The term ‘feminism’ invokes a range of emotions, depending on who hears it, but finding a suitable definition of ‘feminism’ is arguably even more difficult than finding one for ‘the family’. This is due to the fact that, not only are there numerous strands of feminism, but each strand is constantly reforming and updating their opinions, and in the process creating sub-strands. The reason for this is because ‘Feminism wasn’t designed, but grew out of experiences of certain times, places and factors of social organization’ (. Also, differences in social class and political affiliation meant that one feminist may have a completely different view of a situation compared with another. Therefore, to define ‘feminism’ for the sake of this essay, I shall look at the core themes running through almost all strands of feminism. At its most basic, ‘feminism’ is the theory that men and women should be equal in all spheres of life, and that in the past this hasn’t been the case. Women have been intentionally and systematically oppressed and exploited in all social arenas and institutions, and as a result, have been made to feel inferior and subordinate. However, ‘feminism’ isn’t solely about the oppression of women, for ‘Feminism originates in a belief in the worthiness of all individuals to have opportunities to develop to their fullest’ (Gonyea, J. & Hooyman, N.R., 1995, p.17). Feminists condemn any use of biological sex differences for justifying anyone’s subordinate position in family and society. They also condemn anyone who sees, or worse treats, women as merely sexual objects. However, this is not enough, for ‘feminism’ demands both ideology and activism, making itself a social movement. One cannot be considered a feminist if one believes in the fundamentals of ‘feminism’, but fails to commit themselves to the cause. This involves recognising women’s subordinate role in the past, seeing that inequality still exists to this day, and actively making the effort to change this situation. This definition is by no means complete, all-encompassing or definitive, for there have always existed competing definitions within feminism, but merely a starting block for the ensuing discussion.
Historically, women’s subordinate role to men seemed to have been a necessity. Indeed, if we look at the creation of the family in pre-civilized times, we can see that families were formed initially to guarantee protection to women and children from other predatory males. The very word ‘family’, however, derives from the Latin words ‘famulus’, meaning a slave, and ‘familia’, the collective term for a group of slaves belonging to a single man. There are strong parallels to be drawn between women in such times and slaves. For instance, slaves nor women ‘Could own no property, and indeed were themselves treated as property’ (Bouchier, D., 1983, p.11), they had no legal rights to their own children, no right to vote and no right to the payment of work performed within the household. From such a beginning, it isn’t hard to comprehend how women were given subordinate roles, constantly needing protecting and looking after, much like a child would need. Prior to the nineteenth century, and certainly before the shift from an industrial economy to one led by consumers, society was able to function around the principle that the dominant male of the family would be the bread-winner, performing physical tasks in the field or the factory, whilst the dominant female would raise the children and generally maintain the welfare of the house. Such roles were seen as natural, justified by the fact that men are generally physically stronger than women. Because of the perceived physical weakness of the female sex, ‘ The extrapolation to inferior intellectual and creative powers was but a step.’ (). This in turn has led to women being excluded from anything considered ‘intellectual’, from managing the family’s finances, to participating in political matters. Therefore not only were women dependant on men for protection, but also dependant on men financially, for it was men who earned a wage and normally decided how the money was to be used. With no civil or political rights at all, women were effectively made ‘Publicly invisible’ (Okin, S.M., 1997, p.14). Through circumstances or outside powers, women have been kept subordinate to men, and this wouldn’t change until the possibility of economic independence arose with the onset of technological advances in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The American Feminist movement began at a convention in 1848 at Seneca Falls, organised by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Bouchier, D., 1983). At this convention, an Alternative Declaration was put forward in response to the Declaration of Independence, which had promised equality of the sexes but failed to deliver. This alternative declaration called for a number of reforms, amongst them property rights for married women, and greater access to various trades and professions. However, it must be pointed out that it was generally accepted at the convention that women had intrinsic roles to play within the family, roles that came ‘naturally’ to women as opposed to men, and this convention was certainly not trying to abolish such roles. In fact, the few more-radical feminists who called for a complete transformation of the family as a social institution were seen to be hindering the women’s cause and were disregarded as such. The inequalities in the family was also noticed by Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) in the late eighteenth century who argued for ‘Greater equality within marriage, and for women’s education and