CO N TEN TS

F orew ord : . . 3
W om en an d the Fam ily
A H istorical V i e w ...................................................................................6
The M yth of W om en’s I n f e r i o r it y .....................................................22
Sex A gainst Sex—Or Class Against C la s s ? ...................................42
"T h e Feminine M ystique” .................................................................54

Cover Illustration: Figure of a goddess on an Attic vase;

sym bol o f the m atriarchy.

Printed in the United States of America

August 1969
Copyright 1969 by Merit Publishers
L ibrary of Congress Catalog Card Number 77-97800

M E R IT PU BLISH ERS
873 B roadw ay
New York, N. Y. 10003
 T
FOREWORD

After years of lethargy an d subm ission to the status quo, m ore

and more American women have aroused themselves and sure
joining rebellious blacks and student radicals in contesting the
capitalist establishm ent This v an g u ard is calling for a n end to
the second-class status of o u r sex.
The new breed o f militant women is subm itting the institutions
and values of today’s society to scathing criticism. Their challenges
range from the discrim ination practiced against the female sex
in employment to the reactionary abortion laws upheld by church
and state.
The women’s liberation groups springing up aro u n d this struggle
for equality are earnestly debating the various problem s of theory
and action it presents. Ju st as Afro-Americans are striving to
find out why they were thrust into servitude and how they can
speedily free themselves, so do these newly awakened women want
to know how an d why they have become subjugated to male rule
and w hat can be done about i t
However, when they go in search of explanations, they discover
to their dism ay how little inform ation is available on this score.
There are m any works that trace the development of m ankind,
without distinction of sex, from the earliest times to the present But
where will the inquirer find a reliable sum m ary of the evolution
of women which can shed light upon the puzzling questions of
their changing social status through the ages.
The paucity of d ata on a subject of utm ost concern to half the
hu m an race should not come as a surprise. H istory up to now
has been written prim arily from the standpoint of the m aster classes—
an d the m aster sex.
So it is that a full accounting of the contributions of women to
4

social pro g ress h as yet to be made. The true record of their ac­
com plishm ents h as been scanted, underrated, and distorted in the
sam e m an n er an d for much the sam e reasons as the trials and
trium phs of the laboring p opulation an d oppressed minorities have
been neglected.
All sections of the oppressed, including the women, are now being
impelled to write an d rewrite their own histories, to bring them
out of concealment an d correct the falsifications. And they must
do this w ork in the very heat of their struggle for em ancipation
an d as an instrum ent o f i t
A com prehensive history of w om ankind m ust necessarily begin
far back with the origins of society. The earliest period of time,
savagery, is — o r should b e —the special province of anthropology
am ong the sciences. As the study of prehistory o r precivilization,
an th ro p o lo g y h as the greatest relevance to the" w om an question’,’
as I have sought to indicate. Its findings, properly interpreted and
understood, can shatter m any of the p r e v a ilin g myths and prej­
udices ab o u t women an d provide a valuable means of helping
the liberation m ovem ent
F o r example, women in precivilized society were both economically
independent an d sexually free. They did not depend upon husbands,
fathers, o r m ale em ployers for their livelihoods, an d were not
hum ble an d grateful for whatever was thrown their way. In their
com m unal society they worked together with other women and men
for the benefit of the whole com m unity and shared the proceeds
of their lab o rs on a n equal basis. In accord with their custom,
they decided for themselves the conduct of their sexual lives. Ancient
women were not "objects” to be patronized, bullied, m anipulated,
o r exploited. As producers an d procreators, they were the acknowl­
edged leaders in a m atriarch al society and were held in the highest
ho n o r and respect by the men.
However, when such facts were first disclosed by the pioneer
anthropologists of the last century, these insights into the earliest
form s of social organization offended and alarm ed the guardians
of the status quo — as they do to this very day. Their objections
have h ad adverse effects upon the subsequent development of the
science of anthropology and, by the sam e token, have served to
deter an d delay the production of a complete and authentic history
of women.
There are political reasons for this stubborn resistance. The
discovery th at women have not alw ays been the "second sex,”
occupying a dow ntrodden status, but, on the contrary, once dis­
played immense, creative social an d cultural capacities, contained
dangerously " subversive” implications. It threatened to undermine
both m ale suprem acy an d capitalist dom ination. For, if it was true
that the female sex h ad played the cardinal p art in building that
 5

early com m unal society, why could they not do as well in recon­
structing social relations on a higher historical level?
Once the frustrated and rebellious women of today learned w hat
their female ancestors had performed in their time and w hat an
influential position they had held, they would h ardly be content
to rem ain in their present inferiority. Participants in the women’s
liberation movements would not only be encouraged but far better
equipped to engage in the struggles for the abolition of capitalist
society, which keeps them down, and for the building of a new
and better society, where all people an d both sexes would be free.
The writings of the founders of scientific socialism, M arx and
Engels, and of their disciples, pointed in that direction They taught
that the oppression an d degradation inflicted on women today
could not be separated from the exploitation of the w orking masses
by the capitalist profiteers. Therefore, women could secure full
control over their lives and reshape their destinies only as an
integral force in the world socialist revolution
This is the viewpoint of the writings in this pam phlet, m ost of
which have been previously published. They are a sm all contribu­
tion to the tremendous task that awaits the women of ou r revolu­
tionary epoch. In m aking o u r present and future history, we will
have to reconstruct o u r p ast history, no m atter how difficult that
m ay be. As the current reaw akening proceeds, I have no doubt
that more an d m ore women will critically review the long m arch
of mankind, m ake new discoveries, an d disseminate what is already
known about the true history of ou r sex.

June 15, 1969 Evelyn Reed

6

W O M E N A N D THE FAMILY

A Historical View

( This speech was presented M ay 9, 1969, at a forum sponsored

by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at E m ory University,
Atlanta, Georgia, at the sam e time, interestingly enough, that the
M iss E m ory Contest was taking place. The speech was p a rt of the
p ro g ra m of the First Southwide Socialist Conference, held that
weekend by the Y oung Socialist Alliance.)
* * *

Everyone here tonight is aw are th at we are living through a

period of grow ing social tensions and turbulence. This is evidenced
in the protest dem onstrations and liberation movements that keep
hitting the headlines. Forem ost is the anger against the w ar in
Vietnam, on which W ashington squanders billions of dollars while
neglecting the m ost elem entary needs of the American people for
housing, education, medical care, welfare, etc There are the up­
risings in the black communities, which are dem anding an end to
poverty an d racism. Students, outraged by the prevailing system
of coercion an d brainw ashing, are trying to liberate the colleges
an d high schools from dom ination by Big Business and the Big
Brass. It is therefore not at all surprising that, along with these
waves of discontent an d militancy, has come a reaw akening of
m oods an d m ovements for women’s liberation.
In the v an g u a rd are the young women of today, especially those
on the cam puses, who are questioning the old norm s and guide­
lines which narrow ed a w om an’s life down to husband, home,
an d family. They suspect th at they have been hoodwinked into
believing that women are the second or inferior sex, who should
be satisfied to be little m ore than household drudges or drones.
They feel quite rightly th at they have brains an d talents as well
as sexual and reproductive o rg ans and that they have been robbed
of their freedom to express their creative abilities in most spheres
of social life.
 7

However, they have difficulty in articulating their grievances

and form ulating their dem ands for a more m eaningful life and
bro ad er outlook than the one to which they are restricted. This
is not surprising in view of the size and scope of the problem.
The "w om an question” does not involve a m inority group; women
represent half the hum an species. Moreover, the subject touches
the most highly charged an d sensitive questions such as sexual
relations, family ties, and other intimate interpersonal matters.
One of the biggest stum bling blocks is the lack of factual inform a­
tion on the historical background of women and the family. This
serves to keep women in ignorance and subservience to the myths
that are propagated about them. Young women rebels instinctively,
feel that somehow, somewhere, and by some forces that aren’t
visible, they have been thrust into bondage and into their inferior
status. They do not know how this came a b o u t W hat they need
to know is: How did we get this way and who or w hat is respon­
sible? . y ,
Most women do not realize that their dilemma did not exist
before class society came into existence and robbed them of the
high position an d equality they once enjoyed in primitive society.
They are only dimly aware of the fact that the present subservience
of women goes h an d in hand with the exploitation of the working
people as a whole and with the discrim inations practiced against
blacks and other minorities. Consequently they do not yet realize
that once capitalist society is abolished and socialist relations are
established, women will be em ancipated as a sex by the sam e forces
that will liberate all w orkers and racial minorities from oppression
and alienation.
F o r these reasons m y presentation on the "w o m an question’
will start with the early history of m ankind. This takes us into the
field of anthropology, where very im portant things have been
discovered about the evolution of women, the family, an d hum anity
as a whole. First let us briefly review the development of anthropol­
ogy itself, in order to understand why so m any of these facts have
been so h ard to get at and have even been distorted and concealed.
Anthropology is one of the younger branches of the social sciences.
It is little more than a hundred years old. In the beginning it was
regarded by its founders as a science of social origins and evolu­
tion. T hrough their ihquiries they hoped to trace the development
of m ankind from the beginning up to civilization, or the historical
period. Anthropology, therefore, can also be defined as the study
of "prehistory.”
But precisely because it was a science of evolution, anthropology
went through a series of violent controversies. Like biology, which
came to the fore at about the sam e time in the nineteenth century,
this science shook up the prevailing misconceptions propagated
8

abo u t the p ast of m ankind and, in addition, started to dispel prej­

udices ab o u t wom ankind. It was therefore regarded by conserva­
tive forces as a potentially subversive science and barriers were
placed in the p ath of its full an d free developm ent
The first battle between outw orn dogm a and scientific discovery
took place in archaeology. According to the Old Testament, m an­
kind not only h ad h a d a divine origin but a short history of less
th an 5,000 years. However, the fossil bones and tools dug up
by the pioneer archaeologists dem onstrated that hum an life had
begun m an y m illennia before th a t This was a challenge to the
religious do g m as an d petrified ideas that prevailed in the last
century, an d at first the findings were greeted with scorn and de­
rision. Only after m any decades an d the accum ulation of over­
whelm ing evidence did resistance fade away. T oday it is accepted
by the scientific world that h u m an life began a million or more
years ago an d th at subhum an o r hom inid forms preceded m an­
kind’s evolution into H om o sapiens.
The next great battle ag ain st obscurantism cam e with the Darwin­
ian theory of organic evolution, which m ade clear the anim al
origin of m ankind. This was a far m ore serious blow to mystical-
religious d o g m a th an simply extending the history of m ankind
farther back in time. It carried the im plication that m an was not the
creation o f a divine Being but had m ade himself out of a branch
of the higher apes in the anim al world. The din and fury that
exploded aro u n d this antireligious theory lasted for several genera­
tions. In som e states it was forbidden by law to teach the theory
of evolution in schools. Only this year A rkansas was dragged
kicking an d scream ing into the twentieth century, when the valiant
fight of a w om an teacher forced the state to adm it the teaching
o f evolution into its schools. Resistance was broken down much
earlier in m ore enlightened p arts of the world, an d today the Darwin­
ian theory is accepted as the basic premise of procedure in the
scientific investigations of early m ankind.
The settlement of these struggles, which prim arily conflicted with
theological dogm as, did not resolve all the disputes that grew up
a ro u n d the y o u n g science of anthropology. The longest drawn
out battle—an d the one that continues to the present day —was
not w aged with religion but in sociology. The conclusions drawn
by the founders of anthropology showed that a totally different
kind of society had preceded o u r own system. And in certain spheres
of h u m an relations though not in others it was superior to ours,
for prim itive social organization rested upon genuine democracy
and complete equality, including sex equality.
The capitalist powers-that-be cannot tolerate sciences, from anthro­
pology to economics, that tell the whole truth about our society
as one which exploits and oppresses both w orkingm en and women.
 9

It is therefore not surprising that new schools of anthropologists

arose in the twentieth century which rejected the methods and find­
ings of the pioneer scholars and turned the science in a very dif­
ferent course and direction.
In the hands of these revisionists, anthropology fell from its
lofty and prom ising beginnings as a science of social evolution
to a mere descriptive catalog of a "variety” of cultures. Since m any
people, including students of anthropology, are h ardly aw are of
this development, let us see how it came a b o u t
The twin stars of anthropology in the nineteenth century were
Lewis M organ in the United States an d Edw ard T ylor in England.
They an d their colleagues were evolutionist in their approach and
proceeded on the basis that m ankind had developed through a
series of progressive stages in its ascent from the anim al world
to civilization. They were also substantially materialistic; that is,
they began with the activities of lab o r in securing the necessities
and conveniences of life an d on this economic foundation analyzed
the superstructural institutions, customs, ideas, and beliefs of prim i­
tive peoples.
The most successful exponent of this evolutionary and m aterialist
method was Lewis M organ, who used it to delineate the three
m ain stages of hum an advancement: from savagery through b a r­
barism to civilization. Today we can even assign time scales to
each of these three epochs. TTie earliest, savagery, was by far the
longest, occupying alm ost 99 percent of hum an life on earth. Bar­
barism began with agriculture and stock raising about 8,000
years ago, and civilization began a mere 5,000 years or so ago.
It is noteworthy that M arx an d Engels, the creators of scientific
socialism, were influenced and inspired by the works of both Darwin
and M organ. M arx was so impressed with Darwin’s insights that
he wanted to dedicate his m ajor life work, Capital, to him. Engels
later took up the key question that Darwin had posed but could
not answer: Ju st how did our progenitors am ong the higher apes
pass over into the earliest hum ans? In his essay,"T he P art Played
by L abor in the T ransition from Ape to M a n ,” Engels explained
that it was because of their systematic lab o r activities that the
anthropoid became the hum anoid. In this outline form Engels
was the first to present what can properly be called the "la b o r
theory of social origins.” And, as we shall see, this h as a very
im portant bearing on the "w om an question.”
In the case of anthropology, M organ’s book Ancient Society
was brought to M arx from the United States by the Russian so­
ciologist, M axim Kovalevsky. M arx immediately began m aking
notes on it to spell out his own conclusions on the early period
of social evolution. These were set forth, after the death of M arx,
by Engels in his famous book Origin o f the Family, Private Prop-
10

