How to Combat Sexism and Violence Against Women?

The struggle against women’s oppression has always been inseparable from the struggle for the socialist transformation of society. Sexism and women’s oppression permeate all areas of our lives and express themselves in very different ways: unequal pay, precarious working conditions in so-called “women-dominated” professions, the massive double burden of unpaid child rearing, housework and caring for family members, sexism at work, in the family and in partnerships, sexist role models in the media, education and upbringing, discrimination, sexist assaults and violence: all this is part of everyday life for women in capitalist society.

Despite some of the achievements of the past decades for (legal) equality for women, sexism and oppression are still omnipresent. The Corona crisis has currently led to a worldwide, in some countries dramatic, increase in violence against women and femicides (murders of women because of their sex). As in every economic crisis, women suffer most from unemployment, poverty, lack of prospects and austerity policies. Access to abortions and other medical care is increasingly restricted. In addition to this, the Corona crisis has led to isolation and to a situation in which many women have become even more trapped than before in traditional family structures; trapped within their own four walls and thus also exposed to violence by their partners or by other family members without protection.In a particularly depressing way, the Corona crisis has shown how dependent capitalism is on the bourgeois family and conservative gender roles, especially in times of crisis — with all its negative consequences.

However, this increase in violence against women also happens at a time when, as a result of the women’s movements in various countries in recent years, there has been a change in consciousness. A radicalization has taken place, especially among young women, based on the questions of their own experiences of discrimination, sexism and especially gender-based violence violence. Many women no longer want to tolerate traditional role models, untoward behavior, sexism and violence. In essence: zero tolerance of sexist behavior.

Sexism within their own ranks — i.e. the feminist movement and the broad left, within leftist organizations and the workers’ movement — is also increasingly rejected and more aggressively denounced than in the past. This is a very important development for the successful emancipation of women and expresses a substantial politicization against their specific oppression. At the same time, the recent feminist struggles and movements — from #metoo to the struggles for the right to abortion — show that a correct political program, clarity, leadership and strategy are needed on how sexism can be driven back permanently. Often, only individualized answers to social problems have been put forward.

Socialist responses to women’s oppression, as well as the program and proposals for struggle, must be based on a Marxist analysis of the function and effects of sexism and violence against women in capitalist society. The struggle to end women’s oppression cannot be won without a perspective for the fundamental overthrow of capitalism in favor of socialist democracy. Change can only be achieved by getting at the root of the problem. At the same time, a concerted effort is needed by socialists to understand the double oppression of women (as workers and women) in its depth and various manifestations, to fight against sexist behavior in their own ranks and in the entire workers’ movement, and to make demands and lead the struggle for concrete improvements.

Causes of the Oppression of Women and Sexism

There is a lot of Marxist literature on the causes of the emergence of women’s oppression in society — not everything can be explained in this article. The groundbreaking analyses of Friedrich Engels, Clara Zetkin, Alexandra Kollontai and others stand out primarily in that they describe and analyze the dialectical connection between the development of class society and the oppression of women.

In his work “Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” Engels sketches how the emergence of private property and thus class society shaped the function of the “traditional” family: “The management of the household lost its public character. It no longer concerned society. It became a private service; the woman became the first servant, ousted from participation in social production”. Engels also assumed that during this period an initial surplus of production — due to the gendered division of labor that already existed in part — ultimately accumulated primarily in the hands of men. In order to ensure that this property would be inherited by one’s children, it was necessary to secure the fidelity of one’s own wife. Thus, in a long and by no means straightforward process, structures of the monogamous family were created for the first time, and with them the first forms of oppression of women.

The later developed class societies and, ultimately, capitalism benefited from this pre-capitalist structural inequality of women — and thus the division of the working class into men and women — and capitalism still does so today. Although the family household as the basic unit of production had been largely destroyed by the capitalist production system, the family remained, as the means of reproducing and disciplining the new class of the proletariat as a labor force. Clara Zetkin wrote: “The proletarian woman has gained her economic independence; but neither as a person, nor as a woman, nor as a wife, has she the possibility of fully living out her individuality. For her task as a wife, as a mother, she has only the crumbs that capitalist production lets drop off its table”.

