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Reunderstanding historical limits and implications on social structures is key to producing sites of struggle

Ebert 93 (Teresa, Professor of Humanities at the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Albany who specializes in Critical and Cultural Theory, Feminist Critique, Marxist Theory and Globalization Theory, “Ludic Feminism, the Body, Performance, and Labor: Bringing ‘Materialism’ Back into Feminist Cultural Studies” https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1354189.pdf)//meb

I believe a politically effective feminism and cultural critique needs to refuse to essentialize theory and concepts as phallogo- centric, masculinist, and dominating or to seek refuge in a seem- ingly anticonceptual biological, biographical, textual, or perfor- mative body. Nor can it acquiesce to the pervasive and "universal" (in spite of all its seeming particularity) ludic displacement of concepts-and the theories they help construct-into an indeter- minate chain of differences. For theory is not in and of itself controlling and oppressive; rather, it is the question of the specific historical constructions, appropriations, and uses of theory and concepts in relation to the struggles over exploitative socioeco- nomic relations. Indeed, historically theory has been largely the province and property of the privileged, hegemonic gender, class, and race: concepts have been used-in the name of a transhistor- ical "reason"-to establish and maintain an oppressive patriarchal and racist hierarchy of knowledge. But we need to critique theory and show its historical limits, and then reunderstand it as a site of social struggle. It is especially important that we engage in the materialist retheorization of theory as the historical frames of intelligibility and conceptual strategies through which we know the operation of power and socioeconomic oppression in the world in which we live. For it is through the struggle over theory, the critique of the limits and uses of existing modes of knowing and the effort to construct new frames of intelligibility, that we can produce emancipatory knowledges (rather than merely sub- versive pleasures) and thus generate the new subjectivities neces- sary to transform the world as it is. It is, therefore, politically more productive to move beyond the upper-middle-class antirationalism of ludic critics in order to focus on a materialist feminist reunderstanding of concepts. I believe it is necessary for feminism not to fetishize an identitarian Hegelian notion of concept as a moment of rational plenitude, in which the signifier and the signified correspond without "dif- ference." Instead, we need to reunderstand concepts as "struggle concepts": as historical, material practices through which the sub- ject engages the social contradictions, the exploitative effects of patriarchy. Concepts, in other words, are historical matrices of intelligibility that display the relations among apparently discon- nected entities and thus enable us to grasp the logic of domination that underlies the seemingly disparate and isolated experiences of individuals in culture. Concepts allow us to perceive the way ex- perience is produced and thus empower us to change the social relations and produce new nonexploitative experiences and col- lective subjectivities. The aim of such conceptual knowledge, then, is not cognitive delight-the joys of knowing-but explan atory critique: a critique that explains the conditions of the pos- sibility of patriarchal practices and thus points to ways that they can be transformed. Concepts, contrary to the bodyism of Gallop, are not philosophical, epistemological, and cognitive but, in fact, the very materiality through which social struggles in the realm of cultural politics take place. These struggles have meant that women, people of color, and oppressed classes historically have been restricted in their ability to produce theories and concepts as well as "silenced" by the dominant regime that excludes and discredits the knowledges they do construct. In large part they have been denied access to those cultural and institutional subject positions and practices- such as education (including literacy), "philosophy," and "theory" itself-through which individuals are enabled to produce new concepts and to legitimate those concepts they do generate (in short, to be "heard"). Patriarchy has used the practices of theory and institutions of knowledge to try to keep women and others from entering into the struggle over theory and producing new modes of intelligibility that would radically reconceptualize and organize reality in nonexploitative ways. One of the most recent (and pernicious) forms of this de-educating of women has been antitheoretical theory itself. In a politically damaging move, the- ory is used to argue against theory, to delegitimate concepts pro- ductive for social struggle and to dissuade women from "theo- rizing," from offering explanatory critiques. As Hartsock has quite rightly pointed out: Somehow it seems highly suspicious that it is at the precise moment when so many groups have been engaged in "na- tionalisms" which involve redefinitions of the marginalized Others that suspicions emerge about the nature of the "subject," about the possibilities