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The Social Basis of the Woman Question
Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) was one of the most prolific writers on Communism, Socialism and Feminism. Here we present one of her earliest works (currently out of print), complete with the introduction written by her in 1908.
The sub-chapters of the main essay - originally published as a pamphlet in 1909 - are:
-The Struggle for Economic Independence
-Marriage and the Problem of the Family
-The Struggle for Political Rights
And as always with e-books from the Anarcho-communist Institute; this work was edited for minor grammatical errors presented in the original translation. First electronic edition
The sub-chapters of the main essay - originally published as a pamphlet in 1909 - are:
-The Struggle for Economic Independence
-Marriage and the Problem of the Family
-The Struggle for Political Rights
And as always with e-books from the Anarcho-communist Institute; this work was edited for minor grammatical errors presented in the original translation. First electronic edition
56 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 22, 2013
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607 people want to read
About the author
Alexandra Kollontai
116 books307 followersAlexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (Russian: Александра Михайловна Коллонтай — née Domontovich, Домонтович was a Russian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as a Bolshevik. In 1923, Kollontai was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Norway, one of the first women to hold such a post (Diana Abgar was earlier).
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
May 11, 2021
I have sorely neglected my feminist readings. In an effort to dig deeper, I decided to start with Kollontai's The Social Basis of the Woman Question. It was short, concise, and incredibly readable - I read it in one sitting. In it, Kollontai outlines how class informs the woman question and why proletarian women's liberation will not be found in liberal bourgeoisie feminism. Unfortunately, her analysis is still relevant today when liberal feminism is mainstream (e.g., advocating for the few to break the glass ceiling ("girl boss"), only for them to then pursue their own class interests).
"A woman can possess equal rights and be truly free only in a world of socialised labour, of harmony and justice. The feminists are unwilling and incapable of understanding this; it seems to them that when equality is formally accepted by the letter of the law they will be able to win a comfortable place for themselves in the old world of oppression, enslavement and bondage, of tears and hardship. And this is true up to a certain point. For the majority of women of the proletariat, equal rights with men would mean only an equal share in inequality, but for the “chosen few”, for the bourgeois women, it would indeed open doors to new and unprecedented rights and privileges that until now have been enjoyed by men of the bourgeois class alone."
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January 26, 2025Banger
“Leaving it to the bourgeois scholars to absorb themselves in discussion of the question of the superiority of one sex over the other, or in the weighing of brains and the comparing of the psychological structure of men and women, the followers of historical materialism fully accept the natural specificities of each sex and demand only that each person, whether man or woman, has a real opportunity for the fullest and freest self-determination, and the widest scope for the development and application of all natural inclinations. The followers of historical materialism reject the existence of a special woman question separate from the general social question of our day. Specific economic factors were behind the subordination of women; natural qualities have been a secondary factor in this process. Only the complete disappearance of these factors, only the evolution of those forces which at some point in the past gave rise to the subjection of women, is able in a fundamental way to influence and change their social position. In other words, women can become truly free and equal only in a world organised along new social and productive lines.”
“The women’s world is divided… into two camps; the interests and aspirations of one group of women bring it close to the bourgeois class, while the other group has close connections with the proletariat, and its claims for liberation encompass a full solution to the woman question. Thus although both camps follow the general slogan of the “liberation of women”, their aims and interests are different. Each of the groups unconsciously takes its starting point from the interests of its own class, which gives a specific class colouring to the targets and tasks it sets itself.”
“If in certain circumstances the short-term tasks of women of all classes coincide, the final aims of the two camps, which in the long term determine the direction of the movement and the tactics to be used, differ sharply. While for the feminists the achievement of equal rights with men in the framework of the contemporary capitalist world represents a sufficiently concrete end in itself, equal rights at the present time are, for the proletarian women, only a means of advancing the struggle against the economic slavery of the working class. The feminists see men as the main enemy, for men have unjustly seized all rights and privileges for themselves, leaving women only chains and duties… Proletarian women have a different attitude. They do not see men as the enemy and the oppressor; on the contrary, they think of men as their comrades, who share with them the drudgery of the daily round and fight with them for a better future. The woman and her male comrade are enslaved by the same social conditions”
“The feminists are unwilling and incapable of understanding this; it seems to them that when equality is formally accepted by the letter of the law they will be able to win a comfortable place for themselves in the old world of oppression, enslavement and bondage, of tears and hardship. And this is true up to a certain point. For the majority of women of the proletariat, equal rights with men would mean only an equal share in inequality, but for the “chosen few”, for the bourgeois women, it would indeed open doors to new and unprecedented rights and privileges that until now have been enjoyed by men of the bourgeois class alone But each new concession won by the bourgeois woman would give her yet another weapon for the exploitation of her (proletarian) sister and would go on increasing the division between the women of the two opposite social camps. Their interests would be more sharply in conflict, their aspirations more obviously in contradiction.”