access to paid work’ (Okin, S.M., 1997, p.14). Wollstonecraft’s purpose for writing Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792 was that she believed if the rights were gained, women could become better mothers and wives, thereby strengthening the family bond. Her work was developed during the next century, particularly by John Stuart Mill (1806-73) who, along with agreeing with Wollstonecraft about the necessity of equality within a marriage, stressed the effects a family can have on a child’s moral development. He claimed in his book, On the Subjection of Women (1869), that ‘Without justice in families and particularly between husbands and wives, there could be no hope for justice in the larger spheres of social and political life’ (Okin, S.M., 1997, p.14). This made Mill one of the first feminists to link private life with public life. Florence Nightingale was able to identify the constriction placed on women by ‘the family’, and wrote Cassandra in 1852. This book painted a picture of women as victims within a marriage, but held women responsible for allowing and encouraging such repression to continue, especially by teaching their daughters to conform to the unfair and unequal roles. Nightingale held the view that, until women were conscious of their own subordinate position within the family, their situation wouldn’t improve. Unsurprisingly, this was never published because of the fears of the male intellectual establishment and it is not without irony that the ‘Very processes of social repression with which she was concerned’ (Dyhouse, 1989, p.8), were the same processes that stunted her progress. It is important to note that, at this point in history, the feminists’ criticisms of the family did not have the intention of completely dissolving the family as a social institution, but more of a criticism of a particular type of family, namely ‘That of the Victorian bourgeoisie’ (Dyehouse, 1989, p.6). The ideal of the ‘Victorian Housewife’ made it clear that women must dedicate themselves entirely to the welfare of the family and home, leaving no space to care for themselves as individuals. The impact that novels had on feminist thought in late-nineteenth century cannot be overstated. It was through novels that women were able to express their true feelings in the guise of a story, and books were often able to portray a strong and vivid image of restriction and oppression. For example, Olive Schreiner wrote the novel The Story of an African Farm in 1883, in which the lead heroine complains to the hero about the subtlety of the repression enforced by a mother on her daughter. Such a concept would not have been acceptable to the male intellects, but the cover provided by the story meant that such concepts went undisturbed. The British Feminist movement, established in 1856, targeted the specific issues where it was felt inequalities of the sexes existed (e.g. family welfare, employment and education opportunities, etc.). However, over the next forty years there was a growing belief that inequalities would persist as long as women didn’t have the vote. In 1903, the failure of the previous Suffrage Societies to bring about reform and equality led to the formation of the Women’s Social and Political Union by Emilyn Pankhurst. After the loss of life in the First World War ten years later, and more importantly the invaluable contribution of women to the up-keep of society during such troubled times, the government could no longer find grounds for justifying women’s continued exclusion from political matters. Therefore, in 1918 the Representation of the People Bill was imposed, giving the vote to women over the age of thirty, and was updated ten years later to include all women over the age of twenty-one (Bouchier, D., 1983). However, gaining the vote didn’t bring about the desired changes intended, for women weren’t voting as a class, and so there was no continuation in the voting patterns of women from all across the social spectrum. Even where improvements were made, as in the professional arena, the improvements were severely limited, with women only really joining the traditional ‘caring’ professions, such as teaching and nursing. If it was felt that any progress was being made in the 1920’s, this was put to a swift end with the onset of the Great Depression of 1929. Because of the distinct lack of jobs available, women were once again pushed to the background. In 1931, the British Anomalies Regulations Act effectively forced unemployed women to become completely dependant on men again, by taking the unemployment benefit from married women. ‘As the 1920’s turned into the 1930’s and peace and survival became the overriding concerns, both welfare and equal rights activism languished’ (Bouchier, D., 1983, p.18). Not surprisingly, when World War II broke out and men were pushed to the front line, it was again women who came to the aid of society by taking over industries and accelerating wartime production. Because of the professional training given to numerous women during the war, many were happy in their new, challenging professions. However, once the war finished and the soldiers returned home, women quickly found themselves once again being pushed out of the workforce and into the home. This time it wasn’t to last, for the booming economy of the 1950’s meant that more jobs were available, and hence more women required in the labour arena. Though more women were moving into employment, there was growing confusion amongst feminists as to exactly how women were to juggle their new careers with being a wife and mother, a confusion that eventually led on to ‘Second Wave Feminism’ in the 1960’s.