for a general theory which can describe the world, about historical "progress." Why is it that just at the moment when so many of us who have been silenced begin to demand the right to name ourselves, to act as subjects rather than objects of history, that just then the concept of subjecthood becomes problematic? Just when we are forming our own theories about the world, uncertain- ty emerges about whether the world can be theorized. ("Foucault on Power" 163-64). Feminists thus must ask, what are the consequences of grounding feminist politics in a biological, textual, or performative body that is posited as anticonceptual? Does this not reproduce the domi- nant regime of patriarchal control over theory and the historical marginalization of women from the struggle over concepts, rele- gating them to their traditional position as passive objects rather than the makers of concepts? What was consciousness raising if not a grassroots struggle by women to contest the hegemonic concepts that concealed the re- lations of domination underlying their disparate experiences as individual women and their effort to produce new concepts that revealed the systematic operation of patriarchal social relations, concepts that constructed new subjectivities for women?16 Femi- nism, in fact, has long had a history of producing and rearticu- lating struggle concepts-such as "sexual harassment," "child abuse," "date rape," or gender-that have radically altered our understanding of reality and thus our ability to change it. These struggle concepts have made it possible to make intelligible as historical and social effects those practices that have been thought of as "natural" and inevitable aspects of the "normal" order, thus opening up those practices to the possibility of intervention and social change. The concept of "date rape," for instance, allows women to make distinctions (that is, to intervene in the order of the seemingly "natural") and thus to transform those practices that-according to a perverse patriarchal semiotics-equate a woman's "no" with another signifier, "yes," and block it from signifying anything at all. "No" needs to be recognized not as the playful slippages of a signifier without a signified-a self-divided signifier which actually means its other ("yes")-but instead as a signifier related through the social struggles of women to a "decided" signified: stop the violence!

Feminist material analysis is not reductionist or unspecific to unique or intersectional experiences, but rather is key to understanding complexities within the system

Jackson 1 (Stevi, Professor of Women’s Studies and Director of the Centre of Women’s Studies at the University of York, “Why a Materialist Feminism is (Still) Possible—And Necessary” Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 24, No. 3/4, 2001. http://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Stevi-Jackson-Why-a-Materialist-Feminism-is-still-possible-Copie.pdf)//meb

Materialist feminism is not a form of economic determinism. As Delphy and Leonard (1992) remind us, one of the original strengths of Marx’s materialism was that he did not conceive of the economic as an abstract system with its own internal laws, but as a realm of social relations, constructed through social activity. I want to argue for a version of materialist feminism that foregrounds the social—social structures, relations, and practices—but that does not reduce all social structures, relations, and practices to capitalism. From my perspective patriarchal or gendered structures, relations and practices are every bit as material as capitalist ones, as are those deriving from racism, colonialism, and imperialism. And, of course, all these intersect and interact, often in unpredictable and contradictory ways, so that the social order is not some seamless monolithic entity. Hence, adopting a materialist stance does not preclude awareness of differences among women: on the contrary, a full understanding of those differences requires that we pay attention to material social inequalities and everyday social practices. Nor does materialism ignore issues of language, culture representation, and subjectivity, but it does entail locating them in their social and historical context. Above all, materialist feminism does not reduce women’s oppression to a single cause; it eschews attempts at totalising grand theory and transhistorical, universalistic claims (see Delphy, 1984, pp. 17–27). For me, a materialist perspective is necessarily a sociologically informed one; hence, in reasserting the importance of the material and the social, I am also seeking to reclaim some fundamental sociological insights. My understanding of the social encompasses all aspects of social life, from structural inequalities to everyday interaction. It is concerned with meaning, both at the level of our wider culture and as it informs our everyday social life. It includes subjectivity because our sense of who we are in relation to others constantly guides our actions and interactions and, conversely, who we are is in part a consequence of our location within gendered, class, racial, and other divisions, and of the social and cultural milieux we inhabit. I will return to these different facets of the social later in the paper. First, however, I will give a very brief