6 Feminism and Marxism The Problew of Marxism and Feminism 7 to distinguish themselves from any other ideology or group dominated y male interests, where justice for women is concerned. Marxists and is both demeaning ro all women and works to the detriment feminists ti h accuse the uther nf socking wiat in cach une'sterms is of the excluded underclass. their"women inclucled rciorm-altcracions that appease and assuage and improve in accorn This kinl ol reasoning has been tonhnedl neither wn the issue of che moclation to structures of incquality--whcre, again in cach onc's vote nor to the nineteenth century, Mill's logic is embedded in the terms, a fundamental transformation is required. At irs most extreme cortical structure of liberalism that underlies much contemporary the mutual perception is not only that the other's analysis is wrong feminist theory and justifies much of the marxist critique. His view but that its success would be a defeat that women should be allowed to engage in politics was an expression Neither set of allegations is groundless. In the feminist view, sex of Mills concern that the state not restrict individuals, self- in analysis and in reality, does divide classes, a fact marxists have been government, their freedom to develop talents for their own growth, more inclined to deny or ignore than to explain or change. Marxists and their ability to contribute to society for the good of humanity. As imilarly, have seen parts of the women's movement function as a an empirical rationalist, he resisted attributing to biology what could pecial interest group to advance the class -privileged: educated and be explained as social conditioning. As a kind of utilitarian, he found professional women. At the same time, to consider this group most sex-based inequalities inaccurate or dubious, inefficient, and coextensive with"the women,'s movement"precludes questioning the therefore unjust. That women should have the liberty, as individual to achieve the limits of self-development without arbitrary interference social processes that give disproportionate visibility to the moverment's t broadly based segment. Accepting a middle-class definition of extended to women Mills meritocratic goal of the self-made man the women's movement has distorted perception of its actual compo- condemning(what has since come to be termed)sexism as an irrational sition and made invisible the diverse ways in which many women- interference with personal initiative and laissez-faire notably Black women and working-class women-have long moved The hospitality of such an analysis to marxist concerns is prob- against gendered determinants. But advocates of women's interests lematic. Mill's argument could be extended to cover class as one more have not always been class conscious; some have exploited class-based arbitrary, socially conditioned factor that produces inefficient devel arguments for advantage, even when the interests of women, working opment of talent and unjust distribution of resources among individ. class women, were thereby obscured uals. But although this extrapolation might be in a sense materiali In 1866, for example, in an act often thought to inaugurate the first it would not be a class analysis. Mill himself does not even allow for wave of feminism, John Stuart Mill petitioned the English Parliament laissez-faire and unregulated personal initiating. lth is exactly what for women,'s suffrage with the following partial justifcation: "Under whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to al concept of rights which this theory requires on a juridical level suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting (especially but not only in the economic sphere), a concept that yomen under the same. The majority of women of any class are not produces the tension in liberalism between liberty for each and ikely to differ in political opinion from the majority of men in the equality among all, pervades liberal feminism, substantiating the criticism that feminism is for the privileged few same class. Perhaps Mill meant that, to the extent class determines opinion, sex is irrelevant. In this sense, the argument narrowly fits the The marxist criticism that feminism focuses upon feelings and purpose of eliminating gender as a restriction on the vote. Mill attitudes is also based on something real: the importance to feminism personally supported universal suffrage. And, as it happened, working- women s own perceptions of their situation. The practice of con class men got the vote before women of any class. But this argument lousness raising, not only or even primarily as a concrete event but can also justify limiting the extension of the franchise to women who more as a collective approach to critique and change, has been a tech- belong to"men of the same class that already exercises it-in which nique of analysis, structure of organization, method of practice,and theory of social change of the women's movement. In consciousness-