“Where, then, is that general “woman question”? Where is that unity of tasks and aspirations about which the feminists have so much to say? A sober glance at reality shows that such unity does not and cannot exist.”
Birth of the “woman question”
“The conditions and forms of production have subjugated women throughout human history, and have gradually relegated them to the position of oppression and dependence in which most of them existed until now. A colossal upheaval of the entire social and economic structure was required before women could begin to retrieve the significance and independence they had lost. Problems which at one time seemed too difficult for the most talented thinkers have now been solved by the inanimate but all-powerful conditions of production. The same forces which for thousands of years enslaved women now, at a further stage of development, are leading them along the path to freedom and independence... The woman question assumed importance for woman of the bourgeois classes approximately in the middle of the nineteenth century – a considerable time after the proletarian women had arrived in the labour arena”
“Under the impact of the monstrous successes of capitalism, the middle classes of the population were hit by waves of need. The economic changes had rendered the financial situation of the petty and middle bourgeoisie unstable, and the bourgeois women were faced with a dilemma of menacing proportions, either accept poverty, or achieve the right to work. Wives and daughters of these social groups began to knock at the doors of the universities, the art salons, the editorial houses, the offices, flooding to the professions that were open to them. The desire of bourgeois women to gain access to science and the higher benefits of culture was not the result of a sudden, maturing need but stemmed from that same question of “daily bread”. The women of the bourgeoisie met, from the very first, with stiff resistance from men. A stubborn battle was waged between the professional men, attached to their “cosy little jobs”, and the women who were novices in the matter of earning their daily bread. This struggle gave rise to “feminism” – the attempt of bourgeois women to stand together and pit their common strength against the enemy, against men. As they entered the labour arena these women proudly referred to themselves as the “vanguard of the women’s movement”. They forgot that in this matter of winning economic independence they were, as in other fields, travelling in the footsteps of their younger sisters and reaping the fruits of the efforts of their blistered hands.”
“Is it then really possible to talk of the feminists pioneering the road to women’s work, when in every country hundreds of thousands of proletarian women had flooded the factories and workshops, taking over one branch of industry after another, before the bourgeois women’s movement was ever born? Only thanks to the fact that the labour of women workers had received recognition on the world market were the bourgeois women able to occupy the independent position in society in which the feminists take so much pride”
“For what reason, then, should the woman worker seek a union with the bourgeois feminists? Who, in actual fact, would stand to gain in the event of such an alliance? Certainly not the woman worker. She is her own saviour; her future is in her own hands. The working woman guards her class interests and is not deceived by great speeches about the “world all women share”. The working woman must not and does not forget that while the aim of bourgeois women is to secure their own welfare in the framework of a society antagonistic to us, our aim is to build, in the place of the old, outdated world, a bright temple of universal labour, comradely solidarity and joyful freedom.”
The issues of the family
“The struggle for political rights, for the right to receive doctorates and other academic degrees, and for equal pay for equal work, is not the full sum of the fight for equality. To become really free woman has to throw off the heavy chains of the current forms of the family, which are outmoded and oppressive. For women, the solution of the family question is no less important than the achievement of political equality and economic independence.”
“In the family of today, the structure of which is confirmed by custom and law, woman is oppressed not only as a person but as a wife and mother, in most of the countries of the civilised world the civil code places women in a greater or lesser dependence on her husband, and awards the husband not, only the right to dispose of her property but also the right of moral and physical dominance over her”
“the modern family structure, to a lesser or greater extent, oppresses women of all classes and all layers of the population. Customs and traditions persecute the young mother whatever the stratum of the population to which she belongs; the laws place bourgeois women, proletarian women and peasant women all under the guardianship of their husbands.”
“The heroic struggle of individual young women of the bourgeois world, who fling down the gauntlet and demand of society the right to “dare to love” without orders and without chains, ought to serve as an example for all women languishing in family chains – this is what is preached by the more emancipated feminists abroad and our progressive equal righters at home. The marriage question, in other words… is solved independently of changes in the economic structure of society. The isolated, heroic efforts of individuals is enough. Let a woman simply “dare”, and the problem of marriage is solved.”
