Marxist feminism, socialist feminism, and radical feminism are theoretical strands that employ a conflict perspective in the study of the relations between men and women (gender). Marx and Friedrich Engels's essay titled The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State serves as a theoretical basis for their work. Influenced by Marxism and feminism, these theoretical strands examine the interplay between capitalism and gender relations. Marxist and socialist feminists believe that patriarchy, defined as a system of power in which males have privilege and dominance over women, emerges as a result of the men's ownership of and control over the economic resources of society. Radical feminists believe that patriarchy and a division of labor based on sex preceded, and is the origin of, capitalism. Therefore, Marxist and socialist feminists argue that the transition from capitalism to communism will ameliorate gender inequality, and radical feminists believe a challenge to patriarchy is the solution to women's subjugation.

According to Marxist and socialist feminists, the identification of women with domestic life (e.g., reproduction, childrearing, cleaning, socialization) is a product of capitalist class relations. Marxist and socialist feminists conceptualize the emergence of the association of women with the domestic sphere in the transition from hunting and gathering societies to capitalist ones. During this transition, women's role as the producers of goods and economic providers for the family and community diminished.

In hunting and gathering societies women collected for their social group the greatest portion of the daily sustenance by gathering berries, nuts, fruit, and so on. In agrarian societies women often farmed side by side with men. However, the development of agrarian societies coincided with men's interactions away from home and the creation of a public life in which men controlled politics and the production and sale of goods and services. Consequently, the economic (productive) power of farming women was diminished, and women came to be increasingly associated with domestic life and work.

Capitalism exacerbated the split between private (domestic) and public life by shifting the production process completely away from farming, thereby relegating women completely to the domestic sphere. This split is referred as the separation of spheres. As women's role and control over production diminished, so did their social power.

Because poor white women and many black and immigrant women always worked in the public domain, the theory of the separation of spheres has been criticized. Nonetheless, women's public work mirrors, and is an extension of, this association of women with domestic work, for example, women employed as domestic workers, nurses, nannies, secretaries, and so on. Furthermore, Marxist and socialist feminists argue that because capitalism positions women into the private sector of domestic work, women reproduce capitalism by providing food, shelter, and the socialization necessary to maintain an able-bodied and willing workforce.

Bibliography:

1) Collins, Randall and Scott Coltrane. 2000. Sociology of Marriage and the Family: Gender, Love, and Property. 5th ed. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.

2) Hooks, Bell. 2000. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. 2nd ed. Boston: South End Press.

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