erty an d the State, which appeared in 1884. As he said in his

introduction to the first edition, " In America, M organ had, in a
m anner, discovered anew the m aterialist conception of history,
originated by M arx forty years ag o .”
Engels’ b o o k highlighted the sharp contrasts between primitive
classless society a n d o u r own class society an d drew the full so­
ciological conclusions from the m aterials gathered by the anthro­
pologists. M organ, Tylor, Rivers, and others were not looking
for a n equ alitarian society an d they did not have the slightest
notion in advance th at such a society h ad ever existed. But, as
scrupulous scholars who honestly an d accurately reported the
results of their researches, they discovered that the most basic
class institutions of o u r society were conspicuous by their absence
in sav ag e society. These points were elaborated by Engels in his
book.
First, the m eans of production were com m unally owned and every
m em ber of the com m unity was provided for on a n equal basis
with all the others. This is fundam entally different from our own
society. There w as no such thing as a wealthy ruling class standing
over a n d exploiting the w orking class for its aggrandizem ent As
a result, M o rg an and others called prim itive society a system of
"prim itiv e com m unism .”
Second, there w as no coercive state apparatus, with its bodies
of arm ed men an d police, to serve as the executive arm of the
wealthy ruling class and keep the w orking people in subjugation.
Prim itive trib al society w as self-governing an d democratic, a society
in which all the members were equals, women included.
Third, while o u r class society is p atriarch al in constitution, with
the father-fam ily as its unit, prim itive society was m atriarchal
an d its unit w as the m aternal gens or clan. M ore than this, male
suprem acy, buttressed by the m yth that women are the inferior
sex, exists only in o u r p atriarch a l class society. In the earlier
m atriarch al system founded on communistic principles, there was
no such thing as the dom ination of one sex over the other, just
as there w as no such thing as the domination- of a wealthy ruling
class over the w orking m ass.
Finally, the p ioneer an th ropologists discovered that^ the fam ily-
im it as we know**it did noT exisi TribaT society 'was composed of
a network of clans, each one consisting of social brothers and
sisters. Under their classificatory system of kinship, all the members
were identified not through separate family ties but through their
clan an d trib al connections.
Thus, through their com parative historical method, the early
anthropologists unwittingly spotlighted the key institutions of our
capitalist society by discovering their complete absence in prim i­
tive society. These, ap propriately enough, became the title of Engels'
 11

book: Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Engels
also emphasized that when these class institutions did not exist,
the women occupied a very high position, enjoying great freedom
an d independence in m arked contrast to the subordinate and de­
graded position of women throughout class society.
The disclosure of these sharp contrasts between the two social
system s—the primitive equalitarian system and our oppressive
capitalist system —dealt shattering blows to some of the key fic­
tions that are circulated in o u r culture. It would be difficult to say
which was m ost distressing to the powers-that-be: the fact that
primitive society was collectivist, equalitarian, and democratic; or
the fact that it was m atriarchal, with women occupying influential
and respected positions in the community. Equally upsetting was
the evidence that the father-family, which we are told has existed
forever, h ad actually arrived late in history, and its origin was
coincident with the change from the m atriarchal to the patriarchal
social order.
It was these findings, an d even more the radical conclusions
draw n from them by the M arxists, which provoked the long and
bitter struggles between the conflicting schools of anthropology.
The new trends that arose in the twentieth century repudiated the
method an d findings of the founding scholars, characterizing
M organ, Tylor and the rest as "old-fashioned” and "out-of-date.”
Although they are divided into various tendencies, am ong them
the "diffusionists,” the "functionalists,” and the "structuralists,”
the differences am ong them are m inor com pared to their common
opposition to an y historical or m aterialist approach to anthro­
pology. Their positions are best represented by the disciples of
Franz Boas in the United States, Radcliffe-Brown in England, and
Levi-Strauss in France.
These descriptionists of all sorts have rejected any unified concept
of m an’s historical progress and largely limit themselves to study­
ing the cultures an d customs of separate groups of primitive peoples,
com paring them with one another or with civilized society. Their
m ain aim is to establish that a variety or diversity of cultures
has alw ays existed. This fact is undeniable. But such an elementary
observation does not preclude the more advanced scientific need
for establishing the stages of social development that m ankind
has traversed in the course of its long and complex evolution.
As Prof. Leslie A. White of the University of Michigan says of
these descriptionists:
" In addition to being anti-materialistic, they are anti-intellectual-
istic o r anti-philosophic— regarding theorizing with contem pt—
an d anti-evolutionist It has been their mission to dem onstrate
that there are no laws o r significance to ethnology, that there is
no rhyme or reason in cultural phenom ena, that civilization is —
12

in the w ords of R H. Lowie, the forem ost exponent of this phi­

lo so p h y — merely a *planless hodge-podge,’ a 'chaotic jum ble.’ ”
( Philosophy fo r the Future)
In fact, this "ch ao tic jum ble” does not exist either in history o r
prehistory itself but in the m inds and methods of these anthro­
pologists. They hav e taken a unified historical process an d dis­
membered it into a "planless hodge-podge” of descriptive data.
In doing so, they have chopped off the earliest an d longest period
of h u m an history, the period of the m atriarchal system of social
organization. Yet it is precisely this period which gives us the es­
sential inform ation for understanding the problem s connected with
women an d the family. Let us go on to exam ine this aspect of
prehistory.
One of the favorite fables of o u r society is that women are by
natu re the inferior sex an d they are inferior because of their child­
b earin g functions. As this story goes, a w om an is bogged down
in the hom e because she m ust take care of her child; therefore
women’s place is in the home. As a "h o m e-b o d y ,” she is of course,
socially speaking, a "n o b o d y ,” the "second sex,” while the men
who are forem ost in economic, political, and intellectual life are
the su perior sex. A ccording to this patriarchal p ro p ag an d a, the
m aternal functions of women are used to justify the inequalities
between the sexes in o u r society and the degraded position occupied
by women.
The discovery of the leading position occupied by women in
prim itive m atriarch al society challenged this capitalist myth. Savage
women bore children and yet they were free, independent, and
right in the center of social and cultural life. This hit a very sen­
sitive spot, for it involved not only the "w om an question” but
also the "sacred fam ily.” The contrast was aggravated by the fact
that, alo n g with all the other equalities an d freedoms, there were
also free sexual relations for women as for men, in sharp dis­
tinction to the rigid sexual restrictions imposed upon women in our
m ale-dom inated society.
Another feature of early society the diehards have found hard
to accept was the fact that primitive people did not know or care
about the individual parentage of any child. Children were not
possessed like other articles of private property no r were they alien­
ated from one another according to the family’s wealth, class, or
race. All adults in a clan com m unity regarded themselves as the
social paren ts of all the children, providing for them equally.
There w as no such shocking and depraved situation as an over­
pam pered child on the one h an d an d neglected, sick and hungry
children on the other. In their com m unal society, where the in­
dividual fam ily did not yet exist, know ing who was the biological
fath er— o r even m other—w as irrelevant and immaterial.
 13

These disturbing discoveries were hard to swallow and met with

great resistance. The counterpositions taken by the dissenters can
be summed up in two statements: 1) There had never been a
m atriarchal constitution of society; savage women were just as
degraded as their civilized sisters today. The most that could be
said is that, in the " variety” of cultures, some groups h ad adopted
the quaint custom of m atrilineal kinship and descent, although
how or why this oddity had come about was left unexplained.
2) The nuclear family as we know it today was not a late develop­
ment in history as the founding anthropologists and M arxists
stated. It h as always existed and it has always been a father-
family.
These two propositions, that the m atriarchy h ad never existed
and the father-family has alw ays existed, go hand in hand. They
are the m ain stumbling blocks to further theoretical progress in
anthropology and in getting a true picture of the early history of
women. Let us therefore briefly review some of the evidence on the
priority of the m atriarchal system of social organization.
The term "m atriarch y ” was coined after the publication in 1861
of J. J. Bachofen’s study, Das Muiterrecht, where he called atten­
tion to the high position of women in ancient society. Trying to
fathom the reason for it, he came to the conclusion that since
free sexual relations h ad prevailed and the fathers of the children
were unknown, this gave women their leading status in the period
he called "m o th er-rig h t”
Essentially, this thesis placed all the emphasis upon the child­
bearing functions of women as the source of their power. This was
a p arad o x since in o u r society the m ain reason assum ed to ac­
count for women’s inferior status is their procreative functions.
How, then, did it come about th a t what we consider to be the
most serious handicap of women, their functions as mothers, gave
them so superior a position in primitive society?
This perplexing riddle went unanswered until 1927 when Robert
Briffault published his study, The Mothers. He dem onstrated that
women h ad acquired their leading place in primitive society not
simply because they were the procreators of new life, but because,
as a result of this particular function, they became the prim ordial
producers of the necessities of life. In other words, at a certain
point in the struggle to survive and to feed and care for their
offspring, they took to the ro ad of labor activities, an d this new
function made them the founders and leaders of the earliest form
of social life.
M any scholars such as V. Gordon Childe, Sir Jam es Frazer,
Otis Tufton M ason, as well as Briffault, have cited in detail the
vast range of productive activities of primitive women and the
crucial p art they played in elevating m ankind out of the lowly
14

sav ag e economy. To sum it up, during the period when men were
occupied as full-time hunters and w arriors, women developed most
of the basic tools, skills, an d techniques at the base of social ad­
vancem ent F ro m food collecting they moved on to simple horti­
culture an d then to agriculture. Out of the great variety of crafts
they practiced, which included pot-m aking, leather-m aking, textile-
m aking, house-building, etc., they developed the rudiments of botany,
chem istry, medicine, and other branches of scientific knowledge.
T hus wom en were not only the first industrial workers and farmers
but also developed their m inds an d intellects through their varieties
of w ork so th at they became the prim e educators, passing on their
skills and cultural heritage to new generations of producers.
As Engels pointed out, all societies have rested upon the twin
pillars of production an d procreation. Thus it was the women —
the producers of both new life an d the m aterial necessities of life—
who became the social leaders and governesses of their comm uni­
ties. And they were able to accom plish this because they worked
together, as a collective com m unity of producers, and were not
dispersed into separate households where each individual wom an
w ould be bogged down with the same tasks for their individual
children. They could do all this because there was no ruling power
standing over them telling them what to do or restricting their
efforts.
This explains why the earliest society was m atriarchal in con­
stitution with the women occupying the central place in i t Their
productive activities were the source of their social power. In. this
c o u n tr y th e . Am erican Indians called their_jvom en the "female
governesses” of the Claris a n d tribes” and held them in the highest
regard. W hen the earliest settlers came here from the civilized
p atriarch a l nations in Europe, where women h ad long since become
degraded, they were astonished that these "sav ag es” would make
no im portant collective decisions without the agreement and consent
of their women.
Here, then, from evidence of the past, we have a refutation of
the m yth th at women have alw ays been the inferior sex and that
their place h as alw ays been in the home. F o r when we put to­
gether Briffault5s m atriarch al theory with Engels’ lab o r theory of
social origins, we find that, far from being mere home-bodies,
wom en were the creators and custodians of the first social organiza­
tion of m ankind.
As Engels dem onstrated, it was through productive activities
that m ankind arose out of the anim al world. M ore concretely,
then, it w as the female h alf of hum anity who initiated and led in
these productive activities an d who must therefore be credited with
the m ajo r share in this great act of creation and elevation of
hum anity. This is a view of the p art played by women in history
 15

quite different from that of the Biblical Eve who, in the later pa­
triarchal era, was m ade responsible for the "dow nfall of m an.”
In reality, what occurred at that m ajor turning point in social
evolution was the downfall of woman.
How did this drastic reversal come about? It began with great
changes in the structure of society and the breakdow n of the orig­
inal communistic system. So long as women retained their collec­
tivist institutions they could not be overthrown. But with the rise
of the new system of p rivate property, m onoganiojus .m arriag e
and the family, women were dispersed, each to become a solitary
wife aurid mother- in~^fT “m'dividual home. So long as they kept
together, they represented a great social force. Separated and iso­
lated from one another and confined to kitchen and nursery chores,
they were rendered powerless. This historical process, however,
has been obscured or denied by those who uphold the myths which
declare that the institution of m arriage and the family has always
existed and is imperishable.
Edw ard Westermarck, who has long been regarded as the chief
authority on m arriage and the family, has even traced the roots
of this institution back to the anim al world. His thesis is w rong
because he m akes no distinction between the natural needs and
functions which we share with the anim als and social institutions
which are exclusively created by hum ans. Thus, while we share
with the anim als the natu ral functions of sex and procreation,
there is no such thing in the anim al world as an institution of
m arriage o r the father-family. It is possible to speak of a "m other-
family,” although this should more accurately be called a "m aternal
brood.” In nature, it is the mother who feeds and cares for her
offspring until they are old enough to provide for themselves.
Then, even this "m other-fam ily” breaks up and the individuals
go off on their own.
When we pass from the anim al to the ancient hum an world,
there is still no family in existence. W hat we find is the m aternal
gens o r clan. This is a group of people who live and work together
as clan brothers and sisters. In other words, ancient society was
not only a m atriarchy but a fratriarchy— a " brotherhood” of men.
To the children all the older women were "m others” and all the
older men "m others’ brothers” or "m aternal uncles.” Thus in m any
primitive languages the term "clan ” is also translated as "m other­
hoo d ” or "brotherhood.”
This clan society is a signal departure from anim al conditions
of life. There is no such brotherhood of males in the anim al world;
on the contrary, the world of nature is to m by strife and the strug­
gles of anim als competing with one another for food and for mates.
In tribal society, on the other hand, all the clansm en were united
in solidarity and fraternity on the basis of the collectivist principles
16

in productive an d social life.