The events that took place during the 1960’s had such huge implications for the structuring of society, and the reassessing of family life, that I feel their importance can’t be over-emphasised. Due to the different structuring and principles of each other’s society, American second-wave feminism developed along different lines to that of the English. The American version took a Liberal viewpoint, commonly seen as the moderate, mainstream version of feminism, and was propelled by Betty Friedan in her most important work at that time, The Feminine Mystique (1963). In this book, Frieden set out to shatter the myth of the ‘contented housewife’ and claimed that women were ‘Enslaved by domesticity and defined by their roles as mother and wife’ (. According to Frieden, the myth of the contented house wife was a double-edged insult, for on the one hand the myth justified to men the keeping of women in the home, and on the other hand it added to the frustrations caused by the reality, that many women weren’t happy. Added on top of that the actual tediousness of most housework, and its not hard to see how Frieden could justify calling the family a ‘comfortable concentration camp’. Again, as so often in Feminism’s past, Frieden did not intend on doing away with the family as an institution, but simply to call on women to demand a better lot from life, be it in professional careers or other so called ‘meaningful’ work. The intention was ‘Not to challenge the organization of modern Western societies but rather suggest some redistribution of benefits and opportunities’ (Beasley, C., 1999, p.52). So much so, in fact, that Frieden took pen to paper again in 1981 to write The Second Stage, in direct response to the use of her theories as a justification for completely abolishing the family by more-radical feminists. In October 1966, Frieden became the first president of the newly formed National Organization for Women (N.O.W.), an organization that revived the tradition of civil-rights-feminism and was to become ‘the largest feminist organisation in the world’ (Bouchier, D., 1983, p.47). Other second-wave liberal feminists, clearly influenced by Frieden, ‘Stressed the importance for women’s equality in and out of marriage, reproductive choice, maternity leave, job training for women in poverty, subsidizing child care, as well as an end to sex discrimination in employment’ (Okin, S.M., 1997, p.16).
Over in England during this period, a very different form of second-wave feminism was developing, one heavily influenced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ‘Second-wave feminists typically argued that women’s equality required that women gain control of institutions and practices associated with female sexuality – especially those bound up with reproduction’ (Moody-Adams, M.M., 1997, p.78). At its most basic, the ideology of the family reinforces the continued economic exploitation of women. In a letter written in 1846, Marx himself acknowledges the fact that when one assumes a role in the development of production, commerce and consumption, a corresponding organization of the family will take place (Nicholson, L., 1997, p.139). To Marxist feminists of the 1960’s and 70’s, it was the relations involved in the reproduction of the species that was the most fundamental oppressor in the family. It is interesting to note that Marxist Feminists didn’t focus on sexism or the male-domination of society, but Capitalist bosses and the government. Engels, in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) which drew on the interpretations by Marx, argued from a slightly different point of view, claiming that it wasn’t the family that was the main oppressor of women, but Capitalism itself. It was Capitalism that had destroyed the prestige of women within the family, and women’s position wouldn’t be relieved until Capitalism had been fully tackled. Taking the Marxist theory of the exploitation of workers under Capitalism as a blueprint, the Socialist-Feminist Juliette Mitchell was able to apply this theory to the case of the housewife in a family. In fact, Mitchell claimed that women were ‘Doubly exploited under Capitalism – for their paid labor in the workplace, and for their unpaid reproduction of the labor force in the family’ (Okin, S.M., 1997, p.16). By comparing the family to Capitalism, Mitchell is describing how the father figure is like the employer in a factory, exploiting his wife in much the same way a worker or slave would be. However, searching for equality with men seemed to be a futile point to Socialist Feminists, for men were also oppressed under the corrupt system of Capitalism. According to Bouchier, ‘Radical Feminists took up the socialist critique of the family and carried it a stage further’ (Bouchier, 1983, p.77). It was in the writings of the Radical Feminists of the 1960’s, also termed Gender Feminists, that the slogan ‘The personal is political’ first arose. By it they were saying that the most fundamental division in society is that between male and female, and that this division runs through all sectors of society. They claim ‘The motive force of history is the striving of men for power and domination over women, the dialectic of sex’ (Hartmann, H., 1997, p.100), and that sexual oppression, often termed ‘Patriarchy’ by Gender Feminists, predates class power. According to Gender Feminists, a choice that a woman makes with her own body does not just effect her, but has an impact on all women as a race. The main difference between Marxist/Socialist Feminism and Radical Feminism is that, while the former look to the state to find answers to questions of oppression, the latter looked at men as a race. For example, in The Female Eunuch (1970), Germaine Greer argued that ‘The roots of this oppression lay in men’s control over women’s sexuality’ (Bryson, V., 1999, p.26). However, the theorizing of the Radical Feminists have led to strong criticism from the rest of the feminist world. Firstly, they claim Radical Feminists are imposing themselves over all women, criticizing any woman who chooses to act in a way contrary to that suggested by the radicals. Secondly, they say that although the term ‘patriarchy’ is a useful concept, it tells you nothing of the origins of oppression, or indeed how to remedy the situation. Thirdly, Radical Feminism tells women to only identify their bad experiences with men, which excludes any woman involved in a happy marriage.