“Before these formulas of “free relationships” and “free love” can become practice, it is above all necessary that a fundamental reform of all social relationships between people take place; furthermore, the moral and sexual norms and the whole psychology of mankind would have to undergo a thorough evolution, is the contemporary person psychologically able to cope with “free love"? What about the jealousy that eats into even the best human souls? And that deeply-rooted sense of property that demands the possession not only of the body but also of the soul of another? And the inability to have the proper respect for the individuality of another? The habit of either subordinating oneself to the loved one, or of subordinating the loved one to oneself? And the bitter and desperate feeling of desertion, of limitless loneliness, which is experienced when the loved ceases to love and leaves? Where can the lonely person, who is an individualist to the very core of his being, find solace? The collective, with its joys and disappointments and aspirations, is the best outlet for the emotional and intellectual energies of the individual. But is modern man capable of working with this collective in such a way as to feel the mutually interacting influences? Is the life of the collective really capable, at present, of replacing the individual’s petty personal joys? Without the “unique,” “one-and-only” twin soul, even the socialist, the collectivist, is quite alone in the present antagonistic world; only in the working class do we catch the pale glimpse of the future, of more harmonious and more social relations between people. The family problem is as complex and many-faceted as life itself. Our social system is incapable of solving it.”
irreconcilable class contradictions
“The feminists answer our criticisms by saying:... Cannot the women of the two social camps, for the sake of their common political aspirations, surmount the barriers of class antagonism that divide them? Surely they are capable of waging a common struggle against the hostile forces that surround them?... in the case of this particular question, the feminists imagine,, the women of the various social classes have no differences.”
“The feminists declare themselves to be on the side of social reform, and some of them even say they are in favour of socialism – in the far distant future, of course – but they are not intending to struggle in the ranks of the working class for the realisation of these aims… However good the intentions of individual groups of feminists towards the proletariat, whenever the question of class struggle has been posed they have left the battlefield in a fright. They find that they do not wish to interfere in alien causes, and prefer to retire to their bourgeois liberalism which is so comfortably familiar. No, however much the bourgeois feminists try to repress the true aim of their political desires, however much they assure their younger sisters that involvement in political life promises immeasurable benefits for the women of the working class, the bourgeois spirit that pervades the whole feminist movement gives a class colouring even to the demand for equal political rights with men, which would seem to be a general women’s demand. Different aims and understandings of how political rights are to be used create an unbridgeable gulf between bourgeois and proletarian women.”
“This does not contradict the fact that the immediate tasks of the two groups of women coincide to a certain degree, for the representatives of all classes which have received access to political power strive above all to achieve a review of the civil code, which in every country, to a greater or lesser extent, discriminates against women. Women press for legal changes that create more favourable conditions of labour for themselves; they stand together against the regulations legalising prostitution etc. However, the coincidence of these immediate tasks is of a purely formal nature… Class instinct – whatever the feminists say – always shows itself to be more powerful than the noble enthusiasms of “above-class” politics. So long as the bourgeois women and their “younger sisters” are equal in their inequality, the former can, with complete sincerity, make great efforts to defend the general interests of women. But once the barrier is down and the bourgeois women have received access to political activity, the recent defenders of the “rights of all women��� become enthusiastic defenders of the privileges of their class, content to leave the younger sisters with no rights at all.”
“Leaving it to the bourgeois scholars to absorb themselves in discussion of the question of the superiority of one sex over the other, or in the weighing of brains and the comparing of the psychological structure of men and women, the followers of historical materialism fully accept the natural specificities of each sex and demand only that each person, whether man or woman, has a real opportunity for the fullest and freest self-determination, and the widest scope for the development and application of all natural inclinations. The followers of historical materialism reject the existence of a special woman question separate from the general social question of our day. Specific economic factors were behind the subordination of women; natural qualities have been a secondary factor in this process. Only the complete disappearance of these factors, only the evolution of those forces which at some point in the past gave rise to the subjection of women, is able in a fundamental way to influence and change their social position. In other words, women can become truly free and equal only in a world organised along new social and productive lines.”
“The women’s world is divided… into two camps; the interests and aspirations of one group of women bring it close to the bourgeois class, while the other group has close connections with the proletariat, and its claims for liberation encompass a full solution to the woman question. Thus although both camps follow the general slogan of the “liberation of women”, their aims and interests are different. Each of the groups unconsciously takes its starting point from the interests of its own class, which gives a specific class colouring to the targets and tasks it sets itself.”
“If in certain circumstances the short-term tasks of women of all classes coincide, the final aims of the two camps, which in the long term determine the direction of the movement and the tactics to be used, differ sharply. While for the feminists the achievement of equal rights with men in the framework of the contemporary capitalist world represents a sufficiently concrete end in itself, equal rights at the present time are, for the proletarian women, only a means of advancing the struggle against the economic slavery of the working class. The feminists see men as the main enemy, for men have unjustly seized all rights and privileges for themselves, leaving women only chains and duties… Proletarian women have a different attitude. They do not see men as the enemy and the oppressor; on the contrary, they think of men as their comrades, who share with them the drudgery of the daily round and fight with them for a better future. The woman and her male comrade are enslaved by the same social conditions”
“The feminists are unwilling and incapable of understanding this; it seems to them that when equality is formally accepted by the letter of the law they will be able to win a comfortable place for themselves in the old world of oppression, enslavement and bondage, of tears and hardship. And this is true up to a certain point. For the majority of women of the proletariat, equal rights with men would mean only an equal share in inequality, but for the “chosen few”, for the bourgeois women, it would indeed open doors to new and unprecedented rights and privileges that until now have been enjoyed by men of the bourgeois class alone But each new concession won by the bourgeois woman would give her yet another weapon for the exploitation of her (proletarian) sister and would go on increasing the division between the women of the two opposite social camps. Their interests would be more sharply in conflict, their aspirations more obviously in contradiction.”
