan-hee studied English in college and theology at Hanshin University.