Even though of course much has changed in the last century in the “traditional” family and in the role of women in society, the basic structures and economic basis for the inequality of women under capitalism has remained the same. Even though bourgeois ideology regarding the position of women in society has changed and developed since the 19th and 20th centuries, and the women’s and workers’ movements have been able to fight for changes, the values and roles of the sexes in the capitalist system (based on power, exploitation and the unequal distribution of wealth) are still based on ideas of male superiority.

The savings for the ruling class in unpaid housework, child rearing and care are massive today. Oxfam published a study in early 2020, which stated women and girls worldwide devote 12 million hours a day to caring for relatives, raising children and running the household.If this work were paid with the minimum wage of the respective country, this would correspond to a sum of 11 trillion US dollars per year. The capitalist system is obviously stabilized by this additional exploitation.

Shifting these tasks onto women and into private spheres leads on the one hand to multiple burdens and, on the other hand, solidifies dependencies and the ideological image of the woman who is subordinate to the man (as the master of the house). She is portrayed as a gentler, caring person who, for biological reasons, is responsible for all areas of care work and is “simply better suited”. Wage differentials, precarious working conditions and the fact that women’s labor is poorly paid deepens the divide between men and women from the working class. Worldwide, women still serve as particularly cheap labor. This is the fundamental social basis on which sexism and violence against women are growing. If women have an unequal position in society, they are also treated unequally and as inferior, discriminated against, oppressed.

At the same time, misogynistic and sexist ideologies have developed and perpetuated over centuries, making them deeply rooted in bourgeois society, in our minds and therefore also within the working class. The changes and advances in consciousness, especially among young women, have not fundamentally changed this, since the social structures are still the same.

Sexism (in the sense of sexist behaviour) is thus a form of discrimination based on this structural inequality of women under capitalism. Forms of sexism such as pejorative slogans, prejudices, backwards role models, etc. develop because of social conditions that treat men and women unequally. Understanding these material roots is also the basis for an effective transitional program to combat sexism.

Violence Against Women in Capitalist Society

The systematic oppression of women described above finds its most dramatic expression in the marketing, objectification, control of women’s bodies and the resulting systematic violence, up to and including femicides. One in three women worldwide will be a victim of physical and/or sexualized violence at least once in their life. In Austria alone there were 16 women murdered in the first half of 2020. This systemic, built-in misogyny is based on the fact that men are still considered the “stronger”, “smarter” and “better” sex, while women are “inferior” and “submissive”.

Violence against women also serves to keep women passive and intimidated. The resulting signal to all women is: your body does not belong to you — we can do what we want with you. Restricted and criminalized access to abortion (or in other cases forced birth control) is also an expression of this control over female bodies, female sexuality and reproduction.

The capitalist system and the bourgeois state reproduce this violence in multiple ways through so-called “rape culture”: the cultural acceptance of rape and violence against women, through the media, music, films, etc., up to the judicial system, which is permeated by patriarchal structures.

It is therefore no coincidence that the new women’s movements take an offensive approach toward violence against women and usually have it as their central theme. The immediate danger to which women are exposed at home, in partnerships, at work and on the open street obviously has a direct impact on their everyday lives as women. The most dangerous place for women is still their own home.

In addition to this, violence against women has wider, more subtle facets that affect personal relationships and the consequences of sexism in the relationships. Especially in interpersonal relationships, psychological violence plays a major role in intimidating and devaluing women. The resulting threat, fear and dependence can have devastating psychological consequences. Male dominance is often accompanied by psychological manipulation, systematic devaluation and emotional pressure.

