France, Alternative Current OCL #225 - Types and classes - reflections on the struggles (fr)

Types and classes ---- The approach to reflect on the relationship between male dominance 
and capitalism, between women's struggle and class struggle, is quite rare these days to 
make you want to talk about it when it presents itself. Especially as the collective 
author of styles and classes, widespread insurrection destroy men and women (1) explains
this choice "thorny" by his desire to overcome the "clich?s militants" and dated analysis 
to contribute to a essential debate. ---- The work done by the group communising (2) 
Incendo input is declared "unfinished", both because it covers only Western society 
(especially French) and because it is primarily composed of notes and lines of thought 
provoking questions on internal discussions "always bright and conflict" as to give 
priority to either the class struggle is the fight against male domination.

Anyway, I first summarize the analysis proposed here before him make a few comments.

Patriarchy, capitalism and the state

A revolutionary perspective, we can not do without gender issues * finds Incendo , because
the division of labor by sex or gender (or sexuation first division of labor) is 
intrinsically linked to capitalism (mode production where the "monopoly of the bourgeoisie 
over the means of production and subsistence, [...] the proletarian, destitute of 
everything, is forced to wage labor and the production of surplus value"), and because 
under communist society is incompatible with the persistence of forms of hierarchy and 
domination. The assignment of individuals to a particular social role has always existed, 
but with "degrees" of male dominance variable. We advance the common maternity and 
constraints to explain the gendering: pregnancy, breastfeeding, safety of pregnant women 
(vital for the survival of a group or society) would have resulted in a shift to the 
"protection" all women because of their potential reproductive capacity. In addition, male 
dominance is reinforced with the emergence of private property and class society, due to 
the appropriation of women by the father or the husband over the family and marriage.

The "domestic work" was invented by capitalism considers Incendo . Before the industrial 
period, the population is predominantly rural and peasant units and production and 
reproduction * coincide. Lives at home with an extended family agricultural production 
allows survival and activities of men and women * are "complementary and indispensable" 
("sexuation this does not then a devaluation and invisibility of women's work"). Part of 
female activity is carried out at the place of residence, but it is mainly for own 
consumption (making clothes, candles, etc..) And no longer exists (3); Conversely, what 
now constitutes the bulk of domestic work (cooking, laundry, cleaning) there is very 
marginal (cleaning and laundry Spring, etc..) and raising children is very sketchy (they 
are considered and treated as miniature adults).

The transition to the capitalist mode of production breaks dramatically with the 
situation. Until the first half of the nineteenth century, of course, use all capital 
labor available - so men, women and children. But with the growth of the industry, it 
becomes dangerous for reproduction even "race workers," as Marx (up to 14 hours per day, 
more trips ...). However, the increase (or at least renewed) the number of workers is a 
prerequisite for economic growth. Hence the gradual assignment of women at home to perform 
domestic tasks: when wage and commodity become the rule, there is not only a deprivation 
of the means of production and subsistence for the majority but also a separation between 
place production (human / plant, public sphere) and breeding (wife / home privacy).

To do this, capitalism is based on patriarchy - "type of social organization where family 
and political authority is exercised by men." Institutions (government, law, religion, 
politics ...) aims to ensure the continuity and stability of the social order whose family 
is fundamental because it allows the inheritance. It is set by the working class marriage, 
to ensure integration and reproduction of the labor force, promoting the bourgeois family 
model and morals.
however, the all-out industrialization at the turn of the twentieth century and the two 
world wars lead capitalism to change the shape of sexualization to suit its new 
objectives. To promote the entry of women into the wage secondary and tertiary, it uses 
the State, and with the explosion of the consumer society and the massive growth of female 
employment, there in the middle of the twentieth a change in the relationship between the 
sexes. Women gain economic independence and a certain formal equality.

Of course, capitalism "releases" for nothing women: it needs a low labor cost and a 
constant stimulus to consumption by increasing purchasing power, and the family 
"traditional" hinders the mobility of workers. Moreover, the accession to power of the 
bourgeoisie, the French Revolution, led an ideology promoting the idea of ??formal 
equality between men and women ("freedom, democratism, work ethic, success, competition, 
individualism" ... ). The feminisation of the workforce has a direct involvement in the 
massive class struggle: on the one hand, the proletariat (composed of workers and 
employees of both sexes) is expanding on the other hand, the nuclear family, which became 
the norm, explodes.

