Patriarchy as Ideology: An Examination of Marxist Feminism

Abstract

Marxist feminist scholars have gone through a rather long and tortuous process of understanding the capitalist system and patriarchy. At first, they argued that the capitalist system and patriarchy go hand in hand and together keep women in subservient positions. Later, they examined related concepts and argued that the capitalist system and patriarchy merge and intensify the oppression of women. At the same time, later Marxist feminist scholars returned to Marxist theory and suggested that the capitalist system is the key to the current women’s problems and patriarchy is its ideological tool to defend the ruling class’s interests.