A single oppression?

The first day of my feminist philosophy class we discussed Marx’s ideas of capitalism as seemingly having a sex gendered system already built into the social structure. Under the basic structure of capitalism, there is the two class system of the have (bourgeoisie) and the have nots (proletariats). The proletariat class is the focal point of his structure, and he identifies ways in which their class is oppressed through four interconnected points, which ultimately results in their self alienation. First, Marx identifies that a basic wage worker will never be able to afford the object that he is producing, therefore he has to distance himself from the very object. The worker cannot identify with their work, because the objects very means of production will not be individually known to them. Secondly, the worker is begins to see his job as simply something he does to get by in the world. He alienates himself from the means of production, because he no longer feels human doing his job and through this he alienates himself from his “species being.” Lastly, the worker is placed in a world of competition, where they are forced to compete against their peers.

In my feminism class, we have discussed many issues that are raised through Marx’s system of capitalism such as oppression, a divided society, forced social structure, and a systemic way of life imposed upon the human, yet it is through the perspective of a woman. An example that we used was a housewife, because her work exceeds the “wage” that she will receive. The woman undergoes strenuous activities, yet we barely recognize their contributions. The woman is oppressed in the world that we live, but does she not represent the universal?

These similarities between the basic capitalist structure and that of woman made me start thinking about the oppressed proletariat being seen as the “universal,” and questioning whether this single class can represent the whole. The woman’s work is less exploitative than mans and therefore cannot be drawn into the same class that represents the whole. I feel that the same can be said for the oppression in racism. Can the universal represent the “whole” when it comes to those oppressed? Marx seems to suggest that there are not different types of oppression, there is the single class that is oppressed. It also made me think about our social structure, and wonder if there can simply be two classes the have and the have nots? What is the defining line between the two?