“Where, then, is that general “woman question”? Where is that unity of tasks and aspirations about which the feminists have so much to say? A sober glance at reality shows that such unity does not and cannot exist.”
Birth of the “woman question”
“The conditions and forms of production have subjugated women throughout human history, and have gradually relegated them to the position of oppression and dependence in which most of them existed until now. A colossal upheaval of the entire social and economic structure was required before women could begin to retrieve the significance and independence they had lost. Problems which at one time seemed too difficult for the most talented thinkers have now been solved by the inanimate but all-powerful conditions of production. The same forces which for thousands of years enslaved women now, at a further stage of development, are leading them along the path to freedom and independence... The woman question assumed importance for woman of the bourgeois classes approximately in the middle of the nineteenth century – a considerable time after the proletarian women had arrived in the labour arena”
“Under the impact of the monstrous successes of capitalism, the middle classes of the population were hit by waves of need. The economic changes had rendered the financial situation of the petty and middle bourgeoisie unstable, and the bourgeois women were faced with a dilemma of menacing proportions, either accept poverty, or achieve the right to work. Wives and daughters of these social groups began to knock at the doors of the universities, the art salons, the editorial houses, the offices, flooding to the professions that were open to them. The desire of bourgeois women to gain access to science and the higher benefits of culture was not the result of a sudden, maturing need but stemmed from that same question of “daily bread”. The women of the bourgeoisie met, from the very first, with stiff resistance from men. A stubborn battle was waged between the professional men, attached to their “cosy little jobs”, and the women who were novices in the matter of earning their daily bread. This struggle gave rise to “feminism” – the attempt of bourgeois women to stand together and pit their common strength against the enemy, against men. As they entered the labour arena these women proudly referred to themselves as the “vanguard of the women’s movement”. They forgot that in this matter of winning economic independence they were, as in other fields, travelling in the footsteps of their younger sisters and reaping the fruits of the efforts of their blistered hands.”
“Is it then really possible to talk of the feminists pioneering the road to women’s work, when in every country hundreds of thousands of proletarian women had flooded the factories and workshops, taking over one branch of industry after another, before the bourgeois women’s movement was ever born? Only thanks to the fact that the labour of women workers had received recognition on the world market were the bourgeois women able to occupy the independent position in society in which the feminists take so much pride”
“For what reason, then, should the woman worker seek a union with the bourgeois feminists? Who, in actual fact, would stand to gain in the event of such an alliance? Certainly not the woman worker. She is her own saviour; her future is in her own hands. The working woman guards her class interests and is not deceived by great speeches about the “world all women share”. The working woman must not and does not forget that while the aim of bourgeois women is to secure their own welfare in the framework of a society antagonistic to us, our aim is to build, in the place of the old, outdated world, a bright temple of universal labour, comradely solidarity and joyful freedom.”
The issues of the family
“The struggle for political rights, for the right to receive doctorates and other academic degrees, and for equal pay for equal work, is not the full sum of the fight for equality. To become really free woman has to throw off the heavy chains of the current forms of the family, which are outmoded and oppressive. For women, the solution of the family question is no less important than the achievement of political equality and economic independence.”
“In the family of today, the structure of which is confirmed by custom and law, woman is oppressed not only as a person but as a wife and mother, in most of the countries of the civilised world the civil code places women in a greater or lesser dependence on her husband, and awards the husband not, only the right to dispose of her property but also the right of moral and physical dominance over her”
“the modern family structure, to a lesser or greater extent, oppresses women of all classes and all layers of the population. Customs and traditions persecute the young mother whatever the stratum of the population to which she belongs; the laws place bourgeois women, proletarian women and peasant women all under the guardianship of their husbands.”
“The heroic struggle of individual young women of the bourgeois world, who fling down the gauntlet and demand of society the right to “dare to love” without orders and without chains, ought to serve as an example for all women languishing in family chains – this is what is preached by the more emancipated feminists abroad and our progressive equal righters at home. The marriage question, in other words… is solved independently of changes in the economic structure of society. The isolated, heroic efforts of individuals is enough. Let a woman simply “dare”, and the problem of marriage is solved.”
