Capitalism is the root cause of patriarchy

In order to challenge oppression, it is important to know where it comes from. Historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists tell us that in pre-class societies such as hunter-gatherer societies, racism and sexism were unheard of. Because homosexuality was not an identifiable category of such societies, discrimination on that basis did not occur either. In fact, it is clear that racism, sexism, and homophobia have arisen in particular kinds of societies, namely class societies. Women’s oppression originated in the first class societies, while racism came into prominence in the early periods of capitalism when colonialism and slavery drove the economic system. The prohibition against gays and lesbians is a relatively modern phenomenon. But what all forms of oppression have in common is that they did not always exist and are not endemic to human nature. They were created in the interest of ruling classes in society and continue to benefit the people at the top of society, while dividing and conquering the rest of us so as to weaken the common fight against the oppressors. The work of Marx’s collaborator Friederich Engels onThe Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State in some respects reflects the Victorian times in which in was written. Engels moralizes about women’s sexuality and doesn’t even include gay and lesbian liberation in his discussion of the oppressive family. However, anthropologists like the feminist Rayna Reiter have confirmed his most important and central argument that it was in the first settled agricultural societies that women became an oppressed class. In societies where for the first time people could accumulate a surplus of food and other resources, it was possible for some people to hoard wealth and control its distribution. The first governments or state structures formed to legitimate an emerging ruling class. As settled communities grew in size and became more complex social organizations, and, most importantly, as the surplus grew, the distribution of wealth became unequal—and a small number of men rose above the rest of the population in wealth and power. In the previous hunter-gatherer societies, there had been a sexual division of labor, but one without a hierarchy of value. There was no strict demarcation between the reproductive and productive spheres. All of that changed with the development of private property in more settled communities. The earlier division of labor in which men did the heavier work, hunting, and animal agriculture, became a system of differential control over resource distribution. The new system required more field workers and sought to maximize women’s reproductive potential. Production shifted away from the household over time and women became associated with the reproductive role, losing control over the production and distribution of the necessities of life. It was not a matter of male sexism, but of economic priorities of a developing class system. This is why Engels identifies women’s oppression as the first form of systematic class oppression in the world. Marxists since Engels have not dismissed the oppression of women as secondary to other kinds of oppression and exploitation. To the contrary, women’s oppression has a primary place in Marxist analysis and is a key issue that socialists organize around today. From this history we know that sexism did not always exist, and that men do not have an inherent interest in oppressing women as domestic servants or sexual slaves. Instead, women’s oppression always has served a class hierarchy in society. In our society divided by sexism, ideas about women’s nature as domestic caretakers or irrational sexual beings justify paying women lower wages compared to men, so that employers can pit workers against one another in competition for the same work. Most women have always had to work outside the home to support their families. Today, women around the world are exploited in sweatshops where their status as women allows bosses to pay them very little, driving down the wages of both men and women. At the same time, capitalist society relies on ideas about women to justify not providing very much in the way of social services that would help provide health care, family leave, unemployment insurance, access to primary and higher education, and so forth—all because these things are supposed to happen in the private family, where women are responsible. This lack of social support results in a lower quality of life for many men as well as women. Finally, contemporary ideologies that pit men against women encourage us to fight each other rather than organizing together.