Today, the appropriation of women "is mostly a collective mode, domination becomes 
indirect, impersonal [...]." Since the nineteenth century, the role of the state is a 
major and growing: it has, through medicine, control over women's bodies (contraception, 
abortion, etc..) And through various devices (DASS ...) on the family (at the expense of 
the power of the husband), it supports some of the tasks of reproduction of the labor 
force (childcare, education, training, health ... Safely, allocs ...) it imposes legal 
equality women with men, establishes regulations regarding divorce, adoption, child 
custody ... As for family policies, they seek more backup of the parental couple as 
married couple (PACS, divorce reform - Consent mutual ...).

The image of the housewife has gradually been replaced by the worker or unemployed, and a 
growing number of women participating in the capitalist exploitation (4) accessing or 
prestigious positions of power - a phenomenon "inevitable" even if it is faster or slower 
depending on the sector. The public sphere thus "lost masculinity that characterized". 
This "mix growing ruling class (women, men, straight, gay, black, white, Yellow, etc.)." 
Has the effect of "hide, in part, oppression of genres, but is primarily a reflection of 
reality: the goods does not care the genre of proletarian and even more than the 
capitalist. " There has been a breakthrough for the bourgeois.

In contrast, the private sphere remains the domain of women: domestic work and the 
reproduction of the labor force them back always, all are "determined by their 
reproductive function" (though more they rise in the social hierarchy unless they are of 
children), and there is continuing violence against them (rape, sexism ...). This dual 
activity of women, who "combine" their status in the home of a patriarchal society with 
that employee (5), encourages Incendo to speak now of "male domination" rather than 
"patriarchy": "The majority of men hold the power but society (Western) is more organized 
(legally and politically) in the direction of the sexual division of labor and the 
exclusion of women empowering activities (monopoly policy, the use of weapons and of the
most effective). '

Feminism and revolution

Once this analysis, however, Incendo faces - like many others - such questions as: "Is 
there a double contradiction within classes and within genres? The bourgeois can they take 
part in the revolution? Can there be "solidarity" between women across classes - and vice 
versa? "Continuing its reflection, the collective of the journal focused on the women's 
movement of the 1970s and its three main feminist currents:

radical feminism (particularly with feminist issues and the tendency of radical lesbians), 
which takes women to a class. Capitalism is the result of patriarchy, sexism is a 
foundation, and if you can not shoot one without the other, the main enemy is the patriarchy;
essentialism or differentialism (including Psychepo [6]), which promotes women's bodies 
and their reproductive capacity, the "femaleness" wishing birth control and ownership of 
children by women;
the current class struggle (including the group / log P?troleuses and Circle Elisabeth 
Dmitriev) for which the convergence of women's struggle and class struggle is a necessity 
(capitalism have used the existing structures of patriarchy) which focuses on the 
struggles of women in wage employment. The idea is admitted into this stream that women 
are domination, not a specific farm, and they are not all the same dominated (bourgeois 
and proletarians do not have the same interests). Strategic choices but then diverge,
according to analyzes made between: the class struggle is paramount, and the struggle of 
women must be linked to it, or the struggle of women is in itself anti-capitalist, or the 
struggle of women against patriarchy and the struggle of the proletariat against 
capitalism must join in a battle against the main "system."
Nowadays, the women's movement has almost disappeared but the feminist sensibilities still 
recalls Incendo, who notes about radical feminists and lesbians: "Although homosexuality
tends increasingly to be integrated by capitalism, critical of heterosexuality and its
counterpart, the pressure of motherhood, have always held to be ", but" this can lead to 
critical theory of lesbianism as a political strategy (and sometimes) anti-separatist 
tendencies men denouncing heterosexuality as a form of collaboration with the enemy or 
voluntary submission. For this position, it is to deny male domination, but certainly not 
sexism, and even less types. "

Essentialists continue to value the "nature" of women, motherhood and the "sisterhood", 
often in idealized pre-capitalist societies and wanting to reclaim ancient knowledge.

And besides "gender specialists" (academic and intellectual faculties in speaking, 
publishing and media), there is action groups (Bitches guard Neither whores nor 
submissive, the World March ...) often citizenists social democrats who seek a pressure on 
the government, and through lobbying campaigns and recourse to justice, the rights of 
women. These groups want to correct the defects of male domination and improve the "status 
of women" by developments which in fact part of the evolution of capitalism (parity, equal 
pay, defending the right to abortion ...) [7] .