“Before these formulas of “free relationships” and “free love” can become practice, it is above all necessary that a fundamental reform of all social relationships between people take place; furthermore, the moral and sexual norms and the whole psychology of mankind would have to undergo a thorough evolution, is the contemporary person psychologically able to cope with “free love"? What about the jealousy that eats into even the best human souls? And that deeply-rooted sense of property that demands the possession not only of the body but also of the soul of another? And the inability to have the proper respect for the individuality of another? The habit of either subordinating oneself to the loved one, or of subordinating the loved one to oneself? And the bitter and desperate feeling of desertion, of limitless loneliness, which is experienced when the loved ceases to love and leaves? Where can the lonely person, who is an individualist to the very core of his being, find solace? The collective, with its joys and disappointments and aspirations, is the best outlet for the emotional and intellectual energies of the individual. But is modern man capable of working with this collective in such a way as to feel the mutually interacting influences? Is the life of the collective really capable, at present, of replacing the individual’s petty personal joys? Without the “unique,” “one-and-only” twin soul, even the socialist, the collectivist, is quite alone in the present antagonistic world; only in the working class do we catch the pale glimpse of the future, of more harmonious and more social relations between people. The family problem is as complex and many-faceted as life itself. Our social system is incapable of solving it.”
irreconcilable class contradictions
“The feminists answer our criticisms by saying:... Cannot the women of the two social camps, for the sake of their common political aspirations, surmount the barriers of class antagonism that divide them? Surely they are capable of waging a common struggle against the hostile forces that surround them?... in the case of this particular question, the feminists imagine,, the women of the various social classes have no differences.”
“The feminists declare themselves to be on the side of social reform, and some of them even say they are in favour of socialism – in the far distant future, of course – but they are not intending to struggle in the ranks of the working class for the realisation of these aims… However good the intentions of individual groups of feminists towards the proletariat, whenever the question of class struggle has been posed they have left the battlefield in a fright. They find that they do not wish to interfere in alien causes, and prefer to retire to their bourgeois liberalism which is so comfortably familiar. No, however much the bourgeois feminists try to repress the true aim of their political desires, however much they assure their younger sisters that involvement in political life promises immeasurable benefits for the women of the working class, the bourgeois spirit that pervades the whole feminist movement gives a class colouring even to the demand for equal political rights with men, which would seem to be a general women’s demand. Different aims and understandings of how political rights are to be used create an unbridgeable gulf between bourgeois and proletarian women.”
“This does not contradict the fact that the immediate tasks of the two groups of women coincide to a certain degree, for the representatives of all classes which have received access to political power strive above all to achieve a review of the civil code, which in every country, to a greater or lesser extent, discriminates against women. Women press for legal changes that create more favourable conditions of labour for themselves; they stand together against the regulations legalising prostitution etc. However, the coincidence of these immediate tasks is of a purely formal nature… Class instinct – whatever the feminists say – always shows itself to be more powerful than the noble enthusiasms of “above-class” politics. So long as the bourgeois women and their “younger sisters” are equal in their inequality, the former can, with complete sincerity, make great efforts to defend the general interests of women. But once the barrier is down and the bourgeois women have received access to political activity, the recent defenders of the “rights of all women��� become enthusiastic defenders of the privileges of their class, content to leave the younger sisters with no rights at all.”
March 25, 2020
«The working woman guards her class interests and is not deceived by great speeches about the “world all women share”»
March 12, 2022
can kollontai be my mom
February 13, 2023
A short, well articulated text about the Woman Question. Arguments Kollontai makes are relevant even today. Must read for all interested in Marxist Feminism.
May 2, 2024
Ok this WHIPS.
Kollontai is an often overlooked figure, which is a shame because she's really interesting and a great writer and thinker. In this fairly short essay, she pushes back against the bourgeois feminist movement of her time—that is, 1908 Russia. She argues (correctly) that the true emancipation of women in society cannot be fully realized within an exploitative, capitalist framework. Being a historical materialist and capable of using scientific socialism to analyze the conditions of society, she does acknowledge that, obviously, partial improvements to women's' rights and standing within capitalism are a good thing and should be supported. However, she also understands that the basis of women's oppression is rooted in relations of private property, and that the aims and views of bourgeois feminism of the era stems inevitably from the class position of its proponents. She argues that the liberation of women cannot be complete without a fundamental transformation of the economic and social structure of society as a whole. Otherwise, we just get the sort of feminism Kollontai is responding to, and which we still see in the modern day; more female cops and soldiers, more female politicians, more girlbosses in film and tv, yet no real changes to the underlying class- and private property-based structures which maintain the oppression of women, primarily working-class women, women of color, trans women, etc. etc.
This essay is similar in its theoretical framing to Engels's Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, and similarly discusses the institutions of marriage and maternity, and how the subordinate role of women within those institutions, again, has its historical and material basis in class and property relations.