This position of the men as m others’ brothers is one of the most
telling proofs of the p rio rity of the m atriarchal system. T hrough­
out the prim itive world, wherever the father-family has not yet
appeared o r is only poo rly developed, it is the m others’ brothers
who perform those functions th at in our society are assum ed by
the fathers. A good description of this institution, which is some­
times called the "av u n cu late,” is given by the anthropologist E.
A dam son Hoebel:
" T h e nuclear basis of the susu [m otherhood] is the brother-
sister relationship. The h u sb and does not enter it at alL . .His
role, except as p rocreator, is replaced in p a rt o r wholly by the
m other’s brother. . .The m ain burden of educating the boys in
men’s w ork falls on the m other’s brother. His nephews inherit
m ost of their goods from him. . .W here the susu is highly institu­
tionalized, the father as we know him is alm ost entirely ruled out
of the picture.” ( M an in the Prim itive World)
These facts ab o u t the m other-brother clan as the original economic
unit of trib al society refute the claim that the father-family has
alw ays existed. This claim is usually m ade on the basis of the
economic dependency of women; without a husband who would
support a w om an an d her children? In other words, we are led
to believe that women have alw ays been helpless, dependent
creatures, an d that without a father standing at the head of each
little fam ily unit, society w ould practically collapse.
But the facts of early h u m an history prove otherwise Primitive
society not only survived but thrived and it did so because in their
com m unal system all the women collectively perform ed mother-
functions an d all the men collectively perform ed father-functions
to all the children of the community. No w om an was dependent
upo n an y individual m an for her support, nor was any child
dependent upon an y individual father or even m other for its sup­
port.
In the course of time the first " m a rita l couples” o r "p airin g
families” cam e into existence and the husbands of the women
supplanted their clan brothers as the new economic partners. How­
ever, so long as the com m unity retained its collectivist principles,
there was no such thing as family dependency or family inequalities.
The whole society m ade provision for every single member in it,
an d all the adults were, socially speaking, the" mothers and fathers”
of all the children in the community. Brothership was still the
basis of social relations.
When the E uropean conquerors came over to this country looking
for gold an d met the aborigines living here, neither side could
understand the outlook, customs, and standards of the other; they
spoke different "so cial” languages. F or example, when Father
 17

Le Jeune asked an Iroquois Indian how he could be so fond of

children which admittedly were not his own, "the Indian looked
at him contemptuously and replied: 'T h o u hast no sense. You. . .
love only your own children; we love all the children of the tribe
. . .We are all father and mother to them.”
Another Jesuit m issionary, dumbfounded by the contrast between
the greedy, money-mad civilized society he had left in Europe and
the generous spirit of the aborigines am ong whom he had settled,
wrote as follows:
" These savages know nothing of mine and thine, for it m ay be
said that w hat belongs to one belongs to another. . .It is only
those who are Christians and dwell at the gates of our towns
who make use of money. The others will not touch it They call
it the 'S nake of the French.’ They say that am ongst us folks will
rob, slander, betray and sell one another for money. . .They think
it strange that someone should have more goods than others, and
that those who have more should be more esteemed than those
who have less. They never quarrel and fight am ongst themselves,
n o r steal from one another, or speak ill of one another.” (Cited
by Robert Briffault in The Mothers.)
The disintegration of this com m unal society began some six to
eight thousand y e a rs ago with the introducfion of large-scale a g ri­
culture and stock ra ising. This brought about the m aterial ^qrpluges
“required for_ a more efficient economy an d ^ a new m ode of life.
Farm ing requires groups of people stabilized a ro u n d ’ plots’" of
ground, tilling the soil, rarsiri^'Rvesfbck, and engaginglrT village
industries. ~~The old sprawling tribal commune began to Break
'down: first into separate clans, then into separate farm families
often called "extended families,” and finally into the individual
family which we call the "nuclear family.” It was in the course
of this process that the father-family completely displaced the clan
as the basic unit of society.
It is significant that in the early agricultural period these father-
families still operated under the principles of equality and democ­
racy inherited from the p a s t As farm families, they were large
producing groups, with all the members w orking together to sus­
tain themselves, their children, and the old folks. In addition, all
the families of a farm community cooperated in large undertakings,
such as clearing the land, planting and harvesting the crops, house
construction, irrigation projects, and so on. The fathers of the
families composed the village fathers who supervised these projects
and were concerned with the welfare of the whole community. Under
these conditions of collective family life, the women still retained a
relatively high position in productive and social life.
However, beginning in the Middle East, that sector of the world
called the "crad le of civilization,” new social forces came into
18

play which underm ined an d destroyed the collectivist relations

an d introduced a wholly new system founded upon private property,
the family, an d the state. The lion’s share of the wealth fell into
the h an d s of a privileged m inority who came to dom inate and
exploit the great m ajority of w orking people. Out of the old village
fathers there arose the priest-kings, nobles, w arlords and their
retinues, living in temples an d palaces and ruling over the general
population. Starting with the agricultural kingdom s and m aturing
with the civilizations of Greece and Rome, there arose the oppressive
power of the state to legalize and perpetuate this rulership of the
wealthy class over the w orking mass.
This process was as much a destruction of the fratriarchy or
"b ro th erh o o d of men” as it was of the m atriarchy. The Roman
jurists who codified the laws pertaining to private property also
form ulated the principle of " p a tria potestas,” all power to the
father. Briffault tells us the following about the origins of the p a­
triarch al constitution of class society:
"T h e p atriarch al principle, the legal provision by which the m an
transm its his pro p erty to his son, was evidently an innovation of
the 'p atrician s,’ that is, of the partisans of the patriarchal order,
the wealthy, the owners of property. They disintegrated the prim i­
tive m other-clan by form ing p atriarch a l families, which they 'led
out o f ’the clan. . .The patricians set up th ep atem al rule of descent,
an d regarded the father, and not the mother, as the basis of kin­
ship.” ( The Mothers.)
M ore consequential than the change in the basis of kinship were
the new property laws. F orm erly all property was com m unally
owned an d handed down from mother-clans to daughter-clans
for the benefit of all the clan brothers and sisters. Now property
w as owned by the individual father and handed down in the family
line from father to son. The female members of the family were
supported by the father until their m arriage, when their husbands
took over this responsibility. Thus male dom ination and power
did not come from an y superior biological, physical or mental
attributes of males over females, but from a social-economic source—
their newly acquired m onopoly of property ownership and its
transm ission through the p atriarch a l family line.
It was the drastic social changes brought about by the patriarchal
class institutions of the family, private property, and the state
which produced the historic downfall of the female sex. In the
new society men became the principal producers, while the women
were relegated to home an d family servitude. Dispossessed from
their form er place in society at large, they were robbed not only
of their economic independence but also of their former sexual
freedom. The new institution of m onogam ous m arriage arose to
serve the needs of men of property.
 19

A m an of wealth required a wife to give him legal heirs who

would take his nam e and inherit his property. F o r this reason
m onogam y was introduced and prevailed. It actually meant m onog­
am y for the wife only, since only the wom an was severely punished
by her spouse o r by law if she broke her m arriage vows. Hemmed
in on all sides, women became household chattels whose param ount
function in life was to serve the husbands who were their lords
and masters. The very term "fam ily,” which came into existence
along with the system of private property, originally signified
this domestic slavery. As Engels says:
"F am u lu s m eans domestic slave, and familia is the aggregate
num ber of slaves belonging to one man. . .The expression was
invented by the Romans to designate a new social organism , the
head of which h ad a wife, children, and a num ber of slaves under
his authority and according to Rom an law the right of life and
death over all of them.” ( Origin of the Family.)
It is not generally know n that legal m arriage was originally
instituted for the propertied classes alone. The w orking people,
sustained by their agricultural labor, simply mated as they h ad
in the past, since in primitive society legal m arriage was neither
necessary n o r desirable. But with the rise of u rb an life and the
church, m arriage was g radually extended to the industrial pop­
ulation so that working men would be legally obliged to support
wives and children who h ad no other means of support. As the
American sociologists, Reuter and Runner, note the consequences:
"W hen w om an ceased to be a producer she became a dependent
The entire support of wife and family was thrown upon the man,
and m arriage, perhaps for the first time in the world, became
a serious economic burden. Law and religion sp ran g to its support
and propagated an d enforced a new id ea—that the support of
women and children was a natural obligation and duty of m an.”
( The Fam ily.)
In other words, a new myth arose to cover up the fact that not
only women but also w orking men have been exploited and robbed
by this capitalist society. Form erly it was the whole community
that provided for and protected every individual, adults and child­
ren alike, from the cradle to the grave. But now this immense
responsibility has been thrown upon each little family unit which
must shift for itself as best it can. F a r from being what it is said
to be, the institution of m arriage and the family has become an
economic prisonhouse in which the whole burden of support for
a family of dependents is thrown upon one parent o r perhaps
both. Even worse, there is no guarantee whatever that the father
o r mother will always have the jobs o r adequate pay to fulfill
their obligations.
Here, then, in this historical rundown, we can see the great im­
20

portance of an th ro p o lo g y as a guide to the study of women and

the family. It dispels m any m yths that have been propagated on
the subject an d gives us an insight into the true facts.
Thus, according to the Old Testament, we are told that the world
began som e 5,000 years ago. In reality only the p atriarch al world
began a ro u n d that time, and it was preceded by alm ost a million
years of m atriarch al history. A gain, we are told that our society
founded upon p rivate property, with its discrim inations, oppressions,
selfishness an d greed, has alw ays existed, an d that its evils are
due to an unchanging "h u m a n nature.” But from anthropology
we learn that a totally different kind of hum an nature existed
in prim itive society, an d precisely because it was a collectivist
society.
Finally, we are told that women have alw ays been the inferior
sex an d this is due to their child-bearing functions. M other N ature
is m ade responsible for the degradation of the mothers of the
h u m an race. Here again, an thropology tells us just the opposite.
It w as not nature but class society which is responsible for sexual
inequality. It w as only when their own com m unal society was
overthrow n that these form er governesses of society were defeated
and sent, dispersed an d fragmentized, into individual households
and the stifling life of kitchen an d nursery chores.

All this knowledge that we can gain from a study of prehistory

will not only help women to understand their present dilemma
but also provide guidelines on how to proceed in the struggle for
wom en’s em ancipation, which is ag ain com ing to the fore. M any
articles are being written an d voices raised in dem ands for women’s
liberation. M ost significant, women have been pouring out of their
little isolated homes to join together on the streets in protest demon­
strations ag ain st the w ar as well as for other dem ands specifically
concerning women. These developments are still only in their ini­
tial stage. But they are harbingers of bigger things to come.
In this new phase of the struggle it is im perative for women to
w ork out an effective theory and p ro g ram which corresponds to
their needs and can realize their objectives. This has yet to be done.
F or exam ple, the New York 'Times last y ear interviewed women
in the liberation group called NOW, the N ational O rganization
for W omen, headed by Betty Friedan, au th o r of The Feminine
M ystique. The 'Times article called it "T h e Second Feminist W ave.”
The first em erged durin g the last century in the suffragette move­
ment. At that time women won a num ber of im portant reforms:
the right to hold property in their own name, the vote, and so on.
So the article asked: "W h at Do These Women Want?”
According to the placards borne by the m arching women in the
photographs, they wanted more rights: the right to better jobs
 21

and pay; the right to abortions; to more seats on government

committees, and so on. In general the article summed up their de­
m ands as "full equality for all women in America, in truly equal
partnership with men NOW.” But there was no nam ing of the
class forces that have prevented this equality, no r did the article
spell out the methods of struggle that are required to win these
demands.
Other tendencies, am ong them the Boston-based Female Libera­
tion Movement, are seriously seeking a basic p rogram and correct
orientation. A few, such as the organization called SCUM (Society
for the Cutting Up of Men), have little more to recommend them
than a "h ate men” philosophy. The picturesque names and aggres­
sive attitudes of such groups as W ITC H (W omen’s International
Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) create a bit of a scandal. This
is not all bad since they call attention to the fact that women are
consciously opposing male suprem acy and m ale chauvinism and
openly challenging the myth of male superiority.
New ideas and forward steps in action usually do provoke scan­
dals precisely because they upset the status quo and disturb those
who are satisfied with things as they are. However, it is not enough
simply to create a sensation. It is essential to provide a firm theo­
retical foundation for consistent action directed tow ard m ajor social
change.
Hatred of a social curse which is p art an d parcel of an exploita­
tive society that discriminates not only against women but also
against other sections of society should not be confused with "h atred
of men.” The enemy is not one sex or the other—it is the capitalist
system which needs, breeds and feeds upon oppressions of all
kinds.
After all, very few women would really advocate a society of
"w om en only” with all the men exiled to the moon. W hat we
need is a realistic p ro g ram and m ass movement which is directed
against the real enemy — the capitalist system. M any men would
welcome and participate in a liberation struggle involving women
which would, in the process, liberate them as well. That is why
both sexes should join together on the campuses, in their places
of work, and elsewhere to win their emancipation through a revolu­
tionary socialist movement.
22

THE MYTH OF

W O M E N ’S INFERIORITY

The historical prio rity of the m atriarchy still rem ains one of the
m ost disputed issues in anthropological theory. Investigators, con­
fronted with the evidence, m ay be b rought to concede with some
reluctance th at prim itive society w as collectivistic and constituted
a trib al "b ro th erh o o d .” However, they still draw back from the
proposition that it w as a m atriarchal brotherhood, with women
holding the leading place.
Some of this resistance comes from the m istaken assum ption
that a m atriarch al society w ould have to be a m irror-im age of
class society, except that it would feature female dom ination instead
of m ale suprem acy. Since the record contains not the slightest
evidence o f such a reversal, it would seem to confirm the contention
th at the m atriarch al social order never existed.
This conclusion fails to take into account the fact that the m a­
triarchy, which w as a system of "prim itive com m unism ,” excluded
the subjection of one section of society to another and by the same
token precluded an y of the oppressive features of class society,
including sexual oppression.
The following article, first published in the Spring 1954 issue
of Fourth International, reviewed the productive activities and
cultural achievements of early women as the m aterial basis for
the high social position they occupied. This data not only explodes
the m yth of women’s inferiority but also serves to refute the con­
ventional view th at h um anity never passed through a m atriarchal
epoch.
* * *

