Feminism and Marx: Integrating Kinship with the Economic
Feminism and Marx: Integrating Kinship with the Economic

Summary/Abstract: As feminist theory has challenged the assumption of the necessary and analytic distinctiveness of the family and state predominant in a liberal worldview, so also must it challenge the assumption of the analytic distinctiveness of the economic present in both a liberal and marxist worldview. The irony here is that in furthering this project, feminist theory has in Marx both a strong ally and a serious opponent. As we shall see in the following, feminists can employ much of the historical work of Marx and many marxists in comprehending the separation of family, state and economy as an historical and not natural phenomenon, and in comprehending the interaction of these spheres even in the context of their separation, on the other hand, Marx’s philosophical anthropology, by continuing and indeed reinforcing our modern assumptions of the autonomy of the economic, raises serious obstacles for marxism’s understanding of gender.

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