Marxist Perspective On Gender Inequality

There is a general consensus among the many perspectives of feminism that gender inequality still exists today, that women are oppressed by men whether that is purposeful or not, and that things still need to change both at home and in the workplace to rectify this. In order to create change, there needs to be an understanding of where this inequality is stemming from and only then can we begin to look at how to work towards a gender equal society. A Marxist feminist focuses on the capitalist system and how this perpetuates inequalities and oppression against women both in the workplace and in the home. The traditional role of women staying home and raising the kids and taking care of the household benefits the capitalist system and the

Women who stay at at home are therefore contributing to the continuation of the capitalist system with their unpaid labor. Marilyn Waring touches on this subject as well, essentially saying the only way we can change this occurence is to change the way we view work and paid labor. Previously, the notion of work has always been in reference only to labor which is paid for, but just because women are not being paid to do all this work at home should not automatically reject it as form of ‘work’

This applies greatly to the notion of parenting, where parents dress their kids and buy gender specific toys and design their rooms based on their gender. Parents want to enforce the gender ideals found in society that are tied to masculinity and femininity. Boys are taught to be tough, macho, etc and women are gendered to be soft spoken, caring, and nurturing. If this is how women and men want to be perceived and exemplify their masculinity or femininity, their socialization and upbringing has taught them how to maintain this image. Unfortunately, this can also lead to doing gender when it comes time to consider career paths and can be seen as trying to force women away from traditionally male jobs such as lawyers, doctors, even construction jobs (it is easy to pick up here that these are often the high paying jobs as well) and to steer them towards more traditionally female roles such as nurses, teachers and even simply, stay-at-home moms. This again reinforces the imbedded patriarchy in the system and helps men to maintain their economic advantage over women by maintaining higher paying careers, that also hold more