One of the conspicuous features of capitalism , and of class society

in general, is the inequality of the sexes. Men are the m asters in
economic, cultural, political and intellectual life, while women play
a subordinate an d even subm issive role. Only in recent years have
women come out o f the kitchens and nurseries to challenge men’s
 23
m onopoly. But the essential inequality still remains.
This inequality of the sexes has m arked class society from its
very inception several thousand years ago, and has persisted
throughout its three m ain stages: chattel slavery, feudalism and
capitalism. F or this reason class society is aptly characterized
as male-dominated. This dom ination has been upheld and perpetu­
ated by the system of private property, the state, the church and
the form of family that served men’s interests.
On the basis of this historical situation, certain false claims re­
garding the social superiority of the male sex have been propagated.
It is often set forth as an imm utable axiom that men are socially
superior because they are naturally superior. Male supremacy,
according to this myth, is not a social phenom enon at a particular
stage of history, but a n atu ral law. Men, it is claimed, are endowed
by nature with superior physical and m ental attributes.
An equivalent myth about women has been propagated to support
this claim. It is set forth as an equally immutable axiom that women
are socially inferior because they are naturally inferior to men.
And what is the proof? They are the mothers! Nature, it is claimed,
has condemned the female sex to an inferior status.
This is a falsification of natural an d social history. It is not
nature, but class society, which lowered women and elevated men.
Men won their social suprem acy in struggle against and conquest
over the women. But this sexual struggle was p a rt and parcel of a
great social struggle—the overturn of primitive society and the
institution of class society. W omen’s inferiority is the product of a
social system which has produced and fostered innum erable other
inequalities, inferiorities, discrim inations and degradations. But this
social history has been concealed behind the myth that women
are naturally inferior to men.
It is not nature, but class society, which robbed women of their
right to participate in the higher functions of society and placed
the p rim ary emphasis upon their anim al functions of maternity.
And this robbery was perpetrated through a two-fold myth. On
the one side, m otherhood is represented as a biological affliction
arising out of the m aternal o rgans of women. Alongside this v ulgar
materialism, m otherhood is represented as being something alm ost
mystical. To console women for their status as second-class citizens,
mothers are sanctified, endowed with halos and blessed with special
"instincts,” feelings and knowledge forever beyond the comprehen­
sion of men. Sanctity and degradation are simply two sides of the
sam e coin of the social robbery of women under class society.
But class society did not alw ays exist; it is only a few thousand
years old. Men were not always the superior sex, for they were not
alw ays the industrial, intellectual and cultural leaders. Quite the
contrary. In primitive society, where women were neither sanctified
24

n o r degraded, it w as the women who were the social and cultural

leaders.
Primitive society was organized as a m atriarchy which, as in­
dicated by its very name, was a system where women, not men,
were the leaders and organizers. But the distinction between the two
social systems goes beyond this reversal of the leadership role of
the two sexes. The leadership of women in primitive society was
not founded upon the dispossession of the men. On the contrary,
prim itive society knew no social inequalities, inferiorities or dis­
crim inations of an y kind. Primitive society was completely equali-
tarian. In fact, it was through the leadership of the women that the
m en were b rought forw ard out of a m ore backw ard condition into
a higher social and cultural role.
In this early society m aternity, far from being an affliction or a
bad g e of inferiority, was regarded as a great natu ral endowm ent
M otherhood invested women with power and prestige— and there
were very good reasons for this.
H um anity aro se out of the anim al kingdom . N ature had endowed
only one of the sexes— the female sex—with the org an s and func­
tions of m aternity. This biological endowment provided the natural
bridge to hum anity, as Robert Briffault h as am ply dem onstrated
in his w ork The Mothers. It was the female of the species who had
the care and responsibility of feeding, tending and protecting the
young.
However, as M arx and Engels have dem onstrated, all societies
both p a st an d present are founded upon labor. Thus, it was not
sim ply the capacity of women to give birth that played the decisive
role, for all female anim als also give birth. W hat was decisive
for the h u m an species was the fact that m aternity led to la b o r—
and it was in the fusion of m aternity and labor that the first hum an
social system was founded.
It w as the m others who first took the road of labor, and by the
sam e token blazed the trail tow ard hum anity. It was the mothers
who becam e the chief producers; the w orkers and farmers; the lead­
ers in scientific, intellectual an d cultural life. And they became all
this precisely because they were the mothers, and in the beginning
m aternity w as fused with labor. This fusion still rem ains in the
lan g u ag es of primitive peoples, where the term for "m other” is
identical with "producer-procreatrix.”
We do not d raw the conclusion from this that women are thereby
natu rally the superior sex. Each sex arose out of natural evolution,
an d each played its specific and indispensable role. However, if
we use the sam e yardstick for women of the past as is used for
m en to d a y —social leadership — then we m ust say that women were
the leaders in society long before men, and for a far longer stretch
 25

of time.
Our aim in this presentation is to destroy once and for all the
myth perpetuated by class society that women are naturally or in­
nately inferior. The most effective way to dem onstrate this is to
first of all set down in detail the lab o r record of primitive women.

Control of the Food Supply

The quest for food is the most compelling concern of any society,
for no higher forms of lab o r are possible unless and until people
are fed. W hereas anim als live on a day-to-day basis of food-hunt­
ing, hum anity had to win some m easure of control over its food
supply if it was to move forw ard and develop. Control means
not only sufficient food for today but a surplus for tom orrow,
and the ability to preserve stocks for future use.
From this standpoint, hum an history can be divided into two
m ain epochs: the food-gathering epoch, which extended over hun­
dreds of thousands of years; and the food-producing epoch, which
began with the invention of agriculture and stockbreeding, not much
more than 8,000 years ago.
In the food-gathering epoch the first division of labor was very
simple. It is generally described as a sexual division, o r division
of lab o r between the female an d male sexes. (Children contributed
their share as soon as they were old enough, the girls being trained
in female occupations and the boys in mede occupations.) The
nature of this division of labor was a differentiation between the
sexes in the methods an d kinds of food-gathering. Men were the
hunters of big g am e—a full-time occupation which took them
away from home o r camp for longer o r shorter periods of time.
Women were the collectors of vegetable products around the camp
or dwelling places.
Now it must be understood that, with the exception of a few spe­
cialized areas in the world at certain historical stages, the m ost
reliable sources for food supplies were not anim al (supplied by
the m an) but vegetable (supplied by the women.) As Otis Tufton
M ason writes:
"W herever tribes of m ankind have gone, women have found
out that great staple productions were to be their chief reliance.
In Polynesia it is taro, o r breadfruit In Africa it is the palm and
tapioca, millet or yam s. In Asia it is rice. In Europe cereals. In
America co m and potatoes or acorns and pinions in some places."
( Woman's Share in Primitive Culture.)
Alexander Goldenweiser m akes the sam e point:
"Everyw here the sustenance of this p art of the household is more
regularly and reliably provided by the efforts of the home-bound
wom an th an by those of her roving hunter husband o r son. It
26

is, in fact, a fam iliar spectacle am ong all primitive peoples that
the m an, returning hom e from a more o r less arduous chase, m ay
yet reach hom e em pty-handed and himself longing for food. Under
such conditions, the vegetable supply of the fam ily has to serve
his needs as well as those of the rest of the household.” (Anthro­
p o lo g y .)
Thus the m ost reliable supplies of food were provided by the
women collectors, not the men hunters.
But women were also hunters — hunters of what is known as
slow gam e an d sm all game. In addition to digging up roots,
tubers, plants, etc., they collected grubs, bugs, lizards, molluscs
and sm all anim als such as hares, m arsupials, etc. This activity
of the women was of decisive im portance. F o r m uch of this sm all
gam e w as b rought back to the cam p alive, and these anim als pro ­
vided the basis for the first experience and experiments in anim al
tam ing and domestication.
Thus it was in the h an d s of women that the all-im portant tech­
niques of anim al dom estication began, which were ultimately cli­
m axed in stock breeding. And this dom estication had its roots in
m aternity. On this score, M ason writes:
"N o w the first dom estication is sim ply the adoption of helpless
infancy. The young kid o r lam b or calf is brought to the home
of the hunter. It is fed an d caressed by the m other and her chil­
dren, and even nourished at her breast. Innum erable references
m ight be given to her caging and tam ing of wild creatures. . .
W om en were alw ays associated especially with the milk and fleece-
giving species of domestic anim als.” (Ibid.)
W hile one aspect of women’s food-gathering activity was thus
leading to the discovery of anim al domestication, another aspect
was leading to the discovery of agriculture. This was women’s
lab o r in p lying their digging-sticks —one of the earliest tools of
hum anity — to procure food from the ground. To this day, in
som e backw ard areas of the world, the digging-stick rem ains as
inseparable a p a rt of the w om an as her baby. When the Shoshone
Indians of N ev ad a and W yom ing, for example, were discovered,
they were called "T h e Diggers” by the white men, because they
still employed this technique in securing food supplies.
And it was through this digging-stick activity that women ul­
tim ately discovered agriculture. Sir Jam es Frazer gives a good
description of this process in its earliest stages. Using the natives
of Central Victoria, A ustralia, as an example, he writes:
"T h e implement which they used to dig roots with was a pole
seven o r eight feet long, hardened in the fire and pointed at the
end, which also served them as a weapon of offense and defense.
Here we m ay detect some of the steps by which they advanced
 27

from digging to systematic cultivation of the soil.

"T he long stick is driven firmly into the ground, where it is
shaken so as to loosen the earth, which is scooped up and thrown
out with the fingers of the left hand and in this m anner they dig
with great rapidity. But the lab o r in proportion to the am ount
gained, is great. To get a yam about half an inch in circumference,
they have to dig a hole about a foot square, and two feet in depth.
A considerable portion of the time of the women and children is
therefore passed in this em ploym ent
" In fertile districts, where the yam s grow abundantly, the ground
may be riddled with holes; literally perforated with them. The
effect of digging up the earth in the search for roots and yam s
has been to enrich and fertilize the soil, and so to increase the
crop of roots and herbs. W innowing of the seeds on the ground
which has thus been turned up with the digging sticks would na­
turally contribute to the sam e result It is certain that winnowing
seeds, where the wind carried some of the seeds away, bore fruit.”
( The Golden Bough.)
In the course of time, the women learned how to aid nature by
weeding out the garden patches and protecting the grow ing plants.
And finally, they learned how to plant seeds and wait for them to
grow.
Not only were quantity and quality improved, but a whole series
of new species of plants and vegetables were brought into existence.
According to Chappie & Coon:
"T h ro u g h cultivation, the selective process h ad produced m any
new species or profoundly altered the character of the old. In
M elanesia people grow yam s six feet long and a foot or more
thick. The m iserable roots which the A ustralian digs wild from
the ground is no more volum inous than a cigar.” (Principles
of Anthropology. )
M ason sums up the steps taken in agriculture as follows:
" The evolution of primitive agriculture was first through seeking
after vegetables, to m oving near them, weeding them out, sowing
the seed, cultivating them by hand, and finally the use of farm
anim als.” (Op. cit)
According to Gordon Childe, every single food plant of any im­
portance, as well as other plants such as flax and cotton, was
discovered by the women in thepre-civilized epoch. (W hat H appened
in History.)
The discovery of agriculture an d the domestication of anim als
made it possible for m ankind to pass beyond the food-gathering
epoch into the food-producing epoch, and this com bination repre­
sented hum anity’s first conquest over its food supplies. This con­
quest was achieved by the women. The great A gricultural Revolu­
tion, which provided the food for beast as well as man, was the
28

crow ning achievement of women’s lab o r in plying their digging-

s ticks.
To gain control of the food supply, however, meant m ore than
sim ply relying upo n nature an d its fertility. It required, above all,
w o m an ’s reliance upon her ow n labor, her own learning and her
own capacities for innov atio n an d invention. W om en h ad to find
out all the p articu lar m ethods of cultivation appropriate to each
species of p lan t o r grain. They h a d to acquire the techniques of
threshing, winnowing, grinding, etc., and invent all the special
tools an d implements necessary for tilling the soil, reaping and
storing the crop, an d then converting it into food.
In other words, the struggle to win control over the food supply
not only resulted in a development of agriculture, but also led
to w orking out the first essentials in m anufacturing and science.
As M ason writes:
"T h e whole industrial life of w om an w as built up around the
food supplies. F ro m the first journey on foot to procure the raw
m aterials until the food is served and eaten, there is a line of
trades that are continuous and b o m of the environm ent” (Op.
c it)

Women in Industry, Science an d Medicine

The first division of lab o r between the sexes is often described

in a simplified and m isleading form ula. The men, it is said, were
the hunters an d w arriors; while the women stayed in the camp
or dwelling house, raised the children, cooked and did everything
else. This description h as given rise to the notion that the prim i­
tive household was sim ply a m ore primitive counterpart of the
m o d em home. While the men were providing all the necessities
of society, the women were merely puttering around in the kitchens
and nurseries. Such a concept is a gross distortion of the facts.
Aside from the differentiation in food-getting, there was virtually
no division of lab o r between the sexes in all the higher forms of
production — for the simple reason that the whole industrial life
of prim itive society was lodged in the hands of the women. Cooking,
for example, was not cooking as we know it in the m odem indi­
v id u al home. Cooking was only one technique which women ac­
quired as the result of the discovery and control of fire and their
m astery of directed h e a t
All anim als in nature fear fire an d flee from it Yet the discovery
of fire dates back at least half a milion years ago, before hum anity
becam e fully hum an. R egarding this m ajor conquest, Gordon Childe
writes:
" In m astery of fire m an was controlling a mighty physical force
 29

and a conspicuous chemical change. F or the first time in history

a creature of N ature was directing one of the great forces of Nature.
And the exercise of power m ust react upon the controller. . . . In
feeding an d dam ping down the fire, in transporting and using it,
m an made a revolutionary departure from the behavior of other
animals. He was asserting his hum anity and m aking himself.” ( Man
Makes Himself.)
All the basic cooking techniques which followed upon the discovery
of fire—broiling, boiling, roasting, baking, steaming, etc. —were
developed by the women. These techniques involved a continuous
experimentation with the properties of fire and directed h e a t It
was in this experimentation that women developed the techniques
of preserving and conserving food for future use. Through the
application of fire an d h e a t women dried and preserved both
anim al and vegetable food for future needs.
But fire represented much more than this. Fire was the tool of
tools in primitive society; it can be equated to the control and use
of electricity o r even atomic energy in m odem society. And it was
the women, who developed all the early industries, who likewise
uncovered the uses of fire as a tool in their industries.
The first industrial life of women centered around the food supply.
Preparing, conserving and preserving food required the invention
of all the necessary collateral equipment: containers, utensils, ovens,
storage houses, etc. The women were the builders of the first caches,
granaries an d storehouses for the provisions. Som eofthese granaries
they dug in the ground and lined with straw. On wet, m arshy ground
they constructed storehouses on poles above the ground. The need to
protect the food in granaries from verm in resulted in the domes­
tication of another an im al—the c a t M ason writes:
" In this role of inventing the g ra n a ry and protecting food from
vermin, the world has to thank women for the domestication of
the cat . . .W om an tamed the wild cat for the protection of her gran­
aries.” (Op. cit)
It was the women, too, who separated out poisonous and injuri­
ous substances in foods. In the process, they often used directed heat
to turn what was inedible in the natural state into a new food sup­
ply. To quote M ason again:
" There are in m any lands plants which in the natural state are
poisonous o r extremely acrid o r pungent The women of these
lands have all discovered independently that boiling or heating
drives off the poisonous o r disagreeable elem ent” (Ibid.)
Manioc, for example, is poisonous in its natural state. But the
women converted this plant into a staple food supply through a
complicated process of squeezing out its poisonous properties in
a basketry press an d driving out its residue by heating.
M any inedible plants an d substances were put to use by the
30

wom en in their industrial processes, o r converted into medicines.