Although the modern nuclear family is projected by today’s society as still being the most desirable family form, feminists are quick to point out how this ideal of the family perpetuates the sexual division of labour in society. The subject of domestic labour is one that has taunted feminists for decades, and even to this day continues to antagonize. The problem at its most basic is that, with men traditionally being the ‘bread-winners’, women have been kept at home performing burdensome, unrewarding, unpaid work. Therefore, while the male goes out and creates an identity for himself and earns a wage at the same time, women ‘are excluded from gaining direct access to valued resources such as income, status-giving work, and political authority’ (Thorne, 1992, p.7). Instead, women became economically dependent on their husbands, putting them immediately in a subordinate position. According to Leonard and Speakman, ‘One of the consequences of the development of the ideology of public and private spheres in the nineteenth century, was that ‘work’ became what was done outside the home’ (Leonard, D. & Speakman, M.A., 1986, p.24). As a result of such a definition, housework wasn’t really seen as work at all, rather the natural domain of women that must be performed without complaint. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1970’s that domestic work became considered as real work, and so serious study of the subject prior to this period was severely lacking. There are many differences between wage-work and housework, one being that, while wage-work involves performing a specific task for a specific amount of time, housework is much less rigidly defined. ‘Since perfection in household management and the servicing of family members can never be achieved, her work is never done’ (Leonard, D. & Speakman, M.A., 1986, p.26). Because of the numerous tasks needed performing in the home, a time-saving system is imposed on women by themselves so that they can perform two or three tasks at the same time, such as ironing, watching television and keeping an eye on children. This system makes certain tasks more difficult, though, because the focus is split between a number of activities. Leisure-time is also greatly affected by domestic work. Whilst those in the labour market have solid periods of time in which to take a break and relax, women in the home have to take whatever time they can to relax, be it two minutes here, or three minutes there. Also, the distinction between work and leisure is much more clearly defined for males in the labour market as opposed to females at home. Because males work outside of the family home, their time spent with the family at home is considered leisure, whereas for most women it is their main workplace, and so many women do not feel they are able to relax there. It is so ingrained into the modern mind that housework is for women, that when a husband does take on some household chores, it is generally perceived as him helping his wife in her area of responsibility. In fact, the sexual division of labour in the home is mirrored in the labour market, where women traditionally perform work associated with the home, such as food preparation and service, cleaning of any kind, caring for people, etc.. And for those women who have a position in the labour market, they must perform ‘double days’, where they’ll earn a wage during the day, and then work in the home at night. Historically, there have been ‘Two theoretical concerns as far as domestic labour has been connected to capital: its economic and ideological implications’ (Burton, C., 1985, p.57). There are two schools of thought on the ideological implications of domestic labour. The Gender Feminist highlighted how women performing domestic labour was extremely beneficial to men, for it meant they wouldn’t have to bother themselves with such mundane tasks, allowing them more freedom and time to earn themselves a wage, an identity, and simply relax. They say there are two classes of men – the Capitalist and the wage–labourer, and that all women fall outside these two distinctions. Therefore, whilst all males benefit from female domestic labour, ‘Capitalist males benefit twice’ (Burton, 1983, p.60). Marxist Feminists, however, emphasised how the ideology of women’s domestic work carried larger economic consequences, and made a clear connection between Capitalism and domestic work. By not being paid for the domestic labour performed, women were economically exploited. Also, Capitalism benefits from the privatized nature of housework, for a woman with only the radio and television can be bombarded with advertisements for consumer goods, creating a whole new market. Because there are now more goods to purchase, shopping has become more time-consuming and involves more effort than previously. The limitations of the Marxist Feminist analysis of domestic work are that, firstly, they only see the work in relation to the function it serves for Capitalism, ignoring the origins and causes of the sexual division of labour. By looking at pre-Capitalist societies, and seeing various differences with Capitalist societies, Marxist Feminist concluded that the privatized domestic labour performed by women was a precondition of Capitalist production. However, ‘Capitalism did not create domestic labour…..but it did create a set of social relations in which pre-existing divisions were not only reproduced but solidified in different relations in the wage-labour system’ (Barrett, M., 1980, p.182). It is also interesting to note that sexual divisions of labour in production are not only limited to Capitalism, but seem to transcend across all forms of society, such as China and Cuba. So whilst it is fairly obvious that Capitalism benefits from such a division, to say that it is solely a characteristic of Capitalism would be wrong.
In conclusion, we can see that a Feminist critique of the family developed because the family is the cornerstone of a society that has systematically oppressed women for centuries. To properly understand how society functions, an examination of its components is necessary, and being a major component, the family cannot escape scrutiny. I have shown how it has taken a couple of centuries of campaigning and theorizing to get to the level we are at now, and how this caused the exposure of the reality of the situation which we are still experiencing to this day. Unfortunately, at present, there have been no revolutionary actions that will completely change women’s role in the household, and the subtle forces of Capitalism will do their utmost to ensure that that continues.
