International Socialists

How can we end women’s oppression? This can only be answered by posing another question: why are women oppressed? Why is society so misogynistic?

One idea is that women are oppressed by patriarchy, that men oppress women because of their psychology, or their biology, or simply because they can. Feminists who support this idea argue that the fight for women’s liberation is separate from the fight for socialism.

Marxists have a slightly different idea. We argue that both the personal and societal aspects of women’s oppression are bound up in class society –particularly in the structure of “the family”. The fight for women’s liberation and the fight against class society – the fight for socialism - are therefore essential to one-another. Neither is possible without the other.

A study reading 'Engels and the Origins of Women's Oppression' is avaliable in the Resources section.