Socialist feminist theory has its roots in Marxism and its
proponents claim that the oppression of women cannot be understood without
taking economic conditions into consideration. The line between socialist and Marxist
feminism needs to be drawn. The approach of adding women into the existing
paradigm can be alleged for liberal feminists was also targeted at Marxist
feminists. Marx himself did not write about the subordination of women in his
lifetime. Later Engels wrote about the origins of family and the rise of
capitalism. Marxism ignored patriarchal ideology and the power relationships
between sexes. Thus Marxist feminists try to
explain the inequalities among school pupils using class system and blame
education for transmitting middle-class values. They problematize women’s
household labour and pay attention to women’s position in the production
relations. They conducted research on how education system contributed to
sexual division of labor since it is one of their main criticisms to the
system. (Middleton, 1993) Socialist feminism moved one step further and
recognized the system as both patriarchal and capitalist, which is also called
dual-systems approach. Patriarchy and capitalism are analyzed as two separate
but interconnected systems. There have also been some socialist feminists who
considered capitalism and patriarchy as a unified system. Young argued that
using division of labour instead of the gender blind class category would lead
to the inclusion of women into analysis (Tong, 1998). Jaggar on the other hand,
utilized another Marxist concept, alienation, to explain the subordination of
women(Tong, 1998). Despite these attempts, class
is still viewed as an indispensable tool of analysis in most of socialist
feminist analysis. “Students and teachers were studied as simultaneously and
contradictorily positioned within the social relations of class and gender”
(Middleton, 1993; 42). This approach
revealed the ways the working class girls are at a double disadvantage in the
schooling system.
Tisdell claims
that both radical and socialist feminist pedagogies problematize “social
structures and their effects on learning as well as the politics of knowledge
production in what gets passed on as ‘official’ knowledge in the curriculum and
who determines it” (1998: 2).
In
their emphasis on class and gender subordination they establish an organic link
to critical theories. The order of structural and cultural reproduction and
critical production theories can also be traced among the work of socialist
feminists.
Deem
(1981) claims that schools are central to the process of the maintaining and
reproducing the existing sexual division of labour. Like the other structural
critical theorists she was criticized for not leaving room for resistance. The
following feminists replaced the concept of reproduction with hegemony. This
way the concept of resistance acquired new meanings. The studies of McRobbie
(Apple, 2006, Weiler, 1988) on working class girl subcultures in England
highlighted the use of sexuality as resistance by girls. This study is the
counterpart of Wills’ study of masculine working class resistance culture of
boys in England as mentioned above. In both studies counter school subcultures
serve the reproduction of working class culture (Weiler, 1988). In another
study, Fuller found different strategies among black British girls who were
under the double oppression of sexist black culture and racist white culture.
They take control of their own lives by studying hard. According to these
feminists schools are contradictory places for girls as they provide the chance
to resist male hegemony while transmitting gender-stereotyped values (Weiler,
1988).
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