A Product of Capitalism

Violence against women is a product of capitalist society, in which people — especially men — are conditioned in all spheres of their socialization to regard women as inferior or as objects. In capitalism, profit is made with the marginalization and objectification of women and their bodies. This happens through many channels, such as sexist advertising, the wide variety of products to “improve” women’s bodies, or the multi-billion euro sex industry.

The objectification of people as commodities ultimately affects everyone in the working class, but women in a particularly extreme and dominant way. The degradation of women’s bodies into commodities justifies the use of violence against them in this society. At the same time, systematic violence serves to stabilize relations of domination.

So-called sexualized violence is by no means about sex — it is about demonstrating and exercising power. In every war and counterrevolution, rape and violence against women are used to smash movements; it is used to demoralize and put down revolutionary uprisings of the working class, in particular working class women, who are frequently at the forefront of struggles. Last year, Sudanese militias commissioned by the Transitional Council used sexualized violence as a strategy of counterrevolution against the Sudanese revolution, in which women played a central role; in Egypt and other countries, this was an important, brutal means of combating the so-called Arab Spring.

Rape has always been trivialized with the argument that it is a consequence of male “drives” and thus the supposedly “more natural” aggressive male sexuality. However, really it is the consequence of the social image of women and the ideology of exercising power over women, their bodies and their lives. The capitalist system alienates people from their sexuality, from other people and from themselves. On this basis, the principle of consent — i.e. of mutual understanding — can hardly be realized in its absolute breadth.

But even if sexual and romantic relationships that are completely free and based on equality can only truly be fulfilled in a completely liberated, socialist society, the principle of consent already exists and is the basis according to which men should orient their behavior toward women. Thanks to feminist debates about “no means no” and “yes means yes”, there is in part a greater awareness today of what consensual sex must mean. It is also thanks to these debates that there are learnable strategies for consent.

While the vast majority of sexual harassment and assaults happen very consciously, there are also other situations in our sexual relationships that need to be questioned. A conscious approach to the boundaries of partners and others, sensitivity and communication — all these are largely ignored in capitalist society. On the other hand many cases where individual boundaries are crossed are often presented as something “masculine” and thus positive.

Consciously Take Up the Fight to Stop Violence Against Women!

Social control over women and their bodies is thus expressed in the “private” sphere, but just as publicly and structurally. The private sphere is political precisely because gender-specific violence and sexism occurs within partnerships, marriages and families. Talking publicly about violence against women and rape can cost an incredible amount of energy because it still represents breaking a taboo in bourgeois society. It is still primarily women who are affected and not the perpetrators who are stigmatized.

That is why the public discussion of violence against women — through demonstrations, campaigns, protests, etc. — is so important; it is an important political means to counteract this stigmatization. While individual women cannot stand up to the sexist machinery alone, collective struggles can help (and have done so in the past) to break taboos and openly denounce rape and violence — to normalize a growing climate of “zero tolerance”.

In the Spanish state, mass movements in recent years in the scandalous “Wolfpack” case have not only forced the state and the judiciary to change the sentence against the five perpetrators from sexual abuse to rape; they’ve also brought about a far-reaching shift in consciousness. 65% of women under 30 in the Spanish state now describe themselves as feminists, twice as many as 5 years ago. This collective mass element, the common struggle regardless of gender, is of central importance when it comes to the question of how sexism can be fought successfully.

An effective struggle against violence against women must not stop at demanding harsher sanctions or punishments against perpetrators or calling for individual reflection on one’s own behavior, but must go much further. Movements like #IBelieveHer, which began with the 2018 protest against the acquittal of rugby players in Northern Ireland in a rape case, have made important contributions and have questioned and denounced sexist structures of the judicial system. But the point must be to turn the outrage over individual cases into a general struggle for fundamental change.

The above-described anti-women structures speak for themselves and show that without fundamental upheavals, individual behavior cannot be changed sustainably. This means that political struggles against rape culture, sexist advertising, for sex education and sex education in schools, for a ban on sexists and rapists, etc., must go hand in hand with a rejection of the bourgeois state and thus the ruling judicial system.

