The following article was originally presented as a reading for the Geelong Feminist Discussion Group. It introduces a basic history of the intersections of various tendencies of socialism and feminism.
Until recent history we do not find much specific writing dealing with the status of women in relation to men. But with the rise of capitalism, inequality between the genders reached new heights. However capitalism also brought with it the beginnings of liberal ideas. Writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill began to address the treatment of women in texts like A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and The Subjection of Women (1869) respectively.
But the ideals of liberalism about individual rights and the flourishing of the human spirit did not match capitalist reality. For workers, the poor, women, slaves and the colonised peoples, capitalism and liberalism didn’t live up to the promise of freedom. Instead it usually meant exploitation, starvation and oppression.
Continue reading “Socialism and the Feminist Movement”