Often routinely ignored, the class struggle needs to be recognized as a feminist issue. In our capitalist society, the drawbacks of our current system, classism and sexism are interlinked. From the denial of basic human rights to all, to women and particularly women of colour facing higher rates of poverty than, of course, men but even white women, to “women’s work” being undervalued and underpaid (McKelle, 2014), feminism needs to address the consequences and setbacks capitalism and the oppression of the working classes have on everyone specially women, and women across every ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender expression, etc. However, due to various reasons, we are hesitant to take the necessary steps to ensure class AND women’s liberation.
For example, on a exclusively Marxist perspective, women’s battles come from capitalist oppression rather than male domination, which are obviously not mutually exclusive and actually work together to keep women in subordination. In mainstream feminist positions, middle class white women, who have seem to make themselves the face of the movement despite historical and current evidence of the major weightlifting by women of colour, working class women, etc., refuse to acknowledge classism as a pressing issue, or something to be addressed at all, for it upholds the status quo which middle and upper classes benefit from. I make the case that feminism and anti-capitalist movements (reformists and revolutionaries alike) need to consider the present issues, if they want to claim any semblance of a motivation for the liberation for all.
Freedom is not freedom until everyone is free, and this goal will ultimately only be achieved if we reach a consensus where classism, sexism, racism and all the other systems of oppression are addressed as problems with intersections that truly affect the lives of people at home and around the globe. In order to do so, we must organize communities, elect representatives (amongst other ways) and overall fight back against the systems that ignore us. Before we can do this, we need a firm basis of feminist theory that includes ALL INTERSECTIONS of the female and feminine experience, and make such theory accessible to all.
SOURCES:
RETRIEVED FROM: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-class/#2
RETRIEVED FROM: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-5583-7_682
RETRIEVED FROM: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137326799_14
RETRIEVED FROM: https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/09/class-is-a-feminist-issue/
RETRIEVED FROM: https://splinternews.com/how-women-are-leading-the-class-struggle-1834721678
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