Dr. D an McKenzie lists hundreds of hom eopathic remedies dis­
covered by primitive women through their intimate knowledge
of p lan t life. Some of these are still in use without alteration; others
hav e been only slightly im proved upon. Am ong these are im portant
substances used for their narcotic properties. (The Infancy of Med­
icine.)
W om en discovered, for example, the properties of pine tar and
turpentine; an d of ch au lm o o g ra oil, which today is a remedy for
leprosy. They invented hom eopathic remedies from acacia, alcohol,
alm ond, asafoetida, balsam , betel, caffeine, cam phor, caraw ay,
digitalis, gum , barley water, lavender, linseed, parsley, peppers,
pom egranate, poppy, rh u b arb , senega, sugar, wormwood, and hun­
dreds more. Depending upon where the n atu ral substances were
found, these inventions come from South America, Africa, North
America, China, Europe, Egypt, etc.
The wom en converted anim al substances as well as vegetable sub­
stances into remedies. F o r example, they converted snake venom into
a serum to be used ag ain st snake bites (a n equivalent preparation
m ade to d ay from snake venom is know n as " a n tivene” ).
In the industries connected with the food supply, vessels and
containers of all types were required for holding, carrying, cooking
an d storing food, as well as for serving food and drink. Depend­
ing upo n the n atu ral environm ent, these vessels were m ade of
wood, b ark , skin, pleated fibers, leather, etc. Ultimately women
discovered the technique of m aking pots out of clay.
Fire was used as a tool in the m aking of wooden vessels. M ason
gives a description of this technique; and it can be easily under­
stood how the sam e technique was extended to the manufacture of
the first canoes and other sailing craft:
"T h ey burned out the hollow part, keeping the fire carefully
checked an d controlled. Then these m arvelous Jills-at-all-trades
rem oved the fire and brushed out the debris with im provised broom s
of grass. By m eans of a scraper of flint which she had made, she
dug aw ay the charcoal until she had exposed a clean surface of
wood. The firing an d scraping were repeated until the dugout
assum ed the required form. The trough completed, it was ready
to do the boiling for the family as soon as the meat could be
prepared an d the stones heated.” (Op. ciL)
In this rem arkable conversion, a substance, wood, which is
ord in arily consum ed by fire, was fashioned into a vessel for cook­
ing food over fire.
The industries of women, which arose out of the struggle to con­
trol the food supply, soon passed beyond this limited range. As
one need was satisfied, new needs arose, and these in turn were
satisfied in a rising spiral of new needs and new products. And
 31

it was in this production of new needs as well as new products

that women laid down the foundation for the highest culture to
come.
Science arose side by side with the industry of women. Gordon
Childe points out that to convert flour into bread requires a whole
series of collateral inventions, and also a knowledge of bio-chemistry
and the use of the m icro-organism, y east The same knowledge
of bio-chemistry which produced bread likewise produced the first
fermented liquors. Women, Childe states, m ust also be credited
with the chemistry of potm aking, the physics of spinning, the me­
chanics of the loom and the botany of flax and cotton.

From Cordage to Textiles

Cordage m ay ap p ear to be a very hum ble trade, but cordage

weaving was simply the beginning of a whole chain of industries
which culminated in a great textile industry. Even the m aking
of cordage requires not only m anual skill, but a knowledge of
selecting, treating and m anipulating the m aterials used. Chappie
& Coon write:
"All known peoples m ake some use of cordage, whether it is for
binding haftings on implements, m aking rabbit nets and string
bags, o r tying ornam ents around their necks. Where skins are
used most, as am ong the Eskimo, this cordage m ay consist mostly
of thongs cut from hides and anim al sinews; people who use
few skins an d live in forests, use vegetable fibers, such as rattan,
hibiscus, fiber and spruce roots, where no secondary treatment
is necessary to make them serviceable. Other fibers are short,
and must be twisted together into a continuous cord o r thread.”
(Op. ciL)
Out of the technique of weaving, there arose the basket industry.
Depending upon the locality, these baskets were m ade of bark,
grass, bast, skins, roots. Some were woven, other types were sewed.
The variety of baskets and other woven articles is enorm ous.
Robert H. Lowie lists some of these as follows: burden baskets,
water bottles, shallow bowls, parching trays, shields (in the Congo),
caps and cradles (in California), fans, knapsacks, mats, satchels,
boxes, fish-creels, etc. Some of the baskets are so tightly woven
that they are w aterproof and used for cooking and storage. (An
Introduction to Social Anthropology.) Some, writes Briffault, are
so fine that they cannot be duplicated by modern machinery:
" The weaving of b ark and grass fibers by primitive wom an
is often so m arvelous that it could not be imitated by m an at
the present day, even with the resources of m achinery. The so-
called P anam a hats, the best of which can be crushed and passed
through a finger ring, are a fam iliar exam ple.” (The Mothers.)
32

In this industry, women utilized w hatever resources nature placed

at their disposed. In areas where the coconut is found, a superior
cordage is m ade from the fibers of the husk. In the Philippines,
a n inedible species of b a n a n a furnished the fam ous m anila hemp
for co rd ag e an d weaving. In Polynesia, the p ap er m ulberry tree
was cultivated for its b ark; after the b ark w as beaten out by the
women, it w as m ade into cloth, and from this cloth they made
shirts for m en an d women, bags, straps, etc.
The textile industry em erged with the great A gricultural Revolu­
tion. In this complex industry there is a fusion of the techniques
learned by the women in both agriculture an d industry. As Gordon
Childe writes:
"A textile industry not only requires the knowledge of special
substances like flax, cotton and wool, but also the breeding of
special an im als and the cultivation of p articu lar plants.” (Man
M akes Himself.)
A textile industry, m oreover, requires a high degree of m echan­
ical an d technical skill, an d a whole series of collateral inventions.
F o r such a n industry to develop, Childe continues,
" . . . an o th er complex of discoveries an d inventions is requisite,
a further bod y of scientific knowledge m ust be practically applied. . .
A m ong the prerequisite inventions, a device for spinning is im por­
t a n t . . m ost essential is a loom.
"N o w a loom is quite an e la b o r a t piece of m achinery— much
too com plicated to be described here. Its use is no less complicated.
The invention of the loom was one of the great trium phs of hum an
ingenuity. Its inventors are nameless, but they made an essential
contribution to the capital stock of hum an knowledge.” (Ibid.)
Hunting, a p a rt from its value in augm enting the food supply,
w as a n extrem ely im portant factor in hum an development. In
the organized hunt, men h a d to collaborate with other men, a
feature unknow n in the anim al world where competitive struggle
is the rule. On this point, Chappie & Coon state:
"H u n tin g is fine exercise for body an d brain. It stimulates and
m ay h av e 'selected for’ the qualities of self-control, cooperation,
tem pered aggressiveness, ingenuity and inventiveness, an d a high
degree o f m an u al dexterity. M ankind could have gone through
no better school in its form ative period." (Op. cit)
Leather M akers
However, because hunting was m an’s work, historians are prone
to glorify it beyond its specific limits. While the men, to be sure,
contributed to the food supply by their hunting, it was women’s
h an d s that prepared an d conserved the food, and utilized the by­
products of the anim als in their industries. It was the women who
developed the techniques of tanning and preserving skins, and who
 33

founded the great leather-m aking industries.

Leather-m aking is a long, difficult and complicated process.
Lowie describes the earliest form of this type of lab o r as it is still
practiced by the Ona women of T ierra del Fuego. When the hunters
have brought back a guanaco hide, the w6man, he tells us,
" . . . kneels on the stiff rawhide an d laboriously scrapes off
the fatty tissue and the transparent layer below it with her quartz
blad e After a while she kneads the skin piecemeal with her fists,
going over the whole surface repeatedly and often bringing her
teeth into play until it is softened. If the h air is to be taken off,
that is done with the sam e scraper.” (Op. cit)
The scraper that Lowie speaks about is, along with the digging-
stick, one of the two m ost ancient tools of hum anity. Side by side
with the wooden digging-stick that was used in vegetable collecting
and later in agriculture, there evolved the chipped stone, scraper,
or "fist-axe” used in m anufacturing. On this subject Briffault writes:
"T h e 'scrap ers’ which form so large a proportion of prehistoric
tools were used and made by women . . . Much controversy took
place as to the possible use of these scrapers. The fact that went
farthest tow ard silencing skepticism w as that the Eskimo women
at the present d ay use inst:.uments identical with those their Europe­
an sisters left in such abundance in the drift gravels of the Ice
Age.
"T h e scrapers and knives of the Eskimo women are often elab­
orately and even artistically mounted on handles of bone. In South
Africa the country is strewn with scrapers identical with those
of Paleolithic Europe . . . From the testimony of persons intimately
acquainted with the Bushmen, these implements were manufactured
by the women.” (Op. cit)
M ason corroborates this:
"Scrapers are the oldest implements of any craft in the world.
The Indian women of M ontana still receive their trade from their
mothers, an d they in turn were taught by theirs —an unbroken
succession since the birth of the hum an species.” (Op. cit)
Tanning
But leather-m aking, like most other trades, required m ore than
m anual labor. Women had to learn the secrets of chemistry in
this trade too, and in the process of their lab o r they learned how
to use one substance to effect a transform ation in another sub­
stance.
T anning is essentially a chemical alteration in the raw hide.
Among the Eskimos, writes Lowie, this chemical change is achieved
by steeping the skins in a basin of urine. In N orth America, the
Indian women used the brains of anim als in a special preparation,
in which the skin was soaked an d the chemical alteration thus
34

achieved. T rue tanning, however, requires the use of oak b a rk

or som e other vegetable substance containing tannic a d d . As p a rt
of the process of leather-m aking, the women sm oked the leather
over a sm ouldering fire. The shields of the N orth American Indians
were so to u g h th at they were not only arrow -proof, but sometimes
even bullet-proof.
Leather products cover as v ast a range as basketry. Lowie
lists some of the uses of leather: Asiatic nom ads used it for bottles;
E ast Africans for shields an d dothing; am ong the N orth American
Indians, it w as used for robes, shirts, dresses, leggings, moccasins.
The latter also used leather for their tents, cradles and shields.
They stored sm oking outfits an d sundries in buckskin pouches,
an d preserved m eat in raw hide cases. The elaborate assortm ent
of leather p ro d u d s m ade b y the N orth American Indian women
never ceases to exdte the ad m iration of visitors to the museums
in which they are collected.
Briffault points out that women h a d to know in advance the
natu re of the p articu lar hide they were preparing, and to dedde
in advance the type of p ro d u d for which it w as best suited:
" I t v aries infinitely according to the use for which the leather
is intended; pliable skins sm oothed out to a uniform thickness and
retaining the lay er to which the h a ir is attached; h ard hides for
tents, shields, canoes, boots; thin, soft w ashable leather for dothing.
All these require sp ed al technical processes which primitive woman
has elab o rated .” (Op. cit.)
M ason writes:
"O n the Am erican continent alone, women skin dressers knew
how to cure an d m anufacture hides of cats, wolves, foxes, all the
num erous skunk family, bears, coons, seals, w alrus, buffalo, m usk
ox, goats, sheep, antelopes, m oose, deer, elk, beaver, hares, opos­
sum , m uskrat, crocodile, tortoise, birds, and innum erable fishes
an d reptiles.
" I f au g h t in the heavens above, o r on earth beneath, o r in the
waters wore a skin, sav ag e women were found on exam ination,
to h av e a nam e for it an d to have succeeded in turning it into
its prim itive use for h u m an d o thing, and to have invented new uses
for it undream ed of b y its original ow ner.” (Op. cit.)
Pot-M akers and Artists
Pot-m aking, unlike m any of the other industries of women, entailed
the creation of entirely new substances which do not exist ready­
m ade in nature. On this point G ordon Childe writes:
"P o t-m ak in g is perhaps the earliest consdous utilization by m an
of a chemical change . . . The essence of the potter’s craft is that
she can m old a piece of d a y into an y shape she desires and then
give th at shape perm anence by Tiring’ (i.e., heating to over 600
 35

degrees C). To early m an this change in the quality of the m aterial

must have seemed a sort of m agic transubstantiation —the con­
version of m ud o r dust into stone. . .
"T he discovery of pottery consisted essentially in finding out
how to control an d utilize the chemical change just mentioned.
But, like all other discoveries, its practical application involves
others. To be able to mold your clay you m ust wet it; but if you
put your dam p plastic pot straight into the fire, it will crack. The
water, added to the clay to m ake it plastic, must be dried out gently
in the sun o r near the fire, before the vessel can be baked. Again,
the clay h as to be selected and prepared . . . some process of wash­
ing must be devised to eliminate coarse m a te ria l. . .
"In the process of firing, the clay changes not only its physical
consistency, but also its color. M an had to learn to control such
changes as these and to utilize them to enhance the beauty of the
vessel. . .
"T h u s the potter’s craft, even in its crudest and most general­
ized form, was already complex. It involved an appreciation of
a num ber of distinct processes, the application of a whole con­
stellation of discoveries. . . Building up a pot was a supreme in­
stance of creation by m an .” (Man Makes Himself.)
Indeed, primitive w om an, as the first potter, took the dust of
the earth and fashioned a new world in industrial products out
of clay.
Decorative art developed side by side with all of these industries
in the hands of the women. Art grew out of labor. As Lowie writes:
"A basket-m aker unintentionally becomes a decorator, but as soon
as the patterns strike the eye, they m ay be sought deliberately.
The coiling of a basket m ay suggest a spiral, twining the guil-
loche, etc. W hat is more, when these geometrical figures have
once been grasped as decorative, they need not rem ain riveted to
the craft in which they arose. A potter m ay paint a twilled design
on his vase, a carver m ay imitate it on his wooden goblet.” (Op.
cit.)
The leather products of women are rem arkable not only for their
efficiency but also for the beauty of their decorations. And when
women reached the stage of doth-m aking, they wove fine designs
into the doth, and invented dyes an d the techniques of dyeing.
Architect and Engineer
Perhaps the least known activity of primitive women is their
work in construction, architecture and engineering. Briffault writes:
"W e are no m ore accustomed to think of the building art and
of architecture th an of boot-m aking or the m anufacture of earthen­
w are as feminine occupations. Yet the huts of the Australian, of the
A ndam an Islanders, of the P atagonians, of the Botocudos; the
36

