Abstract

Since the late 19th century, when Marxism achieved hegemony within the labor movement, the debate between feminists and socialists has turned on the Marxist formulation of the “woman problem.” Now socialist feminism proposes a reversal of roles — the problem to be considered is that of Marxism itself. Socialist feminism has made a final break with the vision of the women's movement as the ladies' auxiliary of the union, party, or council. It refuses the notion of an undifferentiated, universal revolutionary subject. The divorce that some have proposed as a means to end the unhappy marriage of feminism and socialism has time and again been granted.