and necessarily sketchy outline of the trajectory of the cultural turn, paying particular attention to the issue of gender and the category “women.” Finally, I will elucidate my argument further in relation to current debates on gender and heterosexuality. THE CULTURAL TURN AND THE PROBLEM OF “WOMEN” Until the early 1980s the dominant perspectives within feminist theory derived from the social sciences and were generally informed by, or formulated in dialogue with, Marxism. It is these perspectives that were displaced by the cultural turn and subsequently brushed aside or dismissed as a source of past errors. Because these theories focused on social structure, analysing women’s oppression as the product of a patriarchal and/or capitalist social system, they have often been depicted as flawed by foundationalism and universalism, suspected of being essentialist, racist and heterosexist (see, e.g., Flax, 1990). Yet this early feminist theorising gave feminism some of its most important and lasting insights, most significantly the idea that sexuality and gender are socially constructed, as well as an emancipatory politics of social transformation. In Britain, and to a lesser extent in the United States, it was Marxist feminists who spearheaded the move away from social structural to cultural, literary, and philosophical theories.2 They had been resistant to those perspectives, such as French materialist feminism, which radically reformulated Marxism (Barrett & McIntosh, 1979), but were more receptive to ideas that might extend Marxism’s reach with- out challenging its central tenets. The problem was that Marxism, despite its strengths as a systematic theory of social oppression, could not account for all aspects of gender relations. Even in areas that were within Marxism’s traditional remit, notably women’s labour, it was difficult to explain why it should be women who occupied particular niches in the capitalist order—for example, as reproducers of labour power or a reserve army of labour. This latter problem was central to the project of the Marxist feminist journal m/f, which was launched in 1978. The editors saw the question of “how women are produced as a category” as the key to explaining their social subordination (Adams, Brown, & Cowie, 1978, p. 5). This journal was highly influential in Britain in expanding the boundaries of what counted as Marxist feminism, but it was not a lone voice. Others were becoming interested in ideology, psychoanalysis, and the work of French structuralists such as Althusser, Lacan, and Lévi Strauss (see Coward & Ellis, 1977; Mitchell, 1975). At first, these new approaches remained loosely connected to more traditional forms of Marxism via Althusser’s conceptualisation of ideology as relatively autonomous from economic relations. This made it possible to theorise women’s subordination as ideological and cultural without having to relate it to the capitalist mode of production. As poststructuralism replaced structuralism, however, the concept of ideology gave way to discourse, and structural analysis to deconstruction. Later, postmodern scepticism about truth claims and metanarratives further discredited the analysis of systematic economic and social oppression. Ultimately, then, these forms of theory led feminists away from a socially grounded materialism altogether. The issues that precipitated these shifts, however, were well worth pursuing. In particular, the category “women” certainly needed to be problematised rather than taken as given. In the first place, it was important to “denaturalize” women, to emphasise that women were a social and cultural category. Yet within the logic of the cultural turn “women” could only be thought of in limited ways; “women” and the “feminine” were cultural constructs, reproduced through the symbolic or through our psyches, with the emphasis on sexual difference rather than social hierarchy. While some embraced feminisms of difference, others sought a less essentialist deconstructive approach, treating “women” and “men” as “fluctuating identities” (Riley, 1988) or the binary divide of gender as a “regulatory fiction” to be subverted (Butler, 1990). In so doing, however, they lost touch with material social structures and practices. It became impossible to think of “women” and “men” as social categories, products of a structural hierarchy—the perspective that materialist feminists were developing and that questioned, just as radically, the idea that gender categories were natural and presocial (Delphy, 1984, 1993; Wittig, 1992). The cultural turn effectively sidelined this materialist analysis and emptied the concept of gender of its social import as a hierarchical division between women and men. During the 1980s there was another, compelling, reason for questioning the category “women,” in that it served to conceal differences among women and to privilege definitions of womanhood framed from White Western viewpoints. Once this ethnocentrism was exposed it became clear that “women” has never been a unitary category (Brah, 1991). Increasingly it was recognised that feminists needed to confront the complexities of women’s lives in a postcolonial era with its global economy, its history of colonial diasporas, and its current labour migrations and displacements of refugees. All of this was