In 1884 Friedrich Engels wrote The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, a work that aimed to bring a materialist analysis of human development within an economic framework. Most notable was his analysis of the development of the patriarchal formation of the monogamous family and how that formation impacted the state and property. Within this framework, we can analyse patriarchy and its connection to property as one that legitimises inheritance through the paternal bloodline. A further economic analysis reveals the gendered division of labour within society as it develops. Women are expected to work in reproductive labour, that is labour that does not produce value but ensures that value can be produced by the productive labour of the proletarian, which has historically been men under patriarchy. This reproductive labour includes cooking, cleaning, and general housework. This generalisation is not universal, we see women historically working in productive labour within farming, producing goods in the home, and later factory work. While doing this work women have been expected at the same time to do reproductive labour alongside it.
From this material analysis, Lenin discussed how this specific arrangement emerged under capitalism. In The development of Capitalism in Russia he states that domestic work is the most unsanitary form of capitalist exploitation and the most liberal form of exploitation. Domestic exploitation of women should be at the forefront of the economic analysis of the exploitation of women. While women work for less wages in general than men in the same industries, they are then expected to take up the work of the home, which is often called the second shift. He calls women in this position “a domestic slave, a slave locked up in the bedroom, nursery or kitchen.” This highlights that gendered division is not just economic but also a social division enforced through isolation and expectation. This division fractures working-class solidarity. On housework, Lenin said, “To effect her complete emancipation and make her the equal of the man, it is necessary for housework to be socialised and for women to participate in common productive labour.” Socialising housework removes the burden of unpaid labour off of women in the home and can bring women into the politics and organisation of society through common productive labour.
Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch offers a new Marxist-Feminist analysis. Federici argues that women who were moving from the countryside to the cities due to privatisation of lands and the enclosure of the commons were having their work devalued and were subject to prosecution. This can be seen in ale brewing and midwifery which were restricted while domestic servitude, spinning and other domestic work became expected of women. The argument Federici makes is that as capitalism developed women were expected to stay at home doing reproductive labour and not work outside the home. Guilds were told to overlook women’s labour and the work women did became devalued, it was not seen as real work. This continues today with much of women’s labour unpaid. This devaluation and expectation for women to stay in the home led to the expectation that a wage was the man’s domain and the reproduction of workers, both through reproductive labour and literal reproduction, was the expectation of women in society. Federici argues patriarchy is not solely economic but also social.
This article explored an evolving Marxist tradition on the question, specifically between the historical definition of women as socially constructed. Further questions require analysis such as how trans people or others in the queer community such as gay men or lesbians relate to gender relations as socially defined and historically seen.
