Gender: A Tool to Consolidate Capitalist Power?

Does taking care of a child or providing emotional support for a friend constitute as labor? Isn’t that a person’s duty as a human being? Well, in most cases, this is not just any “person’s” duty. The capitalist society has deemed that this person should be a woman or, in Leah Lakshmi’s words, “femme” (n.pag). “We live in a white capitalist colonialist cissexist ableist patriarchy that oppresses in many ways” and, in a self-serving manner, the heterosexual white man’s capitalist system is significantly responsible for creating gendered molds that men and women are forced to follow with the supposed goal of reaching one’s fullest potential in the economy (Piepzna-Samarasinha). The aim of this essay is not to debate whether capitalism is good or bad but to reveal the ramifications of capitalism on human relations and the consequent expectations capitalism places on people merely on the basis of sex.

Western capitalism has a long history and can be dated back to the advent of the North American slave trade (Clarke 130). As Cheryl Clarke describes, heteronormativity and the role of women as servants to men are the very roots of “the system of patriarchal domination” which in turn thoroughly influenced the “foundation of Western capitalism” and the enslavement of black men and women (130). In stating that women were “contained through terror, violence, and spray of semen,” Clarke signifies that in the earliest forms of capitalism, there was an inherent expectation from women to be subservient to men so that their husbands could go out and create a capitalist economy, built on the blood and sweat of slaves (130). Clark implies that “it was profitable for the European to enslave the African and destroy all memory of a prior freedom and self-determination” just like the European white man confined the bodies and life processes of his wife and daughters (130). So, from the very start of capitalism, providing sex, food, and emotional support, giving birth to children, and raising them was not considered labor–– there was (and, in many places, still is) a sick notion that it is a woman’s innate duty to bend her neck and give up her body and mind to the man so that he can reach his fullest potential.

Such “misogynist ideas about care labor” have continued to persist in capitalist societies where women are still expected to perform all or most of the free emotional labor and care work (Piepzna-Samarasinh). This section will analyze marriage in a heteronormative context–– between a cisgender man and woman. Due to the expectations set by capitalism, “although one may have a ‘choice’ when entering marriage,” a woman does not have control over the “terms and consequences” that come with being a wife (Fineman 260). In reaffirming that the institution of marriage is “based on an unequal and hierarchical social arrangement in which men are considered the heads of households,” Fineman asserts that, with its capitalist ideals, marriage confines men and women to a set-in-stone category of roles that each partner is held responsible for–– some of which include “owed domestic and sexual services by wives” to their husbands (262). Furthermore, capitalism uses women as tools to birth and raise the next generation of workers. Thus, capitalism uses the sex of an individual to gather power in a way that is meant to deem women responsible for duties that are not but should be considered as labor. The reason why this analysis of marriage is restricted to a heteronormative context is because same-sex marriage is the ultimate taboo for capitalism that undermines its very foundation. For instance, if we have a married lesbian couple, capitalism has no way of deciding who goes to work outside and who stays inside. In addition, the term “sex” is used instead of gender to claim that capitalism uses sex as a tool. This is because capitalism uses biological differences to restrict people into the confines of its sexist system, and conveniently extracts forms of free labor from femmes (Piepzna-Samarasinha).

The intent of this argument is not to claim that women should not partake in care work. Instead, we “want an end to the gendered presumption” that it is only a woman’s role to perform care labor (Piepzna-Samarasinha). By saying that “masculine and other genders of people can notice feelings and offer to listen and do childcare, too,” Leah Lakshmi highlights that our society must move away from the gendered expectations set by capitalism and collectively perform care work. Lastly, capitalism must change its views on domestic duties which are, in fact, a form of labor. One of the most essential objectives of the movements that activists and writers like Leah Lakshmi, Cheryl Clarke, and Martha Fineman are fighting for is the acknowledgment and compensation of the free care and emotional work that women and femmes partake in on a regular basis. Hence, if our society moves away from the sexist stereotypes of the capitalist system, all genders could be given chance to flourish in the social, political, and economic spheres of our world, not just cisgender men.

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Works Cited

Clarke, Cheryl. “Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance (1981).” Feminist Theory Reader: Local and

Global Perspectives. McCann, Carole R., and Seung-kyung Kim, editors, 2016, pp. 128-137.

Fineman, Martha Albertson. “Why Marriage?” Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law.

Legal Studies Research Paper Series, col. 9, no. 12-204, 2001, pp. 239-271. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2075914.

Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi. “A Modest Proposal for a Fair Trade Emotional Labor

Economy.” Bitch Media, https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/modest-proposal-fair-trade-

emotional-labor-economy/centered-disabled-femme-color-working.