Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:36:53.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Patriarchy and Historical Materialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Colin Farrelly
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why does the world have the pattern of patriarchy it currently possesses? Why have patriarchal practices and institutions evolved and changed in the ways they have tended to over time in human societies? This paper explores these general questions by integrating a feminist analysis of patriarchy with the central insights of the functionalist interpretation of historical materialism advanced by G. A. Cohen. The paper has two central aspirations: first, to help narrow the divide between analytical Marxism and feminism by redressing the former's neglect of the important role female labor has played, and continues to play, in shaping human history. Second, by developing the functionalist account of historical materialism in order to take patriarchy seriously, we can derive useful insights for diagnosing the emancipatory challenges that women face in the world today. The degree and form of patriarchy present in any particular society is determined by the productive forces it has had at its disposal. According to historical materialism, technological, material, and medical advances that ease the pressures on high fertility rates (such as the sanitation revolution, vaccinations, birth control, and so on) are the real driving forces behind the positive modulations to patriarchy witnessed in the twentieth century.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , Winter 2011 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bowles, Samuel. 2009. Did warfare among ancestral hunter‐gatherers affect the evolution of human social behaviors? Science 324 (5932): 1293–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burch, Ernest. 2005. Alliance and conflict: The world system of the Unupiaq Eskimos. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, David. 1996. The conscious mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, G.A. 1978. Karl Marx's theory of history. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Cohen, G.A. 1988. History, labour and freedom. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Ember, Carol, and Melvin, Ember. 1992. Resource unpredictability, mistrust, and war: a cross‐cultural study. Journal of Conflict Resolution 36 (2): 242–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrelly, Colin. 2005. Historical materialism and supervenience. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (4): 420–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gat, Azar. 2006. War in human civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Graham, Keith. 1992. Karl Marx: Our contemporary. Hemel Hempstead, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Harris, Marvin. 1984. A cultural materialist theory of band and village warfare: The Yanomamo test. In Warfare, culture and environment, ed. Ferguson, R.B.Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hennessy, Rosemary, and Ingraham, Chrys. 1997. Materialist feminism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kabeer, Naila, and Mahmud, Simeen. 2004. Globalization, gender, and poverty: Bangladeshi women workers in export and local markets. Journal of International Development 16 (1): 93–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keeley, Lawrence. 1996. War before civilization: The myth of the peaceful savage. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
LeBlanc, Steven. 2003. Constant battles. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Lerner, Gerda. 1986. The creation of patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1847/1977. The poverty of philosophy. In Karl Marx: Selected writings, ed. McLellan, David. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 195–215.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1976. Capital, Vol. 1. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.Google Scholar
McLellan, David. 1977. Karl Marx: Selected writings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mena Development Report. 2004. Gender and development in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Morand, Olivier. 2004. Health and the process of economic development. In Progress in Economic Research, vol. 7. New York: Nova Science Publishers.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Roy. 1967. Pigs for the ancestors. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Roemer, John. 1986. Analytical Marxism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael. 2008. Oil, Islam, and women. American Political Science Review 102 (1): 107–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweickart, David. 1987. Book review of John Roemer, Analytical Marxism. Ethics 97 (4): 869–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, William. 1978. Marx's theory of history. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Vayda, Andrew. 1976. War in ecological perspective. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon. 2004. Politics and vision: Continuity and innovation in western political thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen. 1972. The Marxian critique of justice. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (3): 244–82.Google Scholar