rough shelters of the Seri, the skin lodges an d wigwams of the

A m erican India, the black cam el-hair tent of the Bedouin, the
'y u r ta ’ of the nom ads of Central A sia all are the exclusive work
a n d special care of the women.
"Som etim es these m ore o r less m ovable dwellings are extremely
elaborate. The 'y u rta ’ for exam ple is sometimes a capacious house,
built on a fram ew ork of poles, pitched in a circle and strength­
ened b y a trellis-work of wooden patterns, the whole being covered
with a thick felt, form ing a dome-like structure. The interior is
divided into several com partm ents. With the exception of the wood,
all its com ponent p arts are the product of the T urkom an woman,
who busies herself with the construction and the putting together
of the v ario u s parts.
"T h e 'p u eb lo s’ o f New Mexico an d A rizona recall the picturesque
sky-line of an oriental town; clusters of m any storied houses rise
in terraced tiers, the flat roof of one serving as a terrace for that
above. The upper stories are reached by ladders or by outside
stairs, an d the walls are ornam ental crenellated battlements . . .
co u rty ard s an d piazzas, streets, and curious public buildings that
serve as clubs an d tem p les. . . as their innum erable ruins testify.”
(Op. cit.)
The S panish priests who settled am ong the Pueblo Indians were
astonished at the beauty of the churches and convents that these
wom en built for them. They wrote back to their E uropean country­
men:
" N o m an h a s ever set his hand to the erection of a house . . .
These buildings have been erected solely by the women, the girls,
an d the y o u n g men of the mission; for am ong these people it is
the custom th at the women build the houses.” (Quoted by Briffault,
op. cit.)
U nder the influence of the m issionaries, men began to share in
this lab o r, but their first efforts were greeted with hilarity by their
ow n people. As one Spanish priest wrote:
"T h e p o o r em b arrassed wretch w as surrounded by a jeering crowd
of wom en an d children, who mocked and laughed, and thought
it the m ost ludicrous thing they h a d seen—that a m an should be
engaged in building a house! ” (Ibid.)
T oday, just the opposite is laughed a t—th at women should
engage in the building an d engineering trades!

On Women's Backs

W om en were not only the skilled workers of primitive society.

They were also the haulers an d d rayers of goods and equipm ent
Before domesticated anim als released women from p a rt of their
loads, it w as on their backs that primitive transportation was
 37

effected. They conveyed not only the raw m aterials used in their
industries, but entire households of goods being moved from one
place to another.
On every m igration — and these were frequent before settled village
life developed—it was the women who took down the tents, wigwams
or huts, and put them up again. It was the women who transported
the loads, along with their babies, from one settlement or cam p
to another. And in everyday life, it was the women who carried
the heavy loads of firewood, water, food and other necessities.
Even today, the women am ong the Ona tribes of Tierra del Fuego,
as Chappie & Coon point out, carry loads of well over 100 pounds
when they change cam p sites. Of die Akikuyus of East Africa, the
Routledges write that men were unable to lift loads of more than
40 to 60 pounds, while the women carried 100 pounds o r more:
"W hen a m an states: 'T his is a very heavy load, it is fit to be
carried by a woman, not a m an,’ he is only stating a fa c t” (W.
Scoresby an d K atherine Routledge, With a Prehistoric People.)
Regarding this aspect of women’s work, M ason writes:
" F ro m w om an’s back to the car and stately ship is the history
of that greatest of all arts which first sent our race exploring and
processing the whole earth . . . I do not wonder that the ship-
carpenter carves the head of a w om an on the prow of his vessel,
no r that locomotives should be addressed as s h e ” (Op. cit)
Does all this extensive lab o r activity m ean that women were
oppressed, exploited and ground down, according to our m odem
notions? N ot at a ll Quite the reverse was true. On this score, Brif­
fault writes:
" The fanciful opinion that women are oppressed in savage societies
was p artly due to the complacency of civilized man, an d partly
to the fact that the women are seen to w ork hard. W herever women
were seen engaged in laborious toil, their status was judged to be
one of slavery and oppression. No m isunderstanding could be more
p ro fo u n d . . .
"T h e primitive w om an is independent because, not in spite of
her labor. Generally speaking, it is in those societies where women
toil most that their status is most independent and their influence
greatest; where they are idle, and the work is done by slaves, the
women are, as a rule, little more than sexual slaves . . .
"N o lab o r of any kind is, in primitive society, other th an vol­
untary, and no toil is ever undertaken by the women in obedience
to an arb itrary order . . .
"R eferring to the Zulu women, a m issionary writes: 'W hoever
has observed the happy appearance of the women at their w ork
and toil, their gaiety and chatter, their laughter and song . . . let
him com pare with them the bearing of our own working women.’ ”
(Op. cit)
38

It is not labor, but exploited and forced labor, that is galling to

the h u m an being.
W hen women began their labor, they h a d no one to teach them.
T hey h a d to learn everything the h a rd w a y —through their own
co u rag e an d persistent efforts. Some of the first hints they p robably
took from natu re itself M aso n writes:
'’W om en were instructed by the spiders, the nest-builders, the
storers o f food an d the w orkers in clay like the m ud-wasps and
termites. It is not m eant that these creatures set up schools to
teach dull wom en how to work; but that their quick minds were
on the alert for hints com ing from these sources . . . It is in the
apotheosis of industrialism that w om an has borne her p a rt so
persistently an d w ell At the very beginning of hum an time she laid
down the lines of her duties, and she has kept to them unremit­
tingly.” (Op. cit)
The First Collective
But because women beg an their lab o r in so hum ble a fashion,
m any h istorians have presented women’s industries as merely
" household crafts” o r "h an d icrafts.” The fact is that before machines
were developed there was no other kind of craft than han d c raft
Before specialized factories were developed in the towns an d cities,
there w as no other factory b ut the "household.” W ithout these
households an d their handicrafts, the great guilds of the Middle
Ages could not h av e come into existence. N or, indeed, could the
whole m odem world of m echanized farm s and stream lined industries
have come into existence.
W hen women began their la b o r they pulled m ankind out of the
anim al kingdom . They were the initiators of lab o r and the origin­
ato rs of in d u stry —the prim e m over that lifted hum anity out of the
ape-like state. A nd side by side with their lab o r there arose speech.
As Engels points out:
" T h e developm ent of la b o r necessarily helped to bring the members
of society closer together by m ultiplying cases of m utual support
an d joint activity . . . the origin of language from and in the process
of la b o r is the only correct one. . . . First comes labor, after it and
then side by side with it, articulate speech.” (The Part Played by
L a b o r in the Transition from Ape to Man.)
While men undoubtedly developed some speech in connection with
the organized hunt, the decisive development of language arose out
of the lab o r activity of the women. As M ason writes:
"W om en, h av in g the whole round of industrial arts on their
m inds all d ay an d every day, m ust be held to have invented and
fixed the language of the same. Dr. Brinton, in a private letter, says
th at in m ost early languages not only is there a series of expressions
belonging to the women, but in v arious places we find a language
 39

belonging to the women quite ap art from that of the men.

"S av ag e men in hunting and fishing are kept alone, and have
to be quiet, hence their taciturnity. But women are together and
chatter all day long. A part from the centers of culture, women are
still the best dictionaries, talkers and letter writers.” (Op. cit)
W hat lab o r and speech represented, first of all and above every­
thing else, was the birth of the hum an collective. Animals are
obliged, by nature’s laws, to rem ain in individualistic competition
with one another. But the women, through labor, displaced nature’s
relationships an d instituted the new, hum an relationships of the
labor collective.
The "Household” — the Community
The primitive "household” was the whole community. In place
of individualism, social collectivity was the mode of existence. In
this respect, G ordon Childe writes:
"T h e neolithic crafts have been presented as household industries.
Yet the craft traditions are not individual, but collective traditions.
The experience and wisdom of all the community’s members are
constantly being pooled . . . It is handed on from parent to child
by example and precept The daughter helps her m other at m aking
pots, watches her closely, imitates her, an d receives from her lips
o ral directions, warnings and advice. The applied sciences of neo­
lithic times were handed on by what today we should call a system
of apprenticeship . . .
" I n a m odem African village, the housewife does not retire into
seclusion in order to build up and fire her pots. All the women
of the village w ork together, chatting and com paring notes; they
even help one another. The occupation is public, its rules are the
result of com m unal experience . . . And the neolithic economy as
a whole cannot exist without cooperative effort” (Man Makes
Himself.)
Thus the crowning achievement of women’s labor was the build­
ing and consolidation of the first great hum an collective. In dis­
placing anim al individualism with collective life an d labor, they
placed an unbridgeable gulf between hum an society and the anim al
kingdom. They won the first great conquest of m ankind —the
hum anizing and socializing of the anim al.
It was in and through this great work that women became the
first w orkers and farm ers; the first scientists, doctors, architects, en­
gineers; the first teachers an d educators, nurses, artists, historians
and transm itters of social an d cultural heritage. The households
they m anaged were not simply the collective kitchens and sewing
rooms; they were also the first factories, scientific laboratories,
medical centers, schools and social centers. The power and prestige
of women, which arose out of their m aternal functions, were climax­
40

ed in the g lorious record of their socially useful la b o r activity.

Emancipation o f the Men
So long as hunting w as a n indispensable full-time occupation,
it relegated men to a b ack w ard existence. Hunting trips removed
men fo r extended periods of time from the com m unity centers and
from p articipation in the higher form s of labor.
The discovery of agriculture b y the women, an d their domestication
of cattle an d other larg e anim als, brought about the em ancipation
of the men from their h u nting life. H unting was then reduced to
a sport, a n d men were freed for education an d training in the
ind u strial an d cultural life of the communities. T hrough the increase
in food supplies, p opulations grew. N om adic cam p sites were trans­
form ed into settled village centers, later evolving into towns and
cities.
In the first period of their em ancipation, the w ork of the men,
com pared with th at of the women, was, quite naturally, unskilled
lab o r. They cleared aw ay the b ru sh an d prepared the ground for
cultivation b y the women. They felled trees, a n d furnished the timber
for construction work. Only later did they begin to take over the
w ork of construction—ju st as they also took over the care and
breeding of livestock.
But, unlike the women, the m en did not have to start from first
beginnings. In a short time, they began not only to learn all the
skilled crafts of the women but to m ake vast im provem ents in
tools, equipm ent an d technology. They initiated a whole series of
new inventions an d innovations. Agriculture took a great step for­
w ard with the invention of the plough and the use of domesticated
anim als.
F o r a fragm ent of time, historically speaking, an d flowing out
of the em ancipation of the men from hunting, the division of labor
between the sexes becam e a reality. Together, men an d women
furthered the abundance of food a n d products, and consolidated the
first settled villages.
But the A gricultural Revolution, brought about by the women,
m ark s the dividing line between the food-gathering an d food-
producing epochs. By the sam e token, it m arks the dividing line
between S av ag ery an d Civilization. Still further, it m arks the emer­
gence of a new social system and a reversal in the economic and
social leadership role of the sexes.
The new conditions, which began with food abundance for m ount­
ing p o pulations, released a new productive force, and with it, new
productive relations. The old division of lab o r between the sexes
w as displaced b y a new series of social divisions of labor. Agri­
cultural la b o r becam e separated from u rb a n industrial labor; skilled
lab o r from unskilled. A nd wom en’s la b o r w as grad u ally taken over
by the men.
 41

With the potter’s wheel, for example, men specialists took over
potm aking from the women. As Childe writes:
"E th n o g rap h y shows that potters who use the wheel are norm ally
male specialists, no longer women, for whom potting is just a
household task like cooking and spinning.” (W hat Happened in
History.)
Men took over the ovens an d kilns —that h a d been invented by
the women —and developed them into smithies an d forges, where
they converted the earth’s metals: copper, gold and iron. The Metal
Age was the dawn of M an ’s Epoch. And the most com m on nam e
today, "M r. Smith,” has its origin in that dawn.
The very conditions that brought about the emancipation of the
men brought about the overthrow of the m atriarchy and the en­
slavement of the women. As social production came into the hands of
the men, women were dispossessed from productive life and driven
back to their biological function of m aternity. Men took over
the reins of society and founded a new social system which served
their needs. Upon the ruins of the m atriarchy, class society was
born.
From this lab o r rec 3rd of the women in the earlier social system,
it can be seen that both sexes have played their parts in building
society an d advancing hum anity to its present point. But they did
not play them sim ultaneously o r uniformly. There has actually
been an uneven development of the sexes. This, in turn, is only
an expression of the uneven development of society as a whole.
During the first great epoch of social development, it was the
women who pulled hum anity forw ard and out of the anim al king­
dom. Since the first steps are hardest to take, we can only regard
the lab o r and social contribution of the women as decisive. It
was their achievements in the fields of production, cultural and
intellectual life which m ade civilization possible. Although it required
hundreds of thousands of years for the women to la y down these
social foundations, it is precisely because they laid them down so
firmly and so well that it h as taken less than 4,000 years to bring
civilization to its present estate.
It is therefore unscientific to discuss the superiority of men o r
women outside the framework of the actual processes of history.
In the course of history, a great reversal took place in the social
superiority of the sexes. First came the women, biologically endowed
by nature. Then came the men, socially endowed by the women.
To understand these historical facts is to avoid the pitfalls of ar­
bitrary judgm ent m ade through emotion o r prejudice. And to under­
stand these facts is to explode the myth that women are naturally
inferior to men.
42

SEX A G A IN S T SEX -

OR CLASS A G A IN S T CLASS?