taken by some feminists as a further mandate for postmodern theorising, seen as a means of avoiding the exclusions of an imagined universal womanhood (Flax, 1990). There is no doubt that the ways in which gender intersects with other forms of inequality, especially those founded on racism and colonialism had hitherto been undertheorised. What is more questionable is whether postmodernism provides the best corrective to this situation. Certainly postmodern, postcolonial theorists speaking from the location of the previously marginalized “other” have played a major role in reorienting feminist theory (see, e.g., Spivak, 1987). However, as some critics have noted, many postmodern writings perpetuated the same exclusions as other theories, themselves presumed to speak for the excluded or professed concern with diversity while refusing directly to confront racism (Modleski, 1991; Stanley, 1990). Postmodernism, moreover, has no monopoly on theorising diversity and complexity. Like Sylvia Walby (1992), I see no reason why social structural analysis, provided it is not crudely reductionist, cannot address the di- verse locations occupied by women within local and global contexts. There are dangers, too, in turning our backs on structural inequality in the name of scepticism about universalistic truth claims. Those “differences,” which preoccupy postmodernists, are often more than just “differences”—the most significant of them are founded upon real, material inequalities. Institutionalised racism, the heritage of centuries of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism, along with local and global divisions of labour, are at least as important as culturally constituted difference. Moreover, if we neglect the structural, material dimensions of social life, we may risk valorising differences that are products of oppression and inequality. Meera Nanda (1997) makes this point in her critique of ecofeminism in the Indian context. She suggests that celebrating Indian women’s supposed embeddedness in nature fails to question the divisions of labour that accord them this “privileged access to nature,” which consign them to work that is unpaid and unvalued. Ultimately, she argues, this emphasis on cultural difference as a site of resistance to global capitalism, an emphasis that ignores local patriarchal relations, serves to glorify women’s status as underdogs. Materialist analysis of systematic inequalities is as relevant now as it ever was, and remains necessary to grapple with the complexities of a postcolonial world, with the intersections of gender, ethnicity, and nationality. We live today within a global context characterised by extremely stark and worsening material inequalities—and it is often women who are most disadvantaged by the intersections between global and local exploitation (see, e.g., Mohanty, 1997). Within the wealthy Western nations, too, gender class and racist inequalities are still with us (see Walby, 1997). The “things” that feminists identified as oppressive in the 1970s—male violence, the exploitation of women’s domestic labour, and low-paid waged labour—continue to shape what it means to be a woman, although the precise constraints we face and their meanings for us vary depending on the specific social locations we each occupy.

A feminist material analysis is critical—the ways in which patriarchy oppresses women gives them the unique ability to see the complexities within how structures operate

Curcio and Varn (Jasmine Curcio, feminist scholar and activist in Melbourne, interviewed by Derick Varn, “Materialism and Patriarchy: An Interview with Jasmine Curcio” http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=8502)//meb

The strength of present day radical feminism is in its retention of the materialist aspects of its feminism, in response to third-wave liberal feminism, whose neoliberal and highly idealistic framework is simply the comfortable transformation that liberal feminism was capable of making. The theoretical presuppositions were largely pre-existent, and the reaction from the male sexual liberals in the liberal community which led the backlash to feminism, really set itself into the consciousness of many liberal females. Being insufficiently autonomous in theory and organization, being rebuked by their male counterparts really set them into an embrace of their line, with the distortion of feminist theory representing its opposite, the burgeoning “raunch culture” of the male sexual liberals with the contemporaneous expanse and proliferation of the sex industry. It began in its contemporary cultural form with pornographic magazines such asPlayboy and Hustler in the 1950s and 1960s, in the continuation of a misogynist liberal politics which condemned men’s private ownership of women but embraced a more public ownership of women via the culture of prostitution, which has existed since ancient times as the corollary institution to marriage. Indeed it was a regression within liberal feminism, as entrenched and lucid feminist analysis of women’s exploitation in the sex trade — made by women prior to the first-wave, and by feminists in the second-wave — was abandoned. A large impetus of second-wave feminism was the male sexual revolution, spurring its critique of patriarchal sexuality in its various manifestations, especially