governments to enact certain laws
to solve the problems of women.
We know that on various
occasions, the governments
made some enactments owing to
some movements. The move-
ment for women franchise in other
countries, the movement for right
to abortion, the movement for the
right to education for women in
India, the movement for abolition
of child marriages and for widow
remarriages have certainly
influenced the women. But these
reforms were unable to touch the
root of the problems. They were
unable even to go nearer to the
issue of liberation of women. Even
the rights provided in the law have
not come into practice due to so
many limitations. A glaring
example for this can be seen in
the failure of anti-dowry act. The
very idea that liberation of the
women can be achieved through
laws and reforms is too unrealistic.
Such trend only takes the women
movement far away from the task
of giving politics to the toiling
women.
“It is our duty to take politics
to reach every toiling woman”
- Lenin
In the recent years, certain
trends have come to the fore. The
important among them are:
- The problems of women must
be seen from the angle of
women alone;
- Patriarchy shall not be
considered as the question of
ideology, but as the question
of base;
- The contradiction between
man
and
woman
is
antagonistic contradiction;
- They talk about the right of
reproduction without going
into the relations of production
- They demand the freedom of
sexuality to women question-
ing
the
control
on
women’s sexuality ;
June - 2018
- They opine that women are a
class since they are sub-
jected to male domination;
- They conveniently ignore
class exploitation as the main
problem of majority of the
women.
If one examines these
opinions with the outlook of
dialectical and historical materia-
lism one can easily understand
that the first division of labour was
done between woman and man
on the natural basis. In the work
division that stipulates domestic
work to women and outside work
of hunting for men, there was no
domination or dependency of one
gender in the other. The home (a
home of the primitive society) was
the centre of production and
distribution. The women, who
conducted the domestic duties,
had enjoyed certain status too. But
due to the limitations to the
production at home and due to the
wider scope to the production
outside the house, the labour
outside the home has developed
and a surplus in the production
was accumulated. Men aspiring to
give their property only to their
children had, with his financial
might, subjugated the women
forcibly. They withdrew the
freedom of women. They reduced
women into instruments that give
birth to their children, as entities
that satisfy their sexual urges and
as domestic servants.
This transformation based on
personal property led to patriarchal
ideology. The objective of this
transformation is that the women
have to handover the pious heirs.
If this has to happen, women shall
be pure. This very idea is the main
objective of patriarchal control
over women. Since it is impossible
to control women with physical
might alone, various patriarchal
ideas of male dominance were
propagated through religious
beliefs and social customs. In this
way the idea that women are
dependant and males are
dominant has been spread for
generations and crystallised.
Ultimately a stage has come
where women themselves accept
as inferior to males and they
themselves propagate the same
idea.
The personal property, when
reached to the stage of capitalism
through various stages, the
capitalist pays the worker a part
of his labour power as wages, but
not the total value of the entire
labour. A worker, who spends all
his labour power of that day in the
industry, has to recoup his labour
power through the domestic
services and go to work the next
day. So the capitalist has to pay
wages to the worker to the extent
of domestic activity the wife of the
worker who conducts the
domestic activity and to tend the
future generations of workers
whom the wife conceives and
tends-the total amount needed to
this activity. But in the capitalist
system of production where profit
alone is the objective the capitalist
pays only the wages that keep the
worker alive loots the surplus
value. Due to competition, value
of labour is being decreased while
the necessity of domestic service
activities increases proportio-
nately. Thus the capitalist is
looting even the labour of the
worker ’s wife directly. The
payment for the domestic
services done by her has to be
paid by the capitalist who
employed her husband. But since
the domestic services were
enjoyed by the male of the house,
the opinion that he himself is
exploiting her has come into
prevalence. This protects the real
exploiter and safeguards him.
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