(M ale chauvinism arouses great indignation on th e p a rto f women

an d breeds a deepgoing antagonism between the sexes. How to
deal with this aspect of wom en’s liberation h a s resulted in two
essentially different approaches to the problem .
One is the M arxist position. We recognize that women suffer
severe h an d icap s an d hum iliation in m ale-dom inated society and
are fully entitled to organize themselves in actions against these
evils. At the sam e time M arxism teaches that this sexual subjuga­
tion is p a r t an d parcel of the m ore fundam ental oppression and
exploitation of the w orking m asses by the capitalist possessors
of p ro p erty a n d power. Therefore the struggle for wom en’s libera­
tion is inseparable from the larg er struggle for socialism.
The other viewpoint contends that all women, as a sex, are in
the sam e b o a t an d h av e identical interests and aim s regardless
of their econom ic position and social class. Thus, to achieve em an­
cipation, all females should b and together to wage a sex w ar against
chauvinistic males, who are their sworn enemies. Such a one-sided,
m isleading conclusion can do great harm to the cause of women’s
freedom.
It is true that women in general, even those in the upper classes,
do suffer to some degree from m ale chauvinism . On some occasions
and issues it is necessary an d useful for women belonging to dif­
ferent social strata to form special organizations an d take united
action to elim inate injustices and disabilities inflicted upon the
whole sex. One exam ple is the movement to legalize birth control
an d give all w om en the right of abortion.
However, the securing of even such urgent reforms as these will
not eradicate the basic causes of women’s oppression, which are
rooted in the class structure of o u r society. On all fundam ental
questions concerning priv ate property holdings, wealthy women are
just as likely to uphold the status quo an d their privileged positions
 43

in it as are wealthy men. W henever they do so, they betray their

own sex for the sake of their class interests and comforts.
Thus, class against class must be the guiding line in the struggle
for hum an liberation in general and women’s liberation in p a r­
ticular. Only the revolutionary victory over capitalism, led by the
working men and women and supported by all sections of the
oppressed, can release women from their subject status an d give
them a better life in a new society. This assertion of M arxist theory
and policy h as been confirmed by the experience of all the victorious
revolutions over the past century—from Russia to China and Cuba.
W hatever their shortcom ings, the improvements these revolutions
m ade in the conditions of women were achieved not through a
sex w ar but through a d a ss war.
No m atter how radical it m ay seem, the substitution of sex hos­
tility for the d a ss struggle by overzealous women would be a
dangerous diversion from the real road to liberation. Such a tac­
tic could only play into the hands of the worst enemies of women
and of the sodalist revolution.
This type of u ltraradical error, which tended to counterpose
sex against sex rather than d a s s against d a ss, manifested itself
in a controversy that was conducted within the Sodalist W orkers
Party in 1954. Some im portant issues were raised during that
debate aro u n d the use of cosmetics, fashion, etc., to give women
the desired o r required stan d ards of beauty and m ake them at­
tractive to men. This curious adaptation to m ale chauvinism by
women who were m ost vodferously condem ning it should be of
interest to radical women who are considering the problem today.
The follow ir" is p art of my contribution to that discussion which
was original] ublished in the October 1954 Discussion Bulletin
of the party.)
Cosmetics and Fashions in the Commerce of Beauty
The class distinctions between women transcend their sex identity
as women. This is above all true in m odern capitalist sodety,
the epoch of the sharpest polarization of d a ss forces.
Historically, the sex struggle was p a rt of the bourgeois feminist
movement of the last century. It was a reform movement, con­
ducted within the fram ew ork of the capitalist system, and not seek­
ing to abolish it. But it was a progressive struggle in that women
rebelled against alm ost total male dom ination on several fronts.
T hrough the feminist movement a num ber of im portant reforms
were won by the women. But that feminist movement has run its
course, achieved its limited aims, and the problem s we face today
must be placed within the context of the d a s s struggle.
The "w om an question” can only be resolved through the align­
ment of w orking men and women against the ruling men and
44

women. This m eans th at the com m on interests of workers as a

class override the special interests of women as a sex.
Ruling-class women h av e exactly the sam e interest in upholding
capitalist society as their m en have. The bourgeois feminists fought,
am o n g other things, for the right of wom en as well as men to hold
p ro p erty in their own nam e. They won this right. Today, pluto­
cratic w om en hold fabulous wealth in their own names. They
are completely at one with the plutocratic m en in the desire to
perpetuate the capitalist system. On basic social an d political issues
they are no t in sym pathy o r alliance with the w orking women
whose needs can be served only through abolishing this system.
T hus the em ancipation of w orking women will not be achieved
together with wom en of the enemy class but just the opposite—in
a struggle ag ain st them as p a rt of the whole anticapitalist struggle.
The attem pt to identify the interests of all classes of women as
a sex takes one of its m ost insidious form s in the field of female
beauty. The m yth h a s arisen that, since all women w ant to be beau­
tiful, they all h av e the sam e interest in cosmetics and fashion which
are to d a y touted as indispensable for beauty. To buttress this myth,
it is claim ed that fashion-beauty has prevailed throughout all
ages of h isto ry an d for all classes of women. As evidence, the
fashion-m ongers point to the fact that even in primitive society
women painted a n d decorated their bodies. To explode this myth,
let us briefly review the histo ry of cosmetics and fashion.
In prim itive society, where sexual competition did not exist, there
w as no need fo r cosmetics an d fashions as artificial aids to beauty.
The bodies an d faces of both m en and women were painted and
"d eco rated ” bu t not for the sake of beauty. These customs arose
out of a different set of needs connected with prim itive life and
lab o r.
It was necessary a t th at time for each individual who belonged
to the kinship g roup to be" m arked” as such, as well as by sex and
ag e categories. These " m a rk s” included not only ornam ents, rings,
bracelets, sh o rt skirts, etc., but also gashes, incisions, tattoo m arks
an d different k inds of body painting. They indicated not only
the sex of each individual b u t the changing age and labor status
of the m em bers o f the com m unity as they m atured from children
to adults to elders. Rather th an " decorations,” these m arkings can
be viewed as the prim itive w ay of keeping the life history of each
ind ividual which, in o u r society, is kept in family album s. And
since prim itive society w as communistic, these m arkings also be­
tokened complete social equality.
Then cam e class society. The m ark s th at signified am ong other
things social equality in prim itive society became transform ed into
their opposite. They became fashions and decorations that signified
 45

social inequality, expressions of the division of society into rich

and poor, into rulers and subjugated. Cosmetics and fashions
began as the prerogative of the aristocracy.
A good illustration can be found in the French Court before the
French Revolution. A m ong the kings, princes and landed gentry,
both men and women were dressed in the height of fashion. They
were dandies, with their painted faces, powdered hair, lace ruffles,
gilded ornam ents and the rest Both sexes were "beautiful,” ac­
cording to the standards of the day. But more decisively, both sexes
in the ruling class were dem arcated by their cosmetics and fashions
from the poor peasants who sweated for them on the land and who
were, by the same standards, not beautiful. F ashion at that period
was the " m a rk ” of class distinction, em bracing both sexes of the
privileged class against both sexes of the working class.
Then, when bourgeois customs supplanted feudal practices, for
certain historical reasons men left the field of fashion prim arily
to the women. The big businessmen established their class standing
through the fashions of their wives and in other ways and left
off w earing gold pants and lace ruffles. Among women, however,
fashions still m arked the distinction between Ju d y O’G rady and
the Colonel’s Lady.
As capitalism developed, there arose an enorm ous expansion
of the productive machine an d along with it the need for a m ass
m ark et Since women constitute half the population, profiteers in
female beauty began to exploit it And so the fashion field was
grad u ally expanded out of the narrow confines of the rich and
eventually imposed upon the whole female population.
To serve the needs of this sector of big business, class distinctions
were papered over and concealed behind sex identity. The hired
advertising hucksters began grinding out the propaganda: all
women want to be beautiful; therefore all women have the sam e
stake in cosmetics an d fashion. High fashion became identical with
beauty and all women were sold on their com m on "needs” and
"w ants” for the purchasable aids to beauty.
Today billions in profits are coined out of every departm ent in
the beauty field: cosmetics, clothes, hair-dos, slenderizing salons,
beauty salons, jewelry, fake and real, and so on. Beauty, it was
discovered, was a very flexible form ula. All an enterpriser had to
do to become rich was to discover a new aid to beauty and con­
vince masses of women that they "needed” and "w anted” this
aid. See any Revlon ad.
To m aintain and expand this bonanza, it was necessary to dis­
seminate certain other myths through the p ro p ag an d a machine
at the disposal of the profiteers. These are as follows:
1. Women from time im m em orial have been competing with
other women for sexual attention from the men. This is virtually
46

a biological law from which there is no escape, and since it has

existed for all time an d will continue to exist for all time, women
m ust subm it to their fate an d forever compete with each other in
the capitalist sex m a rk e t
2. In m odem society the n a tu ra l beauty of women does not
really c o u n t Indeed, it is insinuated, nature has really abandoned
the female sex in the realm of beauty. To m ake up for their natu ral
hom eliness a n d disfigurements, they m ust resort to artificial aids
which the kind profiteers have placed at their disposal. Let us
exam ine this p ro p ag an d a.
Sex Competition: N atural o r Social?
A study of the sciences of biology and anthropology discloses
that sex com petition am o n g females does not exist either in nature
o r in prim itive society. It is exclusively the product of class society
an d was unknow n before class society came into existence, which
m eans for alm ost a m illion years of h u m an evolution.
T h ro u g h o u t the an im al w orld there is no such thing as sex
com petition am o n g females for attention from the males. The only
sex com petition that p revails in the anim al w orld is that which is
im posed by natu re upon the m ale sex who fight one another for
access to the females. This is sim ply nature’s w ay of assuring
perpetuation of the species. But because of its disruptive effects
upo n social cooperation, this feature of m ale sexual competition
was eradicated in the form ation and consolidation of the first
social organization, which w as a system of "prim itive com m unism .”
This absence of sex competition am ong females in nature was
one of the reasons women were able to lead in the creation of that
orig in al social system. The social order they created to serve their
needs w as precisely one th at was free from disruptive competitive
relations. The absence of sex competition or jealousy am ong prim i­
tive women is unchallenged even by m any conservative anthro­
pologists, alth o u g h they view it, often in surprise, as a savage
"peculiarity” o r q u aint custom.
Then cam e class society, founded upon the acquisitive and com­
petitive spirit, together with the degradation of women into depen­
dency upon men. A long with the competitive struggle for property
and wealth am o n g men, there arose the competitive struggle am ong
women for wealthy an d powerful men. But this social affliction
of sexual com petition im posed upon women h as nothing natural
abo u t it It is exclusively "artificial,” i.e., historically created and
conditioned.
Sex com petition am o n g women arose with the emergence of the
sex o r m arriag e "m ark et.” The sex m arket is p art and parcel
of the com m odity m arket as a whole which is fundam ental to
capitalist class society. With the expansion of sex as a commodity,
the sta n d ard of female beauty became g rad u ally transform ed from
 47

natural to artificial or "fashionable” beauty. This process h as

reached its peak in contem porary society.
In the earliest period of b arter exchange, women were bartered
for cattle and cattle for women. The natural beauty and health
of women was then at a prem ium in the same w ay and for the
same reasons that the n atu ral health of cattle was at a premium.
Both were necessary and desirable in the productive and reproduc­
tive life of the community, with the healthiest and most beautiful
specimens best able to carry out their functions.
Then, with the consolidation of the patriarchy and class society,
certain women were accumulated by rich men as one form of all
the different kinds of property they were accumulating. The custom
arose of embellishing these wives an d concubines with decorations
and ornam ents in the sam e way and for the same reasons that
palaces were decorated and ornamented. This reached its apex
in the Asiatic palaces and harems. As sexual property of the Prince
or Khan, the more he possessed of these luxury articles the more
he gave evidence of his standing as a wealthy potentate. At this
stage sex competition am ong women was overshadowed by the
competition am ong men for such property accumulations. The
women themselves were "chattels” o r commodities.
As m onogam y displaced polygam y and property considerations
became the basis of m arriage, wealthy women had the advantage
over poor women in sex competition. A rich heiress, regardless of
her beauty and health, made a desirable wife to a m an accum ulating
property, and vice versa. A m an would prefer, if he h ad the choice,
the more beautiful woman, but property considerations usually came
first. These m arriages, involving property mergers, were conducted
in businesslike fashion between the families of the p a ir and had
only incidental reference to the wishes and desires of the individuals
involved. This type of m arriage, conducted through family nego­
tiations o r a m arriage broker, remained in force generally through­
out the long agricultural period when property was prim arily
landed property.
Then came capitalism, money relations and "free enterprise.”
This brought free enterprise not only in competitive "free labor”
and in business competition, but also in female sex competition.
Among the wealthy, it is true, m arriage m ergers continued as a
form of property m ergers and the two were often indistinguishable.
Indeed, with the rise of m onopoly capitalism, the two kinds of
mergers narrow ed the ruling plutocrats down to America’s Sixty
Families.
But in America, which was basically bourgeois alm ost from birth,
certain peculiarities arose. Class lines could be transgressed by a
m an of money, unlike feudal Europe where class distinctions were
established at birth. Thus in the heyday of capitalism a worker
48

o r middle-class m an here could, by fluke or fortune, become rich

an d thereby change his class status.
S im ilarly with a wom an. T hrough accident o r even beauty a
w om an m ight m arry a m illionaire an d change her class status.
This Cinderella fairy-tale, Am erican capitalist style, is most graph­
ically illustrated by Bobo Rockefeller, the m iner’s daughter, who
m arried an d then divorced, with a m ultim illion-dollar alim ony
settlement, one of America’s richest men.
These peculiarities of Am erican life prepared the social-psycho­
logical g ro u n d for the m ass com m odity m arket, the mass sex m ar­
ket, an d m ass sex com petition am ong females. Ju st as the H oratio
Alger stories became the h an d b o o k for men on how to rise from
ra g s to riches, so the rom ance stories for women told them how
to get an d m arry the boss’s son, o r even the boss him selt All
she h a d to do was rush to the Beauty Market and buy all the
com m odities guaranteed to transform Cinderella into a Princess.
The cosmetics and fashion world became a capitalist gold mine
with v irtually unlimited possibilities. Businessmen in these fields
h a d only to change the fashions often enough and invent more
an d newer aids to beauty to become richer and richer. T hat is
how, under m o d em capitalism , the sale of women as commodities
w as displaced by the sale of comm odities to women. Correspond­
ingly the m yth was dissem inated that beauty depends on fashion
an d th at all wom en h av e identical fashion needs because they all
hav e identical beauty needs.
Profiteers in Female Flesh
There are three m ain gangs of profiteers who batten off the mass
of wom en they d rag o o n o r wheedle into po u rin g out m oney in
their search for beauty:
1) Those who profit by the m anipulation of female flesh into
the current standardized fashion size and mold;
2) Those w ho p ain t an d emulsify this m anipulated flesh with
cosmetics, dyes, lotions, perfumes, etc.;
3) Those who decorate the m anipulated and painted flesh with
high-fashion clothes, jewelry, etc.
In the first category, a w om an to be beautiful m ust be of a
certain size; weigh so much and not a n ounce m ore o r less, and
h av e certain arb itra ry hip, bust, and waist measurements. If she
varies from this m echanical p attern she is not beautiful.
This causes enorm ous suffering to women why v ary from this
assem bly-line ideal. W eighed down and frustrated by the real
burdens of life under capitalism , whose source they do not under­
stand, w orking women especially tend to view their im aginary
"disfigurem ents” as the source of their troubles. They become
victims of inferiority complexes. And so they flock by the thousands
 49