Social improvements such as the expansion of women’s shelters and other protective facilities, affordable housing for all, free and comprehensive child care, equal pay for equal work, higher wages, full funding of healthcare and social care, etc. are central in the fight to stop violence against women. On the one hand, to create opportunities to escape abusive situations; on the other hand, to end economic hardship as a reinforcing factor for violence against women. At the same time, the common struggle for social improvements and other goals helps to reduce prejudices and helps us to become aware of our individual and collective strength. Violence against women is therefore also a class issue: while all women in society are affected in some way by violence, regardless of income and social status, working class and poor women have fewer opportunities to escape it.

Because the struggle against sexism and oppression is part of the working class movement in general it is absolutely necessary that the trade unions, as the largest organizations of the working class (in many countries we see a tendency of increasingly female membership in the trade unions), organize conscious political campaigns to stop sexism and violence against women, as well as take decisive action against sexist behavior in their own ranks.

Incorrect, Incomplete and Missing Answers of Identity Politics

Many newer approaches of different feminist movements show, despite their differences, some similar weaknesses and shortcomings. Many of these ideas can be summarized under the term “identity politics” (others are simply classical bourgeois feminist ideas). Even though there are quite different orientations and theories within identity politics and it would be wrong to lump everything together, certain concepts, analyses and methods can always be identified when it comes to newer forms of feminist practice in women’s political movements.

For many young women and LGBTQI+ youth, identity politics ideas are part of their first steps into political radicalization against oppression. Marxists must take this into account and engage strongly in discussions about the correct program and methods of struggle to overcome racism, sexism and other forms of oppression. The certain attractiveness that emanates from ideas of identity politics — such as the approach of developing political practice primarily based on one’s own experience of discrimination/identity — is obvious: awareness of one’s own oppression is often the first step in becoming politically active and wanting to fight for change. Of course, it is important to make different experiences of discrimination visible, e.g. based on gender. But the crucial question is: which way forward? Which method of struggle can be really effective to fight specific oppression, such as that of women?

Many identity politics concepts do not differ much in their concrete conclusions from “classical” (petty) bourgeois feminist ideas. The forms most adapted to capitalism stop at calling for stronger representation of women in politics and the economy; others take a generally anti-capitalist stance without developed theory and practice. In any case, while the idea is widespread that different forms of oppression (racism, sexism, classism, etc) influence and reinforce each other, they are often portrayed as existing more or less “side by side”. If capitalist exploitation is analyzed only as one of many forms of oppression instead of being their fundamental economic and social basis, then feminist struggles are not necessarily understood as anticapitalist struggles, and women from the ruling class are more likely to be seen as allies for working-class women, rather than men from their own class.

The weakness in the approach of many forms of identity politics lies first and foremost in their inability to offer effective solutions for ending women’s oppression and sexism, precisely because they stop at analysis and solutions on an individual level.

For example, we know that language reflects society as it exists and is used to discriminate and reproduce racism, sexism, transphobia etc. However, questions like particular writing styles or how people are represented in the media are not the biggest concerns of women, LGBTQI+ people or immigrants. This is the fundamental problem: the struggle against specific oppression and discrimination is deprived of its material basis. It is often suggested that sexism can be ended simply through some policies that mainly recognize the existence of minorities. This doesn’t come close to ending women’s oppression: at best, it creates the illusion of equality, from which in turn the bourgeois system can profit by marketing this form of “feminism”. It remains stuck on the idealistic level and ignores the materialistic basis, as well as dialectical change and the contradiction of processes.