as the models of sex promoted to both right-wing women in marriage via Freudian ideology to serve their husbands’ desire and fetishes, and the sexual model of “free love” promoted by left-wing men. Never mind that the concept of free love was first articulated by women of the first-wave, such as Emma Goldman, who sought to escape the institution of marriage at the same time as ending the culture requiring women to perform sexual favours and engage in a subordinate sexuality to men, in order to gain recognition, affirmation, and most often, money and shelter. Nowadays, liberal feminism bends itself over backwards to defend the patriarchal choices of individuals who self-identify as feminists, and trying to fight this culture with actual, materialist, feminism is a difficult and often frustrating task. C.D.V.: Why do you think Marxism itself has become a mostly male discourse since the 1970s? J.C.: The reaction to the second-wave of feminism by many men on the left was not a small matter. It is not really mentioned today, since hindsight focuses more on the successes of a feminist movement than its failures, its theory, or even just the general historical circumstances. But it was well-documented, by feminists such as Christine Delphy in France in her article “Our Friends and Ourselves.” Aside from the interruption of the early feminist meetings and the misogynist remarks made by various men —which were commonplace in the late ’60s and ’70s with the rise of a new wave of feminism and women’s consciousness of their oppression as women — reaction did occur, subtly, in the realm of theory, which is not to say it was done exclusively by men, but overall it happened that it was for the benefit of men in not addressing their privilege or their consciousness. Attempts at independent feminist theorizing, particularly around patriarchy, were dishonestly construed as apolitical. The hostility towards women’s attempts at autonomous organizing materialized in the form of constructed orthodoxies of Marxism on questions of sexual politics. And while the autonomous consciousness-raising groups faded away at the tail end of the 1980s, Marxist organizations remained and so did their theory from this period. I am not speaking of socialist feminism, which did acknowledge the importance of women’s organization and engaged with and embraced the theoretical understanding of the system of patriarchy that they and radical feminists largely uncovered. And so many years on, feminist discussions around the left continue to be subtly dominated by men and their perspective, with the aid of theoretical frameworks that marked disdain towards feminism in decades past. Men have become gatekeepers of feminist discussion, and many debates take place with ignorance, disdain, and sometimes subtle tactics of bullying. Phenomena that lie outside of the bourgeois-proletarian contradiction are not really taken on board as material facts, but either made to fit with constructed orthodoxy or they are discarded. So not much of a productive and open discussion is had. Though I’m sure many men do participate in good faith, theoretical blinders from the past are not a good way to contemplate feminist questions. Neither is uncritical acceptance of what appears to pass as a real feminist movement. This is the situation in which the SWP opposition finds itself. I greatly admire Richard Seymour, but feel he is doing feminism a disservice by not recognizing the privileged position that history has given him with respect to addressing feminist questions and Marxism, and by engaging with third-wave liberal feminism as if that were feminism proper. The first thing to do in that situation would be to examine history; to examine the second wave and its key texts and theorists and find out how the SWP became the way it was in that environment. Unhooking radical feminism from lesbian separatism will be a major task, since the SWP conflated both — indeed, many present-day neo-radical-feminists do not seem to succeed at this task. Marxists and feminists alike need to engage in critical self-examination and critical assessment of the present situation and how it came to be – otherwise we will make very poor revolutionaries. C.D.V.: How is Richard Seymour engaging with third-wave feminism? J.C.: Well, his recent article on Lenin’s Tomb is a fairly uncritical embrace of the concept of “intersectionality,” the keystone of third-wave ideology by which it attempts to differentiate itself from second-wave theorizing through blatant strawmanning of its predecessors as apparently not acknowledging or understanding other oppressions in their theorizing. For instance, the radical feminist Andrea Dworkin articulated the same general notion as the “primary emergency” faced by racially oppressed and other oppressed peoples, while noting women’s oppression as something additional and existent but by no means less important. Her contribution and consideration of the matter is by no means unique to her movement. This is not to imply that a particular subject matter with which the concept of intersectionality was used to explore, the phenomena experienced by those situated at the intersection or overlap of sexism and racism, is at all invalidated — a concept usually lives a life of its own separate from the subject matter