Overall, this essay pushes back against the sort of wishy-washy, liberal bourgeois social movements which existed in 1908 just as much as they do now. Kollontai knows, as does anyone who soberly and sincerely analyzes class struggle and capitalist society, that liberals' true allegiance in the end will always drift towards class rather than any form of identity-based social movement. True, complete liberation of all people of all gender identities, races, religions, etc. can only be realized when the underlying conditions which create those inequalities are torn down and replaced with something new. It doesn't matter if we have women in the US senate if that same senate continues to support the genocide of Palestinians, or continues to uphold the murderous armed police force occupying primarily black, working-class communities. Women's oppression cannot be reformed out of existence; it can be reformed to gradually better states of being, but only through true, radical, proletarian social upheaval can liberation be fully realized. Essentially, liberals' interests lie above all else in upholding the oppressive class structures from which they benefit; they can make wishy-washy statements and ham-fisted gestures about social equality all they want, but when push comes to shove, the liberal will always side with the oppressive capitalist class over the interests of those they oppress. Kollontai ends the essay with this quote, which sums this idea up perfectly:
Read here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/koll...
It's short enough to essentially read like a blog post, it's punchy and easy to read/digest, and it's critically important to understand that oppressed peoples of all stripes will remain oppressed by capitalism until our entire social system is fundamentally, radically transformed.
"The proletarian women’s final aim does not, of course, prevent them from desiring to improve their status even within the framework of the current bourgeois system, but the realisation of these desires is constantly hindered by obstacles that derive from the very nature of capitalism. A woman can possess equal rights and be truly free only in a world of socialised labour, of harmony and justice. The [bourgeois] feminists are unwilling and incapable of understanding this; it seems to them that when equality is formally accepted by the letter of the law they will be able to win a comfortable place for themselves in the old world of oppression, enslavement and bondage, of tears and hardship. And this is true up to a certain point. For the majority of women of the proletariat, equal rights with men would mean only an equal share in inequality, but for the 'chosen few', for the bourgeois women, it would indeed open doors to new and unprecedented rights and privileges that until now have been enjoyed by men of the bourgeois class alone. But each new concession won by the bourgeois woman would give her yet another weapon for the exploitation of her younger sister and would go on increasing the division between the women of the two opposite social camps. Their interests would be more sharply in conflict, their aspirations more obviously in contradiction."
Kollontai is an often overlooked figure, which is a shame because she's really interesting and a great writer and thinker. In this fairly short essay, she pushes back against the bourgeois feminist movement of her time—that is, 1908 Russia. She argues (correctly) that the true emancipation of women in society cannot be fully realized within an exploitative, capitalist framework. Being a historical materialist and capable of using scientific socialism to analyze the conditions of society, she does acknowledge that, obviously, partial improvements to women's' rights and standing within capitalism are a good thing and should be supported. However, she also understands that the basis of women's oppression is rooted in relations of private property, and that the aims and views of bourgeois feminism of the era stems inevitably from the class position of its proponents. She argues that the liberation of women cannot be complete without a fundamental transformation of the economic and social structure of society as a whole. Otherwise, we just get the sort of feminism Kollontai is responding to, and which we still see in the modern day; more female cops and soldiers, more female politicians, more girlbosses in film and tv, yet no real changes to the underlying class- and private property-based structures which maintain the oppression of women, primarily working-class women, women of color, trans women, etc. etc.
This essay is similar in its theoretical framing to Engels's Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, and similarly discusses the institutions of marriage and maternity, and how the subordinate role of women within those institutions, again, has its historical and material basis in class and property relations.
Overall, this essay pushes back against the sort of wishy-washy, liberal bourgeois social movements which existed in 1908 just as much as they do now. Kollontai knows, as does anyone who soberly and sincerely analyzes class struggle and capitalist society, that liberals' true allegiance in the end will always drift towards class rather than any form of identity-based social movement. True, complete liberation of all people of all gender identities, races, religions, etc. can only be realized when the underlying conditions which create those inequalities are torn down and replaced with something new. It doesn't matter if we have women in the US senate if that same senate continues to support the genocide of Palestinians, or continues to uphold the murderous armed police force occupying primarily black, working-class communities. Women's oppression cannot be reformed out of existence; it can be reformed to gradually better states of being, but only through true, radical, proletarian social upheaval can liberation be fully realized. Essentially, liberals' interests lie above all else in upholding the oppressive class structures from which they benefit; they can make wishy-washy statements and ham-fisted gestures about social equality all they want, but when push comes to shove, the liberal will always side with the oppressive capitalist class over the interests of those they oppress. Kollontai ends the essay with this quote, which sums this idea up perfectly:
"Class instinct – whatever the feminists say – always shows itself to be more powerful than the noble enthusiasms of 'above-class' politics. So long as the bourgeois women and their 'younger sisters' are equal in their inequality, the former can, with complete sincerity, make great efforts to defend the general interests of women. But once the barrier is down and the bourgeois women have received access to political activity, the recent defenders of the “rights of all women” become enthusiastic defenders of the privileges of their class, content to leave the younger sisters with no rights at all. Thus, when the feminists talk to working women about the need for a common struggle to realise some 'general women’s' principle, women of the working class are naturally distrustful."
