Ch 13. Intersections of Capitalism and Patriarchy
link to pdf
Terry Leahy 2024
The next few chapters in this part of ‘The Riddles of History’ will be on intersections between capitalism and patriarchy. Contesting views on feminism must be put in the context of a broader overview of the way capitalism and patriarchy interact. My own account is much influenced by one of three perspectives from the early seventies women’s liberation movement. Radical feminism. These days that term seems to be exclusively connected to ‘Trans Excluding Radical Feminists’. This is a bit unfair to ‘radical feminism’ as it was originally developed in the seventies. There are aspects of this position that are still relevant. Radical feminism maintains that men organized as a ‘sex-class’ create and benefit from patriarchy. This is a trans-historical and trans-cultural phenomenon, as discussed in earlier chapters. It is not just restricted to capitalism.
Radical feminism is more concerned with equality than with free choice. In earlier chapters I have argued that the implied feminist concept of gender exploitation relies on ideas about human nature. That human nature is composed of basic drives. That inequality in a relationship occurs when one party gets more out of that interaction (in terms of satisfying their basic drives) than another party. I have argued that autonomy, the desire to get what you want, is one basic drive. So, freedom of choice is always an issue when we are considering exploitation. But it is only one issue. There are other basic drives to be considered. In other words, people can want things that really are not in their interests. Taking all their basic drives into account. For example, they may see it as a women’s role to stay at home and do housework — their choice. But at the same time a choice that locks them into loneliness, boredom and social stigma — along with a vastly diminished autonomy, because this work is unpaid. See earlier chapters for all this in detail.
In the mid-seventies, the radical feminist position was developed to create ‘dual systems theory’, also called ‘socialist feminism’ at the time. A forerunner of the more recent ‘intersectional’ feminism. In dual systems theory, there are two basic systems operating in current capitalism. One is the market economy of capitalism. The other is patriarchy — the power of men in relationship to women. These two systems interact so we may speak of ‘capitalist patriarchy’. A complicated interaction like this is not unique to capitalism. It is equally an aspect of feudal societies where we may speak of feudal patriarchy. Something quite different to patriarchy in capitalist society. The term ‘socialist feminism’ signals an intention to overturn both these systems of oppression, a task that will be easier if we understand how they interact.
The interaction of feudalism and patriarchy
Let us start off by talking about the way patriarchy was organized in feudal societies and then about what happened with capitalism.
So first, in feudal societies, there was the cultural hegemony of patriarchy. For example, religion was patriarchal. God and his son conceived as men. Men officiating as priests, bishops, popes. A bible that tells women to obey their husbands. Accompanying folk viewpoints. The term ‘scold’ was used to stigmatize women that tried to control their husbands’ actions in any way. Someone who talks back and makes decisions. A husband who was not taking control in his marriage might be the object of a demeaning village ritual. Made to ride backwards on a donkey while being insulted by the other villagers. It was expected that men would control their wives with violent beatings. In peasant communities an unequal division of labour — with women doing more hours of work than men. Men were more likely to have positions in employment where they were mobile and moved about the country. When men and women were working together, men would have authority.
Yet at the same time, in comparison to the Victorian ideals that developed with capitalism, there were surprising expressions of women’s power. For example, if a husband died, the wife could take over the business as the widow. Women had recognized roles that we would now describe as professional — as midwives or herbalists. Even the role of nuns as independent women, to some extent running their own show. With some female religious leaders canonized as saints — for example Saint Teresa of Avila. There was no expectation that women would be uninterested in sex, as developed in Victorian Europe. All these elements of women’s power were built into feudal society.
If we look at the structure of the economy, the division between men’s work, as part of ‘the economy’ and women’s work as ‘private’ and domestic, did not apply. Most production, including agriculture, was organized by the household with complementary roles for men and women. For example, women making the cheese while the men are ploughing. In the early feudal period few people were connected to the monetary economy through having a job paying money. The feudal ruling class would get a surplus when their peasants supplied a tribute in kind. Like looking after the lord’s dog pack. Providing a portion of the crop. Making the lord’s bed. So domestic work and production were being done without a clear economic distinction between the two.
At the same time, despite this complementarity in the economy, men dominated in families and in the broader political structures. Religion, the feudal political system, the use of armed force.
The transition to capitalism
So, let’s look now at how this feudal patriarchy came to an end in the transition to capitalist patriarchy. Eli Zaretsky was a New Left author on these topics in the seventies. Followed by the work of dual systems theorists such as Batya Weinbaum and Heidi Hartmann by the end of that decade. Starting with Marx and Weber, Zaretsky points out that capitalism separates paid work outside the home from unpaid domestic work. The capitalist class did this because they wanted control over the paid work. The ownership of the means of production became privatized and the way you would make money out of the means of production was by producing more stuff and marketing and selling it. Making a profit through that and extracting surplus value. To facilitate this, in the first stage of industrialisation, cottage weavers were brought together in big factories. At a time when these weaving machines were hand powered. Later these gathered machines could be powered by steam engines.