used to abstract it. However, unlike Marxists and feminists on the ground in activism, Seymour does not seem to know how the term tends to be used in actual practice, which is done in a matter to silence dissent towards mainstream “radical” politics, that is, identity politics. It facilitates the deprioritisation of feminist discussion by changing the subject to another form of oppression, which functions to stifle that discussion, when separate and supportive avenues for discussing the subject matter already exist. In my experience as a feminist activist, both online and in person, the term intersectionality is most often invoked in a manner of “whataboutery” or “trumping” one’s analysis of phenomena in asserting one’s identity, or invoking others as a less privileged identity group, usually by those who are in a position of material advantage — overwhelmingly white, middle-class, self-identified feminists — in a way to assert or attribute a certain legitimacy to their argument without ever having to do the hard work of argument or proof. Standpoint epistemology in its idealist, identity-politic formation is often used to negate any materialist analysis and sound standpoint epistemology based in materialist analysis of systems which in part intersect, but that latter meaning of intersection is not the essence of “intersectionality.” Intersectionality is concerned with the intersection of varied identities, atomized and particular, from supposedly immediate experience, with no real or primary understanding of consciousness and thus identity being formed by systems, as it has eschewed such an understanding. It becomes, in intersection with liberal privilege discourse, part of the ideological repertoire of neoliberal identity politics. And the understanding, if not the assumption, that oppression lives in individual behaviors, hence the isolate concepts of “privilege” divorced from any real understanding of what a system of oppression entails (it is not the mere sum of “privileges”), but described with respect to individual actions and perceptions in the first person. Such things are useful as an educational guide pointing beyond itself to something larger, but that is often not the case. C.D.V.: I have heard standpoint epistemology linked to a Marxian analysis of social awareness. Why do you think standpoint epistemology tends towards idealism? J.C.: I do not think it is all standpoint epistemology which is idealist; rather for any standpoint epistemology to truly make sense it must be anchored in the material. Let’s take a classic example, Georg Lukács in History and Class Consciousness. He defines class consciousness as “consist[ing] in fact of the appropriate and rational reactions ‘imputed’ to a particular typical position in the process of production.” So already we have a material situation from which class consciousness, whether false or true, can be examined, with respect to any economic class and its activity in history. So, the proletariat, due to its unique position, has the potential to view the social totality of capitalism and have the power to demolish capitalism. Let’s take this to feminism. Women, due to their position in the patriarchal system and undergoing objectification and appropriation, have the unique potential to view patriarchal society, and can often see the operations of the masculine gender construct better than most men can in their state of false consciousness, and the same with people of color in a racist system. But I do want to address the idealist tendency here. There appears to be a sort of liberal appropriation of this materialist standpoint epistemology and divesting it of its concretion. Without an understanding of a materialist system, of course, what one is left with is pure subjective consciousness, but no notion of a system of oppression, of social forces shaping individuals. It is just a pure abstract standpoint that can be taken by almost any subject, whose legitimacy is granted by its mere subjectivity and the appearance of the phenomena they describe. This has been taken in recent years by liberal activists, such as pro-sex-work, self-defined “sex workers.” And their perspective has some presumed sovereignty, and is entirely unrelated to a comprehensive systemic understanding of patriarchy, because to admit of such a thing and its effect would nullify the preciously constructed identity of the “empowered sex worker,” as the knowledge of one’s construction and mediation by patriarchal social forces would certainly ruin the high sustained on male attention and praise. To inform them of De Beauvoir’s distinction between prostitutes and hetairas (usually high-class, women who consider their entire selves capital to be exploited, and experience a curious narcissism in their false consciousness of their state of dependency), produces a great deal of anger in the undermining of their identity. So basically, standpoint epistemology can only be made to make sense within the understanding of a material system of oppression. When divorced from that, it is as abstractly idealist as one can imagine. Indeed, it is an integral part of liberal identity politics which eschews any systemic understanding, substituting it with one-dimensional perceptions that cannot integrate into a comprehensive social totality but clash with