A Critique of Liberal Feminism

" With the completion of agricultural cooperation, many co-operatives are finding themselves short of labour. It has become necessary to arouse the great mass of women who did not work in the fields before to take their place on the labour front.... China's women are a vast reserve of labour power. This reserve should be tapped in the struggle to build a great socialist country. " Mao Zedong 1955

The discourse on women's liberation was born from liberal feminism, which today is the mainstream discourse, has brought fresh air to change the fate of women in Indonesia. The paradigm of thinking of liberal feminism has inspired many women's movements in Indonesia to achieve equal rights between men and women. However, it turns out that the mindset of feminism born in the West, viewed from a class perspective, at least, will give rise to two political defects. First, this concept will create a split in the concentration of 'class struggle' from oppressed class women to liberate themselves from capitalism. Second, this concept will form an unproductive gender-dichotomous perspective, namely a perspective that views men who are male as enemies.

Liberal feminism is a modern form of feminism. Liberal feminism is characterized by an individualistic struggle for equality. According to this feminist philosophy, in order to create equality between men and women, it is not necessary to make major improvements in society, but only to change legal policies that give women the opportunity to be equal in status to men in society. For a liberal feminist, evidence of progress in women's struggles can be seen from the number of women occupying strategic-public positions that were previously occupied by men. In the United States and in many Western countries, this current of feminism, with a touch of capitalist mode of production, has finally become mainstreamin the women's liberation movement.

The paradigm of thinking above, seen from a class perspective, is of course very narrow and partial. This perspective does not see that it is the capitalistic social structure that subordinates women's rights. The simple logic that can be said, as a critique, is that even though women no longer depend on men individually, they will still depend on the patriarchal state created by capitalism. In this way, institutional change as a result of women's struggles, which is often heralded as an achievement, remains partial. Because success only releases one rein, namely the reins of men.

In a Marxist analysis, the root of all oppression, including the oppression of women – and all of its subordination – originates from the capitalist production system. The greedy nature of this production system makes it move blindly. In the 19th century, Marx, clearly, in his writings, has shown the world about the anarchist movement of capitalism. To gain huge profits, capitalism has exploited children and women. In the first volume of Das Kapital, Marx wrote: “Capitalism deliberately seeks a labor force of women and children to operate machines ... without distinction of age. This forced labor to enrich the capitalist has deprived many opportunities, not only the opportunity to play for children, but has also deprived of free labor which in moderation is useful for supporting the family economy.”

In the eyes of capitalists, women are seen as a source of labor that can be paid cheaply. What's worse, women are also only seen as reserve workers – who will be employed when certain production work requires them, and thrown away when the need for women's workers no longer requires them. Even now, in Indonesia, when the women's movement is booming, millions of female workers only fill certain unstable production work posts. Even though all middle class women talk loudly about “women's world” and “ girl power” , working class women are still the most oppressed section.

True, in advanced capitalist countries, where the ideology of liberal feminism is seeded, during the last half century, the position of women has experienced an increase. At least, in a formal sense, they have the same legal rights as men. They have equal access to education and, to some degree, have been able to reach strategic workplaces. However, in the former colonial world – such as Indonesia – which contains two-thirds of humanity, that is not the case. The enslavement of women seems to be getting worse. Every year, around 500,000 women die from complications arising from pregnancy. Former colonial countries spend only about 4 percent of GDP on health, an average of only $41 per head, compared to $1900 in advanced capitalist countries. It is estimated that around 100 million children aged 6 to 11 are not in school. And two-thirds of them are women.

The absolute domination of imperialism and the giant multinational corporations has ensured that the last drop of surplus value is mercilessly squeezed out of women regardless of age. Parents living on the verge of starvation have no other choice but to sell their daughters into slavery in factories, even in prostitution businesses. Western capitalists, who are also supporters and donors in the movement for women's rights and dignity, have benefited greatly from the 'added value' of women's labour. The bourgeoisie often pretends to empathize with suffering, even though they benefit a lot from it.

The struggle of Marxist working-class women must reveal all this; reveal the reasons why women have to fight against injustice, discrimination and all manifestations of oppression – from a class perspective; Marxists must explain to working class women that the only way to truly achieve the emancipation of women – and of all other oppressed layers – is to abolish the capitalist system of production. And any tendency that deliberately raises the issue of women's struggle against men, or deliberately divides and separates working-class women from the labor movement in the name of "women's liberation", or in any other name, is a reactionary political act and must be fought vigorously.

Marxism strives for the victory of the proletariat – regardless of gender, race, color, ethnicity, nation or religion. The struggle of working-class women must be able to separate the entire struggle of working-class women from the narrow-minded paradigm of bourgeois liberal feminism. Those tendencies, where they gain influence in the labor movement, always playing out in the most reactionary elements, will play a divisive and confusing role in the struggle of working class women towards socialism. In this matter, as in all matters, working-class women must take a firm class position. As we have seen, how the Bolshevik parties and the Communist International, in their resolutions, always spoke of working-class women, and not about women in general.

Because working class women – who today occupy the largest position of the total number of women – are a key element for realizing the liberation of women in general from all forms of oppression.

Achievements that only reach formal "equal rights", without changing relations within the social structure, are like leaves that can never touch roots. Even today, the liberal feminist movements, whose important posts are occupied by women from the petty bourgeoisie, who once vociferously advocated “improvements” in the position of women, are, in fact, only vehicles for the career advancement of the petty bourgeoisie. After they get a strategic position in parliament, in companies, in social institutions, in academic institutions, their voices start not being loud anymore. Why is that? Because they, the majority of feminists come from the middle class , have got what they asked for.

That is why Marxism is so opposed to the narrow movements of bourgeois liberal feminism. Because their struggle is clearly not for working class women who are desperately fighting to free themselves from capital exploitation. The struggle of these middle class women is only to solve their own personal problems within the confines of capitalism. They will forget the fate of the 99 percent of women who are being ruthlessly oppressed in factories, in luxurious houses as domestic servants, in restaurants serving bosses who are fond of hunting for food; after getting a strategic position, those middle-class women who used to be vocal about "women's equality" will leave the 99 percent of women who are oppressed and join the ranks of the exploiters. This is not a statement based solely on assumptions. The phenomenon has appeared everywhere in our country.

Finally, an appropriate paradigm that must be built in the struggle of working-class women is to struggle to liberate all women from oppression, and in the end, to liberate all human beings from the oppression of capitalism and to build a true human order

– not for this or that group; not for this or that gender. This does not mean that women must give up their struggle to immediately obtain their rights. Not at all. But the women's movement must be actively involved in the movement for the liberation of all human beings from the oppression of capitalism so that relations that do not dominate each other between men and women are immediately formed. Since women's struggles under capitalism – no matter how progressive the improvements – will be of a partial character, distorted and unstable; also, constantly, will be threatened by the crisis of the system and the decay of social, moral and cultural conditions.

Of course, the psychological scars from the oppression of capitalism will not disappear overnight. A period of time must pass until all the old dirt disappears. But relations that do not dominate each other between men and women can already occur. Economic pressures that have been distorting all human relations will be eliminated soon – by introducing decent jobs, building housing and providing education for all people.

The abolition of class society – and ultimately the elimination of the slave mentality that flows from the filthy gutters of class society – will lead to the creation of a new man and a new woman: namely, free men, living together in harmony; as a free man, completely free from the psychology of slaves.

Long live the struggle of working class women!

Long live socialism!