Feminism and The Question of Class - Alexandra Kollontai

FEMINISM AND
READ~G~~-----Il:LLQUESILObLQLClAS-s
Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) was one of the fore

most feminist members of the Bolshevik Party in
Russia and worked to implement feminist social wel
fare ideas in the Communist government under Lenin.
She was, nonetheless, an outspoken critic of what she
called "bourgeois feminism." In this piece, written in
1909, Kollontai argued that class- and gender-based
oppression made the experiences of working-class
women very different from those of middle-class and
wealthy women. In many ways, Kollontai's writings
foreshadow more recent criticisms of the notion of
"woman" as an identity politics based solely on simi
larities among women.
Leaving it to the bourgeois scholars to absorb them
selves in discussion of the question of the superior
ity 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 his
torical materialism fully accept the natural specifici
ties 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 specia} 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 evo
lution 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 th.eir
"feminism and the Question of Class." From "The Social Basis of

the Woman Question," in The Selected Writings of Alexandra
Kollontai, trans. Alix Holt. London: Allison and Busby, 1977: 58-62.
198
social position. In other words, women can become

truly free and equal only in a world organized alono
1)
new social and productive lines.
[... J
The Struggle for Economic
Independence
First of all we must ask ourselves whether a single

united women's movement is possible in a society,
based on class contradictions. The fact that the
women who take part in the liberation movement
do not represent one homogeneous mass is clear to
every unbiased observer.
The women's world is divided, just as is the ."orld
of men, into two camps; the interests and aspirations
of one group of women bring it close to the bour
geois class, while the other group has close connec
tions with the proletariat, and its claims for libera
tion encompass a full solution to the woman
question. Thus although both camps follow the gen
eral slogan of the "liberation of women," their aims
and interests are different. Each of the groups un
consciously 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 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 realization of these desires
is constantly hindered by obstacies that derive from
the very nature of capitalism. A woman can possess
equal rights and be truly free only in a world of
socialized labour, of harmony and justice. The femi
nists 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
ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI I Feminism and ,the Question of Class
rld of oppression, enslavement, and bondage, of

w s and hardship. And this is true up to a certain
teaf.n,t For the majority
. . 0 f women 0 f t.h
'
e proi
etarlat,
pot" .
ual rights with men would mean only an equal
eq
.
l'tty, 'b ut I:lor tee
h" h
I : " I:
hare in mequa
osen
lew, lor t h e
~ourgeois women, it would indeed open doors to
neW and unprecedented rights and privileges that
until now have been enjoyed by men of the bour
aeois class alone. But each new concession won by
ilie 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....
The woman question assumed importance for
women of the bourgeois classes approximately in
the middle of the nineteenth century-a consider
able time after the proletarian women had arrived in
the labour arena. Under the impact of the mon
strous successes of capitalism, the middle classes
of the population were hit by waves of need. The eco
nomic 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
f
';
gain access to science and the higher benefits of cul

ture 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 indepen
dence they were, as in other fields, traveling 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.
[ ... J
KEY IERMS
Bolshevism One of the main socialist parties in
Russia from 1903-1918, founded by Vladimir
Lenin, it was the instigator and organizer of the
Russian October Socialist Revolution in 1917.
historical materialism A philosophical

approach to history associated with Marxism; the
199
argument that there is a material basis for the

process of change through a conscious
recognition of class struggle.
the woman question The debate over the

role of women in the modern state.

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FEMINISM AND

Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) was one of the fore

"feminism and the Question of Class." From "The Social Basis of

social position. In other words, women can become

The Struggle for Economic

First of all we must ask ourselves whether a single

ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI I Feminism and ,the Question of Class

rld of oppression, enslavement, and bondage, of

gain access to science and the higher benefits of cul

historical materialism A philosophical

argument that there is a material basis for the

the woman question The debate over the

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