Such inadequate responses to sexist oppression are symptomatic of feminist approaches that seek individual solutions to major social problems — such as women’s oppression. The aim of identity politics is often to reflect, question and change one’s own behavior, to create “safe spaces” and to symbolically make discrimination visible. Similarly individualistic arguments can be found, for example, in the old debate on unpaid housework and the call for the household, child-rearing, etc. to be fairly divided between the sexes — instead of fighting for a complete socialization of housework, child-rearing and care. Concepts such as the “housewives’ strike”, which are often discussed in the feminist movement, express exactly that.

The idea that individual — and in some cases massively different — experiences of discrimination are the only basis on which political action should be taken, in addition to the inadequate proposals for solutions, carries the danger of playing down similarities and primarily emphasizing differences. Marxists have the opposite goal: for example, a working-class migrant woman naturally has other realities of life and has to fight against forms of discrimination that other workers do not know. But we need to ask: what is the conclusion to be drawn from this? How can we fight for improvements for everyone?

Divisions produced by capitalism, be they along the lines of skin color, religion or gender, can only be overcome in collective struggles of the working class

(both political and economic). This does not mean to regard sexism as a “side contradiction” or to see “classical” economic struggles as the only panacea against sexism and racism. On the contrary, it’s simply recognizing that even women-specific struggles can only be won in solidarity with men. A good example of this is the struggle for the right to abortion through the referendum in Ireland in 2018: the advanced parts of the movement knew very well that the referendum could only be won through collective effort, and by men also voting to abolish the abortion ban. The attempts of feminist movements to use the methods of struggle of the working class — such as the strike — to enforce feminist demands, against sexual harassment at work, etc., are an important example of the power of such collective struggles.

Any political analysis and method that does not take a class standpoint — that does not conclude that similarities between workers are greater than differences and that the working class is the only force that can fight for fundamental social change through mass movements — ends up, in one way or another, making changes in individual behavior its main field of struggle. It is good that men question and change their own sexist behavior. Yet this does not change the fundamental social structures. Ultimately, the question is: who is the real enemy?

While some parts of the so-called second wave of the women’s movement limited themselves to considering men as the main enemy, newer approaches to identity politics often do not have such a false analysis of the political enemy and who or what needs to be fought. But due to the strong individualization of theory and practice, “large” social dimensions are lost sight of. We see here the application of postmodernism to the women’s movement. The ruling class and its politicians, who are responsible for social, economic, political grievances and thus also for sexist structures of oppression, for misogynist and sexist politics, need no longer really feel threatened when feminist struggles limit themselves to simply making discrimination “visible” or calling individuals to reflect on “one’s own privileges”.

No socialism without liberation of women, no liberation of women without socialism

The Marxist Alexandra Kollontai wrote in 1920, after the October Revolution in Russia, about the changes in the family and between the sexes caused by the upheavals in social relations:

“There is no reason to hide the truth from ourselves: the normal family of earlier days, in which the man was everything and the woman was nothing — as she had no will of her own, no money of her own and no time of her own — this family is being changed from day to day; it almost belongs to the past. But we should not be afraid of this condition. Either out of error or ignorance, we are quite willing to believe that everything about us can remain unchangeable while everything changes. ‘This has always been so and will always be so’ — There is nothing more erroneous than this proverb! We need only read how people lived in the past, and we will immediately learn that everything is subject to change and that there are no customs, no political organizations and no morals that remain unchanging and untouchable”.

There are no insurmountable differences between the sexes. The working class is capable of overcoming divisions along the lines of gender, skin color, religion, etc., and building a socialist society in which it is not the profit of the ruling class that is the linchpin of human relations and social structures, but the needs and abilities of all.

The 2019 mass movements in almost all parts of the world, some of which continue today, were largely characterized by a youthful and proletarian character, with women at the forefront. Women are often the most determined fighters in revolutionary movements because of their specific oppression. The struggle against sexism and women’s oppression is therefore more closely linked than ever before to building a powerful workers’ movement capable of abolishing the rotten capitalist system with all its encrusted structures and ideologies and thus finally overcoming the basis for women’s oppression.