Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant of feminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property. According to Marxist feminists, women's liberation can only be achieved by dismantling the capitalist systems in which they contend much of women's labor is uncompensated. Marxist feminists extend traditional Marxist analysis by applying it to unpaid domestic labor and sex relations.
Because of its foundation in historical materialism, Marxist feminism is similar to socialist feminism and, to a greater degree, materialist feminism. The latter two place greater emphasis on what they consider the "reductionist limitations" of Marxist theory but, as Martha E. Gimenez notes in her exploration of the differences between Marxist and materialist feminism, "clear lines of theoretical demarcation between and within these two umbrella terms are somewhat difficult to establish."
Theoretical background in Marxism
Marxism follows the development of oppression and class division in the evolution of human society through the development and organization of wealth and production, and concludes the evolution of oppressive societal structure to be relative to the evolution of oppressive family structures, i.e., the normalization of oppressing the female sex marks or coincides with the birth of oppressive society in general.
In The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884), Friedrich Engels writes about the earliest origins of the family structure, social hierarchy, and the concept of wealth, drawing from both ancient and contemporary study. He concludes that women originally had a higher social status and equal consideration in labor, and particularly, only women were sure to share a family name. As the earliest men did not even share the family name, Engels says, they did not know for sure who their children were or benefit from inheritance.
When agriculture first became abundant and the abundance was considered male wealth, as it was sourced from the male work environment away from the home, a deeper wish for male lineage and inheritance was founded. To achieve that wish, women were not only granted their long-sought monogamy but forced into it as part of domestic servitude, while males pursued a hushed culture of "hetaerism". Engels describes this situation as coincidental to the beginnings of forced servitude as a dominant feature of society, leading eventually to a European culture of class oppression, where the children of the poor were expected to be servants of the rich.
Engels rewrites a quote in this book, by himself and Marx from 1846, "The first division of labor is that between man and woman for the propagation of children," to say, "The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male."
Gender oppression is reproduced culturally and maintained through institutionalized inequality. By privileging men at the expense of women and refusing to acknowledge traditional domestic labor as equally valuable, the working-class man is socialized into an oppressive structure which marginalizes the working-class woman.
Productive, unproductive, and reproductive labor
Marx categorized labor into two categories: productive and unproductive.
Productive labor is labor that creates surplus value, e.g. production of raw materials and manufacturing products. Unproductive labor does not create surplus value and may in fact be subsidized by it. This can include supervisory duties, bookkeeping, marketing, etc.
Marxist feminist authors in the 1970s, such as Margaret Benston and Peggy Morton, relied heavily on analysis of productive and unproductive labor in an attempt to shift the perception of the time that consumption was the purpose of a family, presenting arguments for a state-paid wage to homemakers, and a cultural perception of the family as a productive entity. In capitalism, the work of maintaining a family has little material value, as it produces no marketable products. In Marxism, the maintenance of a family is productive, as it has a service value, and is used in the same sense as a commodity.