Compare and contrast marxist and feminist theory

It focuses on the base and structure of society. Karl Marx believed that the economy was very important and therefore, influenced society. For Marxists, the system we live in, which he called capitalism, divides everyone up into two basic classes: Marx called the bosses the bourgeoisie or ruling class, because they controlled society and he called the workers the proletariat or working class.

Marxism, Work, and Human Nature Marxism as a philosophy of human nature stresses the centrality of work in the creation of human nature itself and human self-understanding see the entry on Marxism.

Both the changing historical relations between human work and nature, and the relations of humans to each other in the production and distribution of goods to meet material needs construct human nature differently in different historical periods: Marxism as a philosophy of history and social change highlights the social relations of work in different economic modes of production in its analysis of social inequalities and exploitation, including relations of domination such as racism and sexism.

Functionalist, Marxist And Feminist Views Of The Family | Researchomatic

Marx, —9; Marx and Engels; Engels Within capitalism, the system they most analyzed, the logic of profit drives the bourgeois class into developing the productive forces of land, labor and capital by expanding markets, turning land into a commodity and forcing Compare and contrast marxist and feminist theory working classes from feudal and independent agrarian production into wage labor.

Marx and Engels argue that turning all labor into a commodity to be bought and sold not only alienates workers by taking the power of production away from them, it also collectivizes workers into factories and mass assembly lines.

This provides the opportunity for workers to unite against the capitalists and to demand the collectivization of property, i.

Women lose power when private property comes into existence as a mode of production. The rise of capitalism, in separating the family household from commodity production, further solidifies this control of men over women in the family when the latter become economic dependents of the former in the male breadwinner-female housewife nuclear family form.

ReedLeacockRosaldo and Lamphere Yet other feminist economic historians have done historical studies of the ways that race, class and ethnicity have situated women differently in relation to production, for example in the history of the United States Davis ; Amott and Matthaei Keys represented the difference side, that women are superior humans because of mothering; while Gilman and Goldman took the equality side of the debate, that is, that, women are restricted, and made socially unequal to men, by unpaid housework and mothering[ 3 ].

Second Wave Feminist Analyses of Housework In the second wave movement, theorists can be grouped by their theory of how housework oppresses women. Typically, liberal feminists critique housework because it is unpaid. This makes women dependent on men and devalued, since their work is outside the meaningful sphere of public economic production Friedan That the necessary work of reproducing the working class is unpaid allows more profits to capitalists.

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Some even make this analysis the basis for a demand for wages for housework Dalla Costa ; Federici More recently, Federici has done an analysis of the transition to capitalism in Europe. One of the philosophical problems raised by the housework debate is how to draw the line between work and play or leisure activity when the activity is not paid: If the former, then her hours in such activity may be compared with those of her husband or partner to see if there is an exploitation relation present, for example, if his total hours of productive and reproductive work for the family are less than hers cf.

But to the extent that childrearing counts as leisure activity, as play, as activity held to be intrinsically valuable Fergusonno exploitation is involved. Perhaps childrearing and other caring activity is both work and play, but only that portion which is necessary for the psychological growth of the child and the worker s counts as work.

If so, who determines when that line is crossed? Since non-market activity does not have a clear criterion to distinguish work from non-work, nor necessary from non-necessary social labor, an arbitrary element seems to creep in that makes standards of fairness difficult to apply to gendered household bargains between men and women dividing up waged and non-waged work.

One solution to this problem is simply to take all household activity that could also be done by waged labor nannies, domestic servants, gardeners, chauffeurs, etc. Or, one can argue that although the line between work and leisure changes historically, those doing the activity should have the decisive say as to whether their activity counts as work, i.

Finally, one can argue that since the human care involved in taking care of children and elders creates a public good, it should clearly be characterized as work, and those who are caretakers, primarily women, should be fairly compensated for it by society or the state Ferguson and Folbre FolbreFerguson Patricia Hill Collins argues further that the racial division of labor, institutional racism and different family structures put African American women in yet a different epistemic relation to society than white and other women Hence our perspectives are so intersectional that they cannot be unified simply by a common relation to work.

Compare and Contrast the Functionalist and Marxist views of Society. | HubPages

This involves theorizing a separate system of work relations that organizes and directs human sexuality, nurturance, affection and biological reproduction. While Ferguson and Folbre agree that there is no inevitable fit between capitalism and patriarchy, they argue that there are conflicts, and that the family wage bargain has broken down at present.

Walby has a similar analysis, but to her the connection between forms of capitalism and forms of patriarchy is more functional and less accidental than it appears to Ferguson and Smart. Walby argues that there are two different basic forms of patriarchy which emerge in response to the tensions between capitalist economies and patriarchal household economies:Compare Marxist and Functionalist Perspectives Compare and Contrast Functionalist and Marxist Perspectives Sociology is a systematic way of studying the social world.

It seeks to discover the causes and affects of intercommunication and interaction that arise in social relations. Jaggar () wrote perhaps the first philosophy text explaining the categories of liberal, radical, Marxist and socialist-feminist thought and defending a socialist-feminist theory of male domination based on the notion of women’s alienated labor.

Compare and contrast three types of feminist theory Liberal feminists consider inequality of opportunity and sexist socialisation as the main force of female oppression. However, radical feminists argue that patriarchy is responsible for female oppression and that it ensures the subordination of women both privately and publicly.

Marxist %(3).

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Compare and contrast Marxist and functionalist explanations of class and inequality. There are several sociological perspectives and they all have different ideas and theories about class and inequality, including Marxist (Karl Marx a conflict theory) and Functionalist (Emile Durkheim, Robert Merton a structural consensus theory).

Compare And Contrast Marxist And Feminist Theory movements, gender mainstreaming into development. Equality has been received many scholars, researchers, and politicians concern which is clearly shown in the system of feminist theories. Compare and contrast Marxist, feminist and elitist approaches to power Marxist, Feminist and Elitist approaches to power share some similarities but have many more contrasting features which must be explored to understand each ideology with reference to their approaches to power.

Power in this essay.