User:Nrds97/Socialist feminism

Intersectionality[edit]
Feminist historian Linda Gordon asserts that socialist feminism is inherently intersectional, at least to a certain degree, because it takes into account both gender and class. Gordon says that because the foundation of socialist feminism rests on multiple axes, socialist feminism has a history of intersectionality that can be traced back to a period decades before Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw first articulated the concept of intersectionality in 1989. According to Gordon, socialist feminism of the 1980s expanded upon the concept of intersectionality by examining the overlapping structures that instantiate oppression. Feminist scholar and women's studies professor Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy says that this broader analysis of societal structures began with socialist feminism and served as a catalyst for feminist scholarship. Kennedy says that many of the first women's studies programs were established by socialist feminist theorists.

Despite the supposed presence of intersectionality in socialist feminism, many feminists, particularly women of color, critique the movement for perceived deficiencies in regards to racial equity. In Kennedy's account of socialist feminism's impact on women's studies, she says that a lack of Black voices in feminist academia contributed to whitewashing of women's studies programs and courses. Kum-Kum Bhavani, a professor at University of California Santa Barbara, and Margaret Coulson, a socialist feminist scholar, assert that racism in the socialist feminist movement stems from the failure of many white feminists to recognize the institutional nature of racism. According to Bhavani and Coulson, race, class, and gender are inextricably linked, and the exclusion of any one of these factors from one's worldview would result in an incomplete understanding of the systems of privilege and oppression they say constitute our society. Kathryn Harriss, a feminist scholar from the United Kingdom, describes what she sees as the shortcomings of the socialist feminist movement of the 1980s in the United Kingdom. Harriss describes marginalized women's grievances with the Women's Liberation Movement, a large socialist feminist group. She says many lesbian women criticized the movement for its domination by heterosexual feminists who perpetuated heterosexism in the movement. Similarly, Black women asserted that they were deprived a voice due to the overwhelming majority of white women in the WLM advocating widely held views regarding violence against women, the family, and reproductive rights that failed to account for the distinct struggles faced by women of color.

Motherhood and the private sphere[edit]
Socialist feminists highlight how motherhood and the gendered division of labor many assert grows "naturally" from women's role as mothers is the source of women's exclusion from the public sphere and creates women's economic dependence on men. They assert that there is nothing natural about the gendered division of labor and show that the expectation that women perform all or most reproductive labor, i.e. labor associated with birthing and raising children but also the cleaning, cooking, and other tasks necessary to support human life, deny women the capacity to participate fully in economic activity outside the home. In order to free themselves from the conditions of work as a mother and housekeeper, socialist feminists such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman saw the professionalization of housework as key. This would be done by hiring professional nannies and housekeepers to take the load of domestic work away from the woman in the house. Perkins Gilman also recommended the redesign of homes in ways that would maximize their potential for creativity and leisure for women as well as men, i.e. emphasizing the need for rooms like studios and studies and eliminating kitchens and dining rooms. These changes would necessitate the communalization of meal preparation and consumption outside the home and free women from their burden of providing meals on a house-by-house scale.

Gender pay gap
Socialist feminist theories have been used to highlight the economic disparities amongst women on a global scale. Contemporary socialist feminists have shifted their concerns from uncompensated house labor to the insufficient pay women receive for work done outside the home. Although some women have secured high-paying male-dominated jobs, most find work in service, clerical, agriculture, and light industrial work. Feminist philosopher, Rosemarie Tong, presents three common reasons for the gender wage gap; “the concentration of women in low-paying, female-dominated jobs; the high percentage of women who work part-time rather than full-time; and outright wage discrimination against women."

The gender pay gap has been produced and sustained through patriarchal and capitalist conditions. The feminization and devaluation of service-based jobs have subjected women to low wages. The lack of access women have to alternative employment which may harbor higher pay, has increased the wage gap. Households that cannot hire additional aid for domestic duties limit the hours women are able to work outside their homes—having to do both outside and inside labor results in the uncompensated “second shift,” expanding the gap. Women’s work is considered “secondary wages” under patriarchy. Even women who can work full-time and do the same jobs as men are not paid equally. Tong claims that “women are paid less simply because they are women, a very disturbing thought to say the least.”