The work that was left over in the home suddenly became separated from ‘production’. In fact, all this domestic work is also productive. But the work that was paid and directly benefited the capitalist owner was the work outside the home, which ended up being called ‘productive’ work, as opposed to unpaid domestic labour. As Weinbaum and Hartmann point out, this change was potentially a challenge to the patriarchal relationships that had been established in the feudal period. In the feudal household the patriarch exercised direct and, on occasion, violent authority over his wife and children. This new context meant that it was perfectly possible for young women, and even children, to slip away from this authority and to live on a wage paid out by a capitalist factory boss.
As these authors document, in England, the leading industrial country, this option was closed off through several strategic interventions. There was a cross-class alliance of upper-class philanthropists, alarmed at the ‘moral’ effects of factory work, and working-class male unionists, demanding exclusive access to higher paid positions. The factory acts restricted the hours women could work and excluded children from factory work — forcing women to return home to look after them. Along with this, men made demands to define their work as ‘skilled’ and to be paid at a higher rate than women. Together these strategies consolidated the link between women and domesticity, while ensuring that men achieved economic power through market employment.
In parliament, where the factory acts were enacted, the changes were introduced to ‘protect’ women from the immorality supposedly connected to factory work and mining. For example, drawings of half-naked women towing carts in coal mines created a scandal. Patriarchy masked as chivalry.
The moral economy of capitalist patriarchy
These changes were also early steps in the developing moral economy of capitalist patriarchy. In that cultural landscape, women take the role of ‘God’s police’ as Ann Summers dubs it. The historian Ruth Bloch talks about the rise of ‘the moral mother’. The role of the moral mother is to institute an early moral discipline. To embody Victorian and puritanical moral ideals in her own conduct and to socialize children in those values. Most fundamentally the work ethic, but this in concert with the allied puritan values — sobriety, punctuality, honesty, respect for property rights, sexual propriety. This moral economy became the justification for the down grading of women’s participation in the labour market. The stay-at-home mother became the acme of feminine virtue. As the working class gained income, working class women in rich countries left the labour market. Women who had to work could be paid a pittance because paid work was never a woman’s true calling. The effect of this myth was to paint the home as a refuge of innocence from the dangerous public world. Implying that adult men had to be tough to survive this realm of nastiness and competition. As Ellen Willis pointed out, the social landscape becomes populated with good cops and bad cops. The good cops are husbands protecting their families from the nasty world out there. The bad cops are violent and dangerous men.
The ideal of the moral mother started off in the upper class and was gradually implemented lower down the class hierarchy. By the 1920s in the rich countries many ordinary women were staying home, unpaid. At least while the children were young. Government action cemented this ideal. In Australia the Harvester judgement of 1907 established a basic wage for men premised on the idea that their wage would support their family. There were rules to exclude married women from the public service. And so on.
We can see the Red Riding Hood myth as a metaphor for the economic realities of capitalist patriarchy. Ann Cranny Francis unpicks this story in relation to the ‘good cop’ — ‘bad cop’ duality that Willis describes. Red Riding Hood gets into trouble when she strays from the path that her mother has set for her. The Hunter is the good cop. He looks after the grandmother and Red Riding Hood by coming to their rescue. Killing the evil wolf, the bad cop, with his axe. Francis points out that this mythology is a mythology about masculinity in current capitalism. Men’s sexuality is conceived as innately dangerous and problematic. It has to be controlled. The good man controls their sexuality and looks after women, protecting them from the evil men out there — who act like wild beasts.
This analysis suggests the myth as a metaphor for the economic structures of capitalist patriarchy. Women are dependent on men economically. In the whole life course, they get only half the income of men of their own class. So, husbands perform the role of the good cop, bringing home the income and protecting their families through that. Meanwhile men in general, men as a political and economic sex-class are the bad cops. Unless you’re attached to a husband don’t expect any help from us. Society will not come to your assistance. All those men will hang on to their control of income rather than see women get a fair share. There’s no way to bring up a child comfortably without the support of a husband. These dynamics still operate, after decades of feminist activism. These structures of income and control over money are part of the furniture of capitalist society. They are rarely seen clearly for what they mean to the gender regime.
As the terms, ‘good cop’ and ‘bad cop’ suggest, women are also in danger from the men in their families. Men who have the economic power. Ranging from exploitation in the domestic division of labour to much worse.
Capitalist patriarchy as a circle of causes and effects
We can see this economic structure operating as a circle. Start at any point and go round the circle to get back to where you came from. So, let’s start at women’s low income. The higher income men get through their wages gives them power in the family. They use that power to force a division of labour that advantages them. Their wives do more hours of obligatory work for the couple. Considering both paid work and domestic work. This means that men have free time in their lives to organize politically to maintain patriarchy. This can take the form of men’s leisure pursuits with other men, a site where men collude in consolidating patriarchy. It can take the form of participation in public and political life. From the local football club through to parliament and company management. This political power enables men to maintain their economic domination, their higher incomes relative to women. We are back where we started. For feminists the strategic message of this circle is that intervention to break the circle can be at any point. It makes sense to demand men do more housework, to fund childcare to give women more opportunities, to get women into positions of public power, to start up social groups for women.