Marxism, Feminism, and Family

Marxism and Feminism are two different ideologies that are centered around social equality. However, both have different maneuvers in which they tackle the issue. The feminist approach to equality attempts to incorporate aspects of gender and race into a general idea of an equal level of opportunity for all people to succeed. Whereas Marxism attempts to create a society based on the aspect of an overall socioeconomic equality in which the entire population is at a medium in regards to social standing. Early Marxists, such as Marx and Engels, saw capitalism drawing women into the labor force. They believed that capitalism was "destroying the sexual division of labor." On the other hand, feminism is pro-labor and therefore counters the idea of a sexual labor division. Feminists believe women should have equal job opportunities as men.

A Stanford philosophy article makes an interesting contrast. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-class/ The article makes a different point, stating that "the rise of capitalism, in separating the family household from commodity production, further solidifies this control of men over women in the family when the latter become economic dependents of the former in the male breadwinner-female housewife nuclear family form." This states that although feminist ideals support a productive women labor force, a family relationship discourages a gender-equal labor force simply by the fact that men are often the heads of the household. Men are typically the ones that provide a majority of the family's income while women stay home, tending to the house and children. This social norm has limited the outreach of women to bring equality into the labor force.