other identities, which can at best intersect with each other. Truth becomes something enclosed within individuals who view themselves as a socially-impermeable identity category, which undermines real solidarity and connection with others, as the logic of identity politics is atomizing. C.D.V.: Do you see similar problems with “privilege theory” when privilege is moved out of the explicitly materially defined? J.C.: There are similarities. In some sectors of the lesbian and queer communities problems ensue when “privilege theory” is applied to situations where one may feel alienated in a situation where oppression is not in fact occurring. Take for example the notion of “femme privilege” — the idea that women who present in overtly feminine, or insufficiently masculine ways owing to their socialization as women, somehow oppress women who present as butch, or are a causal factor in the patriarchal mistreatment of butch women. It is often said that femmes, who are understood to be willing conformists, enjoy a privilege with respect to their appearance and how they are treated in the workplace or in general, and their reluctance to embrace a butch appearance and characteristics is therefore reinforcing the mistreatment of butches. A clear analysis of the situation shows the coercion that both apparent categories of women experience, both of whom are punished for being unable to meet impossible patriarchal standards. So a category of women are singled out for exercising a power that they do not have, on the basis of a highly shallow understanding of patriarchy. Thus the failure to understand a material system’s operation leads to absurdity, and a form of victim-blaming. The identity category and the construct of identity politics is very much bound up in an immaterialist version of “privilege theory” which never points beyond itself, only to support a peculiar calling-out practice by which privilege can be absolved through acknowledgement, ego te absolvi, after which one can go about as one wishes, so long as they do not repeat a form of behavior which is deemed an exercise of privilege. C.D.V.: What would a materialist view of patriarchy give us exactly? I realize this is a huge question but the outline seems crucial to the relationship between feminism and Marxism. J.C.: You’re right, it is a huge question, and it’s not one easily answered. I can point to some feminist tendencies which address the relative sex-blindness of Marxist theory; though in another sense these feminist tendencies employ a continuation of the materialist method of Marx in their uncovering of the system of patriarchy. These tendencies are both the French materialist feminism as embodied by Christine Delphy, Colette Guillaumin, et al., and radical feminism as embodied by Andrea Dworkin, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Kathleen Barry, et al., excluding the tendency of cultural feminism as embodied in Mary Daly, for instance. Self-described dual-systems theorists such as Sylvia Walby, who defined themselves as a synthesis of radical feminism and Marxism, are also worth exploring. The notion of sex-class as first coined by Shulamith Firestone in The Dialectic of Sex should not be rejected on the basis of her biological-naturalist account of the general phenomenon she is trying to clarify and examine. In fact it had been elaborated by various feminists, to come to mean a certain class system that had some economic cross-over with class society (contra to the strawman of dual-systems theory, the systems are never absolutely separate, but embody separate logics within a social totality), but referring specifically to a system defined by a division of labor based on sex, requiring males’ domination of females, and gender, being the ideology sanctioning, and one means for reproducing this system of domination. It is sometimes called by different names: “patriarchy,” coined by Kate Millett in Sexual Politics; “sexage,” being Guillaumin’s term to describe the kind of bondage women experience. Indeed, Guillaumin’s account of women’s condition as one of individual and collective appropriation by men is one of the clearest theoretical elaborations of patriarchy. No singular feminist work provides a perfect account, as indeed the system of patriarchy is very complex and stands far closer to the natural, that so much that in fact is a social phenomenon is confused with, or attributed to, nature. Indeed, socialism has often been guilty of this naturalistic attribution; Engels’ account of the division of labour between the sexes as natural, was a grave error. So what we have, with radical-materialist feminism, is a materialist method inherited from Marx, of course not to be confused with the economic content of his analysis of capital, that can help us uncover how patriarchy operates, but which is not found in completed form in any given text. Analysis taken up by an entire movement of a complex phenomenon cannot yield an ideal internal coherence in the same way that two intellectual comrades may. However, it is peculiar how feminist texts have been held to an absurd standard for perfection by some socialists, that no other texts pertaining to liberation are, and strawmanning of an entire project or tendency occurs on the basis of minor analytical imperfections in just one text.