For Incendo, the emphasis has been more in the women's movement, the private lifestyle, 
explains its decline: if "the personal is political", the policy does not reduce it , and
it is imperative to talk about yourself, it can lead to a shift towards "politics is 
private" when confined to a deconstruction ("questioning individual and personal gender") 
without s' involved in social movements. This deconstruction "as any alternative, is 
reduced to the search for personal happiness in capitalist society", while genres are not 
"fixed identities [but] a social construct, it is not possible to s extract social 
relations of which they are the expression (8). "

If women do constitute a group dominated because of their assumed reproductive capacities, 
bourgeois and proletarians "are not all subject to the same physical conditions and 
conflicting interests." However, unable to make further progress on the issue of gender 
and class, Incendo relies then the revolution: "This move permanently abolishing existing 
order of things, that is to say reports the social world of shit (state, property, 
capitalism, exploitation, value, money, wage labor, trade, classes, etc.)., at the same 
time eliminates the need to reproduce the labor force, and family genres. The abolition of 
wage labor and revolutionary activity put an end to the distinction between social 
activity and individual activity between the various divisions (working time, rest, 
leisure, etc.)., So the basics of domestic work (separation between private / public 
sphere and reproductive / productive). '

Comments on the above

Some analyzes of Incendo on pre-capitalist societies seem attractive (such as 
non-devaluation of women's work time), but they nonetheless assumptions. Everything 
depends on what is more social classes studied, and can not in any way "measure" for 
example reinforcing male dominance with the advent of the bourgeoisie. Moreover, Incendo 
writes that patriarchy "especially for contemporary industrial societies" is it to say
that in France lasted barely a century or two? How then described earlier societies - and 
there was not really in these societies, gender hierarchy based on the differentiation of 
tasks? This is surprising given the importance of physical strength and the number of 
children ("arm") in the rural economy. As for the "invention" of chores assigned to 
capitalism, it is only to recall the origin of the word "domestic" (domus = home) to say 
that already in Roman society had any idea. Finally, the return of women to the house with 
the rise of industrialization in perspective a lot, because at the beginning of the 
twentieth century, half the French population was still agricultural, with so many women 
working on their living and the bourgeois were confined at home.

It was also a little impression from reading the review, that patriarchy and capitalism 
are separate entities and monolithic. Yet these are the very structures (both economic, 
social and institutional) of the same power, which reinforce each other, and their 
supporters are sufficiently mixed to have spilled tons of ink for decades on the question
of where is the chicken and which is the egg. And then there are in the upper classes a 
constant struggle and war between "progressives" and "conservatives" in their respective 
research to maximize profits, to promote or otherwise prevent the necessary changes.

Always on patriarchy, it is argued that the legalization of abortion and contraception has 
increased the "fatal blows" and that this term is exceeded to qualify societies. Why not 
to prefer the "male domination", in fact - even though an increasing number of women enter 
the upper echelons? Nevertheless, despite its transformations, the family remains the 
pillar system in place (it determines the class membership, promotes or hinders social 
mobility, is the basis for economic support between generations ...) , and that 
traditional marriage is not "obsolete" so far as Incendo esteem: after several years of 
cohabitation, there has yet to pass the heritage ... but also because it is the desire of 
establish a stable and sustainable based on loyalty. For the requirement of fidelity "of 
yesteryear" has not gone far away, and, married or unmarried, the couple remains the 
dominant model. Even if it is "liberalized" with the "turnover" of broken families, 
divorces and blended soldent today more than half of all marriages, there is in general 
practice fidelity to the other time relationship - hence the appropriation of another. 
"The constant torque can be explained by the growing economic difficulties to join to 
raise a child," suggests Incendo , however, among other factors, there is a strong desire 
to live together in faithfulness before ... parting to reform another couple on the same 
basis as often.

More annoying to me in theses presented, is the kind of underlying determinism - for 
example concerning the struggle of women in the 1970s: "Is it the women's movement that 
has changed the backward mentality French? [...] And if the feminist campaigns were only 
the effect and not the cause? Like all groups / orgas leftists who are developing in the 
1960s, the emergence of the feminist movement is indicative of the economic and social 
upheaval, and conflictual social relations of the period. [...] In fact, this struggle was 
not in contradiction with the modernization of society, on the contrary. '

Take a look distanced and critical feminism (as any other school of thought) of course has 
its usefulness, and it is not wrong to say that all the "advanced" (abortion, 
contraception and other ...) obtained by social movements, based on claims arising from 
economic developments, partly satisfy the maximum benefit to capitalism - as when a 
balance of power in the economic and social development can snatch something, the power 
never stops to pick him off his subversive side ... But, firstly, that capitalism could 
choose to improve the "Women" to promote industrialization and the service sector jobs 
does not mean the outcome would have been the same without the women's liberation 
movement. On the other hand, if we push further this line of reasoning deterministic, why 
not simply expect that economic developments lead to social change - as, for example, the 
"conditions" are satisfied that arises a new women's movement ? (The revival of this 
movement, said Incendo "does not obviously depends on energy and voluntarism of some 
conditions but the beginning of the twenty-first century remain to be studied.")

