Capitalism and Patriarchy

As feminist movement spreading all over the world and as women issues are becoming more “recognized” by the rulers, the questions of what the feminist movement is fighting against and fighting for are being increasingly confused.

The confusions in the feminist movement worldwide will continue unless we understand the women question’ in the context of a global division of labor under the dictates of capital. The subordination and exploitation of women, nature and colonies are the precondition to continue this accumulation model.   

Conquest and exploitation of the colonies was the basis for capital accumulation in Europe, but during the same centuries the destruction of women’s autonomy over their bodies and life by the witch-hunting played an important role in this process. 

Women did not voluntarily hand over control over body and lives to husbands and to religious authorities and to the State. Only after centuries of most brutal war raged against women, namely witch-hunting, women became domesticated housewives. 

At the end of this civilizing process women were disciplined enough to work as housewives for men or as wage workers for capitalist and both. Subordination of women is not evolutionary and peaceful process. By using violence men were able to establish exploitative relationship between themselves and women and other peoples and classes by help of arms and warfare. In this patriarchal mode of accumulation, warfare and conquest are the most productive means of production. Therefore technological development is always oriented to further warfare, conquest and accumulation, not to satisfy the needs of people.   

Subordination of women, nature and colonies constitutes the underground of capitalist patriarchy or civilized society. In this civilization process there is a connection between witch-hunt by which European women were persecuted and disciplined and civilizing colonies. Both are subordinated by force and torture to break their resistance to robbery and exploitation. From historical research on women in Western Africa we know women traders of eighteen century in Senegal. Wolof women held high position in colonial West African societies. 

In this framework violence against women is the fundamental instrument to keep women under exploitation and oppression in order to continue neoliberal capitalist patriarchy. Under neoliberalism violence against women has reached enormous dimensions despite all efforts by other NGOs and women groups. For instance, in our country, we have the most brutal face of the violence against women. It's honour killing. Young girls and women are killed by male family members, in most cases by brothers, husbands and fathers, in the name of honour or forced to suicide. Though all amendments, sanctions, awareness raising activities and all protective actions we are still far from abolishing it. To be able to propose a concrete solution we must base our solution on the correct analysis. It is believed that honour killings are the result of undeveleopped, traditional and feudal relations. However, it is a brutal face of male domination and another face of femicide. Because victims are women and they are killed just for being women. Femicide has taken different forms in different societies and cultures. Because neoliberalism is anti-woman.

Capitalist-patriarchy 

The feminist movement has discussed how to call this system under which women suffer. Is it male dominance or patriarchy? Some women think that literally patriarchy means the rules of fathers but today’s male dominance is beyond the rules of fathers, including rule of husbands, bosses, ruling men in politics, economics and social life. But the concept patriarchy is used by new feminist movement as struggle concept. The movement needed a term by which the oppressive and exploitative relations can be expressed. This term implies the historical and social dimension of women’s exploitation and oppression. It is less open to biologic meaning like male domination. Patriarchal systems were developed in a particular time, by particular peoples in particular geographical regions. They are not universal, timeless systems that have always existed. Furthermore, the term patriarchy links our present struggles to a past and gives us hope there will be a future. If it had a beginning in history it can also have an end.

From this point of view capitalism is the contemporary manifestation or the latest development of this system. Capitalism cannot function without patriarchy. The goal of this system is the never-ending capitalist accumulation. This goal cannot be achieved without maintaining and creating patriarchal man and women relations. Patriarchy constitutes the invisible underground of the visible capitalist system. 

This means that feminism has to struggle against all capitalist-patriarchal relations from the man-woman relation to the human-nature relation and to the relation between metropoles and colonies. We cannot hope to reach our goal by focusing on only one of these relations because they are interrelated.     

Militarism

The monopoly of men over arms gives them power to maintain exploitation between men and women as well as between different classes and peoples.

As we stated in our document on militarism, war, conflict and militarisation are the means used by the patriarchal and capitalist systems to maintain their dominance. Militarisation also reflects the division of roles within patriarchy: the concept of masculinity is associated with violence and arms. And the military institution contributes to the training of young men to occupy the dominant position in society. The army can be considered one of the most strongly patriarchal organisations of any society and one of the most reproducing the inequality characterising men-women relations: hierarchy of power, the “chief” cult and his domination, obedience, physical violence, absence of critical spirit, a closed circle of “boys”, etc.

Our feminist vision connects patriarchy and capitalism to war, calls for demilitarisation and believes that a culture of peace goes beyond that of a mere absence of war. So we always demand de-militarisation of our societies together with peace. 

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We strive to avoid an analysis that separates capitalism and patriarchy into two systems which leads to separate agendas: one against poverty that confronts capitalism and other against sexual violence that confronts patriarchy. This separation contributes to the fragmentation and privatization of the feminist agenda. However women’s lives they are not separable.