Read here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/koll...
It's short enough to essentially read like a blog post, it's punchy and easy to read/digest, and it's critically important to understand that oppressed peoples of all stripes will remain oppressed by capitalism until our entire social system is fundamentally, radically transformed.
January 1, 2026
The woman question, as articulated by Alexandra Kollontai, is hijacked by a privileged class of women calling themselves “feminists” who do not delve into the inherent structural oppression that exists in society. Instead, these feminists aim to portray themselves as the vanguard of all oppressed women as sisters for the aim of gaining the same opportunities as men of higher standing, positions of authority and economic power. Thus, instead of emancipating women holistically, they want to make the role of oppressor and exploiter not solely exclusive for the few men, but also for the few women.
Alexandra Kollontai argues that these women do not and will not represent the oppressed and exploited women under systemic oppression, the oppressed women in turn, find their partners against this systemic oppression in their brethren, the exploited men, who together with they must fundamentally overthrow this system of exploitation and slavery, be it from the bondages of marriage or “traditional” roles where women are controlled, or the work place.
Some quotes:
“The women’s world is divided, just as is the world of men, into two camps; the interests and aspirations of one group of women bring it close to the bourgeois class, while the other group has close connections with the proletariat, and its claims for liberation encompass a full solution to the woman question. Thus although both camps follow the general slogan of the “liberation of women”, their aims and interests are different. Each of the groups unconsciously takes its starting point from the interests of its own class, which gives a specific class colouring to the targets and tasks it sets itself”
“The feminists see men as the main enemy, for men have unjustly seized all rights and privileges for themselves, leaving women only chains and duties. For them a victory is won when a prerogative previously enjoyed exclusively by the male sex is conceded to the “fair sex”. Proletarian women have a different attitude. They do not see men as the enemy and the oppressor; on the contrary, they think of men as their comrades, who share with them the drudgery of the daily round and fight with them for a better future. The woman and her male comrade are enslaved by the same social conditions”
“So long as the bourgeois women and their “younger sisters” are equal in their inequality, the former can, with complete sincerity, make great efforts to defend the general interests of women. But once the barrier is down and the bourgeois women have received access to political activity, the recent defenders of the “rights of all women” become enthusiastic defenders of the privileges of their class, content to leave the younger sisters with no rights at all. Thus, when the feminists talk to working women about the need for a common struggle to realise some “general women’s” principle, women of the working class are naturally distrustful.”
Alexandra Kollontai argues that these women do not and will not represent the oppressed and exploited women under systemic oppression, the oppressed women in turn, find their partners against this systemic oppression in their brethren, the exploited men, who together with they must fundamentally overthrow this system of exploitation and slavery, be it from the bondages of marriage or “traditional” roles where women are controlled, or the work place.
Some quotes:
“The women’s world is divided, just as is the world of men, into two camps; the interests and aspirations of one group of women bring it close to the bourgeois class, while the other group has close connections with the proletariat, and its claims for liberation encompass a full solution to the woman question. Thus although both camps follow the general slogan of the “liberation of women”, their aims and interests are different. Each of the groups unconsciously takes its starting point from the interests of its own class, which gives a specific class colouring to the targets and tasks it sets itself”
“The feminists see men as the main enemy, for men have unjustly seized all rights and privileges for themselves, leaving women only chains and duties. For them a victory is won when a prerogative previously enjoyed exclusively by the male sex is conceded to the “fair sex”. Proletarian women have a different attitude. They do not see men as the enemy and the oppressor; on the contrary, they think of men as their comrades, who share with them the drudgery of the daily round and fight with them for a better future. The woman and her male comrade are enslaved by the same social conditions”
“So long as the bourgeois women and their “younger sisters” are equal in their inequality, the former can, with complete sincerity, make great efforts to defend the general interests of women. But once the barrier is down and the bourgeois women have received access to political activity, the recent defenders of the “rights of all women” become enthusiastic defenders of the privileges of their class, content to leave the younger sisters with no rights at all. Thus, when the feminists talk to working women about the need for a common struggle to realise some “general women’s” principle, women of the working class are naturally distrustful.”
March 9, 2025
"The proletarian woman, however, has a completely different attitude to her position: in her eyes men are not her enemy and oppressor but, on the contrary, first and foremost a comrade in sharing a common, joyless lot, and a loyal comrade-in-arms in the struggle for a brighter future. The same social relations enslave both the woman and her comrade; one and the same hateful bonds of capitalism oppress their will and deprive them of the happiness and pleasures of life."
