Marxism and Women's Liberation

by Judith Orr

For most women, discrimination and oppression are still very much the lived experience today. While much has changed for women, too much has not. Rising sexism and anger about sexual violence have led to an explosion of ideas and activity around the politics of women's liberation. This book looks at the history and source of women's oppression and at the struggles to overcome it. Using a clear Marxist framework, it focuses on how best we can achieve real liberation.As austerity bites and new debates about oppression rage, Judith Orr steers a path through the history and future of the fight for women's liberation, with all its contradictions. Marxism and Women's Liberation looks at why women are more often to be found on the sticky floor of low pay than above the glass ceiling where the rich reside and the reasons for the assault on the gains of the women's movement. But more than that, it looks at the forces that have the power to change this and revolutionise women's lived experience.

Genres: Feminism, Politics, Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published September 14, 2015

Reviews

[rabble.ca]

http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/1...

Review by Faline Bobier

Marxism and women's liberation by Judith Orr is a must read for feminists and socialists, and really for anyone who wants to understand -- and more importantly, fight to end -- women's oppression. It is a masterful overview of the gains made by successive waves of the women's movement and also how those gains cannot be taken for granted as the system goes into crisis and triggers a backlash.

There could be no more timely reminder than the recent decision to defund Planned Parenthood in the U.S.: the spectacle of the world's wealthiest capitalist country effectively denying access to basic reproductive health care to working class and poor women (and men) in the 21st century.

In this context, one of the quotes Orr includes from Russian revolutionary Lenin could scarcely be more appropriate. Lenin is referring to the gains women made in Russia within one year of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, which overturned centuries of tsarist oppression and appalling conditions for working class and peasant women

Read more here: http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/1...

[Katharine Bull · Rating 3 out of 5]

A helpful potted history 💪

[Martin Empson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book.

Judith Orr's book ends on the possibility of Revolution to truly liberate women. It is this emphasis that makes the book so inspiring, because it doesn't simply highlight what is wrong in society, but offers a way forward. There is much more that I haven't covered in this review. For instance, Orr looks at contemporary women's movements and discusses some of the ideas that have come out of academia such as intersectionality and privilege theory. She finds these wanting, downplaying as they do the question of class. I also found the section on the question of social reproduction and the debate on wages for housework very useful.

For socialists, radicals and activists today this is a superb book. Its accessible, but takes on big and important debates and questions. It will introduce a new generation to the importance of Marxism as a tool understanding the origins of oppression and how we can fight to build a world where women's oppression is a thing of the past.

Full review: http://resolutereader.blogspot.co.uk/...

[bibi · Rating 5 out of 5]

genuinely one of the best books i've read