On classes and types, Incendo we propose a similar conclusion inescapable: "With the 
revolution, gendering and gender have in fact been abolished by individuals immediately 
Social [" already processed by communisation "]" the insurrectionary process " inevitably 
incorporate gender issues, and lead us eventually abolishing them under pain of falling 
into cons-revolution. " Although it is true that it is deeply in situations of breaking, 
revolutionary, people become (role, attitudes ...) and the usual social relationships are 
disrupted or interrupted, advance seems to show more a frantic optimism because the social 
machine does not function as "magical". Incendo just puts a damper on his description: 
everything not bathe immediately, and therefore will require a "period of transition (not 
wasting the State, but wasting capitalist mentality) to communism. " For my part, I do not 
need to prove the necessity of a revolution by some "evidence" caught in history: the 
desire that I makes me rather, I confess, look for signs of a step towards this revolution 
in the relationship of forces.

Recent remarks regarding male domination: the marriage was not to me only foundation for 
the transmission Heritage's concern and the bourgeoisie became dominant instill values ?? 
and was well ahead to Church and State, a great tool for sexual repression - and that is 
why sexual liberation, the right to dispose of his body, was one of the main demands of 
the women's movement. However, this release is virtually absent from the magazine.

Similarly, Incendo not dedicated to maternity little more than a pamphlet on the desire 
for sterilization ... do not have children, noting: "Communism is obviously not abolish 
the distinction between children and bringing that wear them. However, pregnancy is not a 
natural phenomenon, it is socially organized (differently at different times, societies 
and regions.)
now implies the formation of the group of women and male dominance. How will be processed 
and resolved the question of the organization of the pregnancy communisation is crucial 
and very problematic. It was on this issue, motherhood, that may abut abolition of genres, 
so communisation. "As for me, I think - again - pregnancy as a natural phenomenon which is 
not, it is the organization of reproduction. But anyway, this is certainly not a greater 
use of science (as many wish for changes that will leave far behind the "revolution" test 
tube babies [9]) that social emancipation ... born.

Finally, Incendo rightly observes that many women do not question the gendering, 
especially in terms of child care, that single-sex can not solve the problem of inequality 
between women, ie power What those who speak very easily, etc.., and that power is not 
"necessarily masculine" as capitalism is neither "white or" reserved "for men currently or 
heterosexual forever" ... many observations similar to those made ??by a anarcha-feminism 
(10), and the need to cross link anticapitalist struggle and fight patriarchy to advance a 
revolutionary process.

Vanina

[ 1 ]

Notes
[ 1 ] 1. Occasional the collective Incendo (http://incendo.noblogs.org ) sold 3 euros 
bookstore free price elsewhere.
2. The words followed by an asterisk are defined in the box on p. 27.
3. Chores for today are largely unnecessary: ??see the time spent by household women 
workers and those at home, however, with the arrival of a child, women's work greatly 
increased compared to men.
4. Unlike the upper-class women of the past who took advantage of the situation only 
through their husbands.
5. This explains in large part the reality of part-time work: it is 80% done by women in 
France. In 2005, the "single parent families" (7% of households) were more than 90% of 
women raising their children-s-s only. In 85% of cases of divorce, children are entrusted 
to the mother, and 96% of recipients of family support allowance are women.
6. Antoinette Fouque, with "Psychoanalysis and Politics", created in 1973 and 1974 
editions and bookstores Women and appropriated the acronym MLF in the applicant as a brand 
in 1979.
7. Certain groups, note Incendo , conduct awareness campaigns (against sexist toys, the 
publisexisme ...) for the general public and very low impact. Convinced that "sexism has 
its roots in education, media, advertising, they believe that it is changing education, 
and purifying the media and advertising that we can abolish sexism," while the oppression 
of women "is based on much deeper foundations" and that "education is a vector."
8. Incendo address to the same criticism Queer: if we overcome gender and identities sex, 
their rejection of current standards does not lead to the destruction of a part of 
oppression, rather its extension (by the choice of other standards), and their ignorance 
of class relations creates the limits of their claim for capitalism adapts well to 
personal change.
9. See for example "Biology and gay parenting" ( Le Monde , 27 October 2012) on the next 
opportunity - thanks to IPS stem cells - for homosexuals-s to have biological children 
with genes from both parents, and to same person to produce both eggs and sperm.
10. See, among others, Women's Liberation and libertarian project , collective work 
published by the OCL Acratie, and off-sets of Alternating Current "The Myth of the left: a 
century of social-democratic illusions" or "Sexual Liberation and social emancipation 
"(downloadable oclibertaire).