"The woman worker, no less than her brother in suffering, loathes that insatiable monster with the gilded maw which falls upon man, woman and child with equal voracity in order to suck them dry and grow fat at the cost of millions of human lives... The woman worker is bound to her male comrade worker by a thousand invisible threads, whereas the aims of the bourgeois woman appear to her to be alien and incomprehensible, can bring no comfort to her suffering proletarian soul and do not offer women that bright future on which the whole of exploited humanity has fixed its hopes and aspirations..."
"But only by taking this path is the woman able to achieve that distant but alluring aim – her true liberation in a new world of labour. During this difficult march to the bright future the proletarian woman, until recently a humiliated, downtrodden slave with no rights, learns to discard the slave mentality that has clung to her, step by step she transforms herself into an independent worker, an independent personality, free in love. It is she, fighting in the ranks of the proletariat, who wins for women the right to work; it is she, the “younger sister”, who prepares the ground for the “free” and “equal” woman of the future..."
"The woman worker, no less than her brother in suffering, loathes that insatiable monster with the gilded maw which falls upon man, woman and child with equal voracity in order to suck them dry and grow fat at the cost of millions of human lives... The woman worker is bound to her male comrade worker by a thousand invisible threads, whereas the aims of the bourgeois woman appear to her to be alien and incomprehensible, can bring no comfort to her suffering proletarian soul and do not offer women that bright future on which the whole of exploited humanity has fixed its hopes and aspirations..."
"But only by taking this path is the woman able to achieve that distant but alluring aim – her true liberation in a new world of labour. During this difficult march to the bright future the proletarian woman, until recently a humiliated, downtrodden slave with no rights, learns to discard the slave mentality that has clung to her, step by step she transforms herself into an independent worker, an independent personality, free in love. It is she, fighting in the ranks of the proletariat, who wins for women the right to work; it is she, the “younger sister”, who prepares the ground for the “free” and “equal” woman of the future..."
June 20, 2025
A pretty timeless text. Many of Kollontai’s critiques of bourgeois liberal feminism still hold strong today. I especially appreciated the solid, deliberate structure of her writing, she presents an issue, makes her claim, and then preemptively addresses the kinds of questions or criticisms that would naturally arise.
Feminism remains a touchy subject, often ridiculed whether one embraces or rejects the label. But Kollontai cuts through all that. Her stance is clearly pro-woman, but not in the empty, classless sense that mainstream liberal feminism often falls into. She doesn’t lean on emotional or isolated “woman-only” rhetoric. Instead, she roots her feminism in a class-conscious framework, not for the advancement of a few privileged women within a broken system, but for the liberation of all.
Feminism remains a touchy subject, often ridiculed whether one embraces or rejects the label. But Kollontai cuts through all that. Her stance is clearly pro-woman, but not in the empty, classless sense that mainstream liberal feminism often falls into. She doesn’t lean on emotional or isolated “woman-only” rhetoric. Instead, she roots her feminism in a class-conscious framework, not for the advancement of a few privileged women within a broken system, but for the liberation of all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2020
I listened to this on a day where I was so upset and burnt out I didn't leave my bed till early evening to make spaghetti squash. It was a good introduction to Kollontai's work, which reads so smoothly and accessibly. You kind of have to historicize it a bit, as some of what she says would now be considered a bit class essentialist. But I generally understood that she was fighting against liberal bourgeois feminism in her essays, and I commend it because we are (sadly) still fighting that fight to this day.
September 6, 2022
Very good introduction to Marxist-Feminist concepts. I especially appreciated her insight and analysis in describing the class contradiction between the opposing interests of working class women and bourgeois women, even if in the short term they seem aligned.
May 27, 2023
short and precise criticism of bourgeois feminism and its idealist analysis of women's oppression without studying how relations between men and women (marriage, etc) have grown because of class society and other factors.
April 7, 2025
I love me some marxist women, a pretty good critique of liberal feminism, while reading I was like preach! sister in my mind, but it was much more like a confirmation to an already critique of liberal feminism, rather than a convincing someone to become a feminist for 99%.
November 9, 2020
Unfortunately still incredibly relevant. A breath of fresh air from the uptick in girl-boss madness due to the election.
December 8, 2020
Excellent primer on Marxist feminism, and a thorough exposé on the inability of liberal feminism to achieve full women's liberation. In a time of "girl boss feminism", this work is sorely needed.
March 12, 2022
man i love alexandra kollontai i think about her daily
December 7, 2022
Insightful
April 9, 2024
love her she kinda ate with calling marriage the "sacred institution of property"
April 12, 2024
White liberal feminism and girlboss culture, you can’t hide!
October 6, 2024
Completely changed my view on feminism from a liberal to a truly revolutionary one
Read
June 10, 2025White women please put down the Simone de Beauvoir and pick up Alexandra Kollontai!!
Read
June 23, 2025Concise but captivating. “For class interest determines that the attitude of the two groups to these reforms is sharply contradictory…”
December 26, 2022
an absolutely essential read
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