by Karin Hilpisch, 13th November 2023

In my article, “Marxist feminism — an oxymoron?,” I argue that feminism is the anti-sexism of those affected by sexism, analogous to the anti-racism of those affected by racism, that the term does not designate a specific ideology. In contrast to liberal and radical feminism, Marxist feminism rejects class collaborationism (cross-class “sisterhood”), separatism (“men are the enemy”), and biologism (“men rape women because men have penises”).

Some comrades object to this understanding by arguing that feminism — as such and per se — involves prioritizing gender struggle over class struggle. Therefor feminists, by definition, couldn’t stand unconditionally in solidarity with Palestine against Israel considering the specific threat to women posed by Palestinian Islamist forces. This reasoning, however, does not hold water.

In general, specific oppression is derivative in relation to class oppression; and more particularly, to its expression in the epoch of the imperialist stage of capitalism. National oppression entails intensifying the oppression of progressive social counter-forces. Furthermore, imperialist national oppression can evoke reactionary forces like Hamas whose political dominance in Gaza is reinforced, if not caused, by Zionism. Hence the most effective way of opposing women’s oppression by Hamas is by fighting Zionism and its imperialist backers.

Israeli women do enjoy a higher degree of legal equality inside Israel than do Palestinian women in the occupied territories. Does the greater equality enjoyed by Israeli women present a dilemma for Marxist feminists as to which side to take? No, there isn’t any such dilemma. If the Hamas regime’s gender-specific oppression is more brutal than that of the Zionists, this is because Israel’s “democracy” is built on Palestinians’ national oppression.

In “Marxism in Our Time” (1939), Trotsky writes: 

“The bourgeoisie of the mother countries was enabled to secure a privileged position for its own proletariat, especially the upper layers, by paying for it with some of the superprofits garnered in the colonies, Without that any sort of stable democratic regime would be utterly impossible. In its expanded manifestation bourgeois democracy became, and continues to remain, a form of government accessible only to the most aristocratic and the most exploitive nations. Ancient democracy was based on slavery, imperialist democracy – on the spoliation of colonies.”

Although there is no “mother country” involved in the Israel- Palestine relationship, insofar as both nations exist concretely as interpenetrated peoples, Trotsky’s analysis does apply.

There is no contradiction between working-class based feminism and pro-Palestine solidarity. On the contrary, they go hand-in-hand, as expressed by the following quotations from feminist groups (which may or may not identify as Marxist):

>>”Palestine is a feminist issue…We affirm life and implore feminists everywhere to speak up, organize, and join the struggle for Palestinian liberation.” <<

 The Palestinian Feminist Collective 

>> Why does a feminist group care about Gaza? What has bombs and genocide got to do with women and feminism? (…) This question sets up a false binary between two things conceived as being opposed to each other: justice for Palestinians on the one hand, and feminism on the other. (…)

We know that in times of human catastrophe and crisis, barbarity and oppression, women experience the brunt of violence: both at an interpersonal and institutional level. We know that with war comes brutal, unflinching gendered violence. These universal facts – that come out of living in a patriarchal and violent world – don’t change when the women are Palestinian. (…)

This is why Palestinian women’s rights organisations and activists have themselves long insisted that women’s struggle and the struggle for national liberation are inseparable…

We care about Gaza because we care about women. And we care about women because we care about humanity.<<

“Aren’t Palestinians women too?”

Sisters Uncut.  Taking direct action for domestic violence services

>>This year to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Gender violence we want to say loudly & clearly – the fight to end gender violence is part and parcel of the fight to end genocide & occupation. None of us can be free from violence  in a world predicated on racism, imperialism and ethnic cleansing. <<

ROSA International Socialist Feminists