ALL RED FEATHER MATERIALS ARE ALWAYS FREE TO STUDENTS AND TO THOSE WHO TEACH THEM....T R Young

The Political Economy

of Gender Oppression

SOCGRAD MINI-LECTURES

by

T. R. Young
The Red Feather Institute

In the first few mini-lectures on marxian social theory, I have set forth the most general ideas in the writings of Marx. In the lectures to follow, I will offer recent applications of marxian theory to many of the social relationships which organized the behavior of human beings in contemporary times. We can start with a look at some fine work by Nanette Davis and Karlene Faith.

Davis and Faith have taken one of the most general points in marxian theory: one which holds that every political economy has its own sociology; it's own laws, it's own functional requisites, its own kinds of crime and its own kinds of punishment. In their work, Davis and Faith have laid out many of the more significant differences in the structure of gender control as we move from epoch to epoch.

The Table below is based, largely, on their work. I have modified it a bit for a Handout for my own students when I teach Intro, Social Problems or Criminology...you may want to use it when you teach---you may want to use it when you do your own research work. I think it a fine, insightful and liberating piece of conceptualization.

PRE-CAPITALIST NORMS:

There are sets of norms in Patriarchal society which provide the reason and rationale for the control of women. The first set centers around courtship norms and gives males several advantages...a head- start, if you will...in gender politics.

Socialization Norms:

1. Women are socialized to subordination; males to super ordination
2. Women and men are socialized to gender-specific roles [which vary widely across the 3-4000 cultures in human history].
3. Women are socialized to use words; males to use force in disputes.

Courtship Norms. In order to give males every possible every possible advantage in every form of power embedded in social relationships, the rules of dating and marriage are set as moral absolutes:

1. Men shall marry women younger than they are. This gives males advantages in both size, experience, confidence and command.
   
   
2. Men shall marry women who are smaller than they are. This give men a decided advantage in physical power and the use of force.
   
   
3. Men shall marry women who are 'dumber,' less well educated than are they. This gives males confidence and authority to command the behavior of women when that behavior is not shaped by religious norms.
   
   
4. Males shall marry women with fewer economic resources [or if the female has economic resources, they devolve to the male upon marriage.

   These norms together give males physical power, moral power, econ- omic power and the social power of everyday married life.

Marriage Norms. After marriage, a new set of norms is added to the technology of social control. These norms are found in agrarian societies more so than in hunting and gathering and work together to ensure that ownership of land, cattle, water, grazing rights and other essential agrarian elements of production do not leave the family, the clan, the community. It is very important to structure the behavior of women such that claims of ownership/inheritance are not challenged by other families or clans.

The norms which follow control the sexuality of women to ensure that all the children born to her are 'legitimate' to the male to whom she is married and thus exclude claims of males outside the family to the lands inherited by the children...especially, the eldest male child when the norm of primogeniture is used to transfer property from generation to generation.

**The norm of virginity. This norm guarantees that the female is not carrying the seed of a non-family male when she marries.
**The norm of fidelity. This norm ensures that the male and only the male to whom she is married shall have sexual access to her. Males are not bound by this norm since all the children born to them are covered by,
**The norm of Bastardy. All children bound outside wedlock, a holy estate, shall not inherit nor make any claims on the economic or political resources of the family. Do note that when property is held in common, the concept of bastardy and the onus carried by such norms, is absent. The same is true in capitalism for the lower classes since they do not have property to speak of... 'illegitimacy' becomes of much less consequence in moral terms.
**The norm of Chastity/Celibacy. During the absence of the male to be chaste; they are not to make themselves attractive to other males by word, deed, dress or put themselves in a place where their 'honor' may be called into question. Caesar's wife must not only be chaste but she must give the appearance of chastity. After the death of the male, the widow is to go into seclusion deny her sexuality from all others.

A Story. You all know the story of Electra and Orestes. Their mother, Clytemnestra violated the norms of chastity and fidelity while their father, Agamemnon, was Commander of Greek forces during the Trojan Wars. While he was gone, Clytemnestra took a lover, Aegisthus. When Agamemnon returned, Clyme and Aeggie murdered him. Orestes couldn't rest until he murdered his Mom. Electra was delighted by the murder [she had an unhealthy fixation on her father...according to Freud].

The murder grew out the political economy of a society in which the sexuality of women was put to the task of maintaining the property rights of the family...Orestes felt he had to kill both his mother and her lover...indeed it was not at all murder; it was Justice.

The story has been told by Homer, Herodotus, Ovid, Vergil, Goethe, O'Neill, Sartre and of course, Freud. It could not be told by any one in a society in which female sexuality is a matter of personal joy, delight, or personal tragedy [as in Four Weddings and A Funeral].

The sexuality of women is now part of the great Cultural Warfare on which those born to; socialized to; committed to a pre-capital political economy [other than primitive communism] now wage on women, men and children who do not embody these norms of courtship and marriage in their daily lives.

---

CONCLUSION: I do not want to teach that Marxian theory explains every- thing. Indeed Durkheim, Weber and a thousand feminist theoriest give great depth and nuance to the dynamics of social life which are of great validity and utility to social theory and social policy. Still, Marx has much to offer in the way of conceptual tools with which to pry open the incredibly complex and interconnected social forms we meet as we gaze across history and across cultures. Not many others do that. I find Marx a most valuable part of my work.

I give you joy in your work,

TR Young