and tens of thousands and millions to the m anipulators and dec­

orators of female flesh, pouring their hard-earned money into the
coffers of these profiteers.
Through Hollywood stars and beauty contests these fleshly stan­
dards are m aintained an d ballyhooed. Selected "beauties” are
paraded before the hypnotized eyes of the great m ass of women
through every available means: in the movies, on television, in
the slick and pulp magazines. But the m onotonous uniform ity of
these "beauties” is appalling. Every vestige of variety, the key­
note of real beauty, has been erased. They could just as well be
so m any sugar-cookies stamped out of the same dough with the
same mold.
In the next category are the cosmetic dealers, dyers, an d emulsi­
fiers of this regimented flesh. Perhaps only the workers in the
factories of these m anufacturers know that the same cheap raw m a­
terials which go into the $10 ja r or bottle of this and that also
go into the fifty-cent bottle o r ja r in the dime store. To the naive
and innocent, however, the $10 ja r must contain some special
potent magic that is not contained in the cheap item. The big
ads say so, an d so it m ust be true. These poor women strain
their financial resources to get this magic product, hoping this
will transform them from clerks to heiresses.
Finally, with the fashion profiteers, an agonizing choice is placed
before the women. Shall they buy for durability o r for a passing
fad? The rich, who can do both, have ordained a round-the-clock
fashion circus; fashions for m ornings, afternoons, cocktails, evening,
night and bedtime. They have different fashions for" every occasion”
and there are endless "occasions.” In addition a vast collateral
assem blage of "accessories” are required to " g o with” whatever
they are supposed to go with.
And all this m ountain of fashions pressed upon women one week
can the next week, month or season, be declared obsolete through
a new fashion decree. A good example of whether women get what
they need o r whether they are compelled to need what they get can
be found in an article published in the New York Times. It pointed
out that Christian Dior, the fam ous couturier of the rich, whose
styles are copied in cheap versions for the poor, h ad the power
to raise the skirts of fifty million American women overnight—o r
lower them, o r both!
A difference of three or four inches in a hemline can be a disaster
for women who feel the pressure to look fashionable at work.
It m ay be fun for the rich to throw out their w ardrobes and get
new ones. But it is exceedingly costly for the poor.
Thus when it is contended that women have the right to use
cosmetics, fashions, etc., without clearly distinguishing between
50

such a right an d the social compulsion to subm it to this exploita­

tion, it leads straight into the trap of capitalist p ro p a g a n d a and
practices. W om en of the v an g u ard , leading in the effort for social
change, m ust never, even unwittingly, reinforce this fashion rat-race;
their jo b is rath er to expose the scoundrels who profit from such
victim ization o f women.
O pposition—N o t Adaptation
It is contended that, so long as capitalism prevails, we women
m ust abide by these cosmetic and fashion decrees. Otherwise we
will be left behind in the economic and social rear. It is true that
to hold jo b s in offices an d for other reasons we m ust give at least
token recognition of the h a rsh reality.
But this does not m ean that we should accept these arb itrary
an d expensive com pulsions and edicts complacently or without
p ro te st W orkers in the plants are often obliged to accept speedups,
paycuts an d attacks o n their unions. But the militants accept them
under protest an d continue to struggle against them — in movements
that counterpose their needs an d will against their exploiters.
The class struggle is a m ovement of opposition, not adaptation,
and this should hold true not only of the workers in the factories
but of w om en as well, both w orking women and housewives. It
is because the issues are m ore obscure in the realm of women as
a sex th at som e have fallen into the trap of adaptation. In this
respect we m ust change o u r course. Let us explain that the m odern
fashion sta n d ard s of beauty are not a perm anent fixture, and that
w orking wom en can an d should have som ething to say about them.
We can point out, for example, that the use of cosmetics is a
fairly recent innovation. In the p ast century a w om an in search
of a h u sb a n d lessened her chances of getting him if she applied
cosmetics. At th at time cosmetics was the badge of the prostitute,
a n d no respectable m an would m a rry a "p ain ted w om an.”
A gain, in women’s clothes, some sweeping changes took place
as a result o f the large num bers of women entering industry and
offices d u rin g an d after W orld W ar I. They cast off their whalebone
corsets, the sixteen starched petticoats, big pom padours an d bigger
hats, an d adopted clothes m ore suited to their w orking needs. The
attractive, " c a s u a l” garm ents of today, which grew up out of these
needs of the w orking women, were then taken over by the rich
wom en for their sports an d play.
Recently even the p ro letarian denim cloth an d dungarees of the
factory w orker h av e become socially elevated. Perhaps the rich
women, nettled by the sexually attractive appearance of women
in overalls a n d sweaters, decided to ad ap t them to life in the suburbs
a n d on their fancy estates.
 51

In this attack on the fashion racket I am not speaking against

attractive clothes nor resisting any necessary or desirable changes
in the kind of clothes we w ant to wear. New times, new productive
and social conditions will bring changes of all kinds. W hat I am
against is the fashion rat-race and the inordinate am ount of time,
attention and money consumed by it Time is the m ost precious
of all raw materials, for time is life. We have better things to do
with our lives than dissipate them in this costly, vulgar, and de­
pressing frenzy of keeping up with fashions.
Under socialism, the question of whether o r not a wom an wishes
to paint an d decorate her body will be of no more social con­
sequence th an the painting up on Halloween and other festive occa­
sions of children today, o r the painting up of actors for the stage,
or clowns for the circus. Some women m ay regard themselves
as more beautiful when they are so painted; some m ay n o t But
this will be a purely personal opinion and nothing more. There
will be no more economic or social compulsion for all women to
submit to these practices. Therefore, let us not defend the hucksters
who tout this commercial exploitation of women in the nam e of
"beauty.”
The M assive Propaganda Machine
In recent years more and more attention has been directed toward
the female population as im portant buyers of consumers’ goods
of all kinds: homes an d home furnishings, cars, refrigerators,
family apparel, m aternity needs, an d so on. M any of these products
are necessary and useful and, as such, do not need to be "so ld ”
through high-pressure advertising, which adds to their cost But
under the a r "chistic system of capitalism, with its enorm ous and
wasteful du ition of products, the various m anufacturers com­
pete with oil. another for a larger share of this lucrative m arket
Thus the advertising industry, a parasitic adjunct to big business,
has itself grown into another branch of big business.
All the m ass m edia—radio, television and the press —which
influence and mold public opinion, are built around and supported
by the advertisers who are supported by the capitalist merchandisers.
All these wings of big business not only push the sale of commodi­
ties; they are also cogs in the massive p ro p ag an d a m achine which
disseminates the required ideology and psychology for m aintaining
the capitalist system and its powers of exploitation.
Women, already weighed down by numerous conflicts and frus­
trations, are highly susceptible to this psychological m anipulation,
which directs them to the purchase of things as the solution to
their problems. In addition to the general press, a growing number
of m agazines are directed explusively to women, especially in the
fields of fashions and aids to beauty. These are handsom e produc­
52

tions, printed on the finest of slick papers. But the contents are also
slick, for they sell not only beauty by the bucket and other prof­
itable m erchandise, but also a highly effective sales m otivator —that
the wom en who p u rch ase the m ost are the most h ap p y an d success­
ful of women.
In the glam o ro u s ad s we see enticing photos of luscious comm odi­
ties o f all kinds alongside beautiful women. The G reat American
D ream comes true for beautiful women who can purchase the
stream lined cars, television sets an d whatnot, and even it seems a
dream y sex life an d a n ideal family. Those who fail to acquire
all these things w onder w hat is the m atter with them as women that
they h av e been dispossessed from this Great American Dream.
They blam e themselves for not h av in g been b o m rich and beautiful.
This sense of p erso n al inferiority is further implemented by the
stories a n d articles which fill the spaces between the big advertise­
ments. W riters capable of exposing the capitalist source of this
sense of defeat suffered by m asses of women are not invited to
dissem inate their views in these slick m agazines. The "scientific”
opinions peddled in them are designed to uphold an d not under­
m ine the capitalist exploitation of women.
T hus the specialists of v ario u s kinds, who are hired to write
articles for anx io u s housewives, lecture them on the need for m ore
child care, m other love, fam ily attention— all of which it is clear
can be supplied th ro u g h extensive and expensive purchases. Or
they discuss problem s connected with career women, often leaving
the insidious hint th at their h ap p y hom es an d em otional lives are
being endangered by their outside work. Here ag ain it seems that
the d an g er can be averted th rough m ore purchasing.
In pitting the w orking w om an ag ain st the housewife-mother and
vice versa, both sets of women are left with feelings of guilt, conflict,
an d frustration. This is m agnified in the case of those who are
both w orking wom en an d housewives. They are perpetually to m
by a conflict o f interests they cannot resolve.
But all this distress and sense of defeat suffered by women is
extremely beneficial to the profiteers. It tends to send women into
fresh p u rch asin g sprees in a n effort to overcome their anxieties
an d sense of failure. Very often as a quick restorative of their
self-confidence, they rush to buy a new fashion o r some magic
item of beauty in a bottle.
In short, first the capitalist system degrades and oppresses the
great m ass of women. Then it exploits the discontents an d fears
in women to stoke the fires of unlimited sales and profits. And yet,
this relentless abuse of the female sex cannot be overcome through
a sex-war, for w ealthy women profit from it as well as wealthy
men. Only thro u g h class struggle will this problem of the great
m ajority of women be solved.
 53

Our task, therefore, is to expose both the capitalist system as the

source of these evils and its massive p ro p ag an d a machine which
tells gullible women that the ro ad to a successful life an d love is
through the purchase of things. To condone o r accept capitalist
standards in any field —from politics to cosmetics—is to prop
up and perpetuate this ruthless profit system and its continued
victimization of women.
* * *

(In the fifteen years since this was written, it is interesting and
gratifying to note how the new rebelliousness has penetrated even
the fashion fields, shaking up old "beauty” standards and creating
new ones. M any young women have abandoned the use of cosmetics
altogether; they have dumped the old edict for "perm anent curls.”
They wear their h air long, lanky and even "unkem pt,” or crop
it sh o rt—whichever they prefer o r find convenient W omen’s knees,
formerly branded as one of their "u g ly ” features that must be con­
cealed, are defiantly bared by the miniskirts, and so on.
Instead of being led by the nose by the Fashion Czars, for a
time at least it has been the other way around. Dress designers
follow the lead of the careless and casual young women, adapting
them sufficiently to be able to pin expensive price tags on them.
As a result, the price tag has become more nakedly the badge
of "b eau ty ,” i.e., of class distinction. F or if a w om an wishes to
belong to the "beautiful people,” as the wealthy are called today,
however much o r little she has on, it must at least be the size of
a visible and expensive price ta g .)
54

"THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE”

(Reprinted from the W inter 1964 International Socialist Review).

The Feminine M ystique is a n outstanding sociological study—

a n overdue challenge to the m ercenary m yth-m akers who have
invented the glorified im age of the H appy Housewife Heroine and
im posed it upon Am erican women.
The author, a m other of three children, analyzes the plight of
women like herself who belong to the privileged upper middle strata
o f Am erican society. M ost women h ave no choice except to be tied
to a household o r chained to a factory o r office jo b —o r both. But
the women th at Betty F riedan exam ines are m ore fortunate. They
hav e access to all the adv an tag es of o u r culture — education, scholar­
ship, interesting and well-paying professions. And yet most of them
hav e forfeited developm ent of their higher capacities to enroll in the
ran k s listed as: " Occupation: housewife.”
Exposed by the a u th o r are the realities behind the show-windows
of S uburbia where female residents suffer agonies from " a problem
that h as no nam e.” This is their inability to "ad ju st” to their narrow ,
stultifying sphere of existence. She also describes the catastrophic
consequences th at this debasem ent of women inflicts upon the whole
family. Few escape the p athology flowing from the "Fem inine
M ystique.”
Betty F ried an ’s findings have a wider relevance than the well-to-
do housewives she h as investigated. These set the pattern of be­
h av io r an d asp iratio n for w orking-class housewives, who m istakenly
believe th at because middle-class women have all the advantages,
they also h av e all the answers. In this w ay distorted ideas and
values seep dow n to infect masses of wo men, including some working
w om en who w onder whether they m ight not lead a better life as
a full-time housewife. This book should help settle their doubts.
 55

Springing Old Trap.

The Feminine Mystique is a modernized version of the old form ula
for domestic enslavement more bluntly expressed as "W om an’s
place is in the home.’’ The new element is the poisoned bait of the
Mystique by which women today are voluntarily lured back into
the trap that their grandm others fought to escape from.
Betty Friedan reminds us that in the nineteenth century and in
the first decades of the twentieth, progressive middle-class women
led an inspiring "feminist” struggle for women’s rights. Out of this
rebellion they won the right to higher education, participation in
production, professional careers, independent ownership of property
and the vote. These reforms were an immense improvement over
their previous chatteldom, and could have been a springboard to
further advances to full h u m an stature an d dignity.
Instead, the Second W orld W ar an d its afterm ath brought about
a sweeping setback characterized by the author as a "counter-revolu­
tion” against women. The call for this retreat was sounded by F am -
ham & Lundberg’s book Modern Woman: The Lost Sex, published
in 1942. The "lost” women were the independent ones interested in
science, art, politics and engaged in careers beyond the family circle.
In place of intelligent, creative, public-spirited women came the new
im age of the "feminine” w om an—the empty-headed housewife con­
tented within the "cozy” walls of a pretty home. As the Mystique
gained momentum, domesticity became " a religion, a pattern by
which all women must now live o r deny their femininity,” writes
the author. W hat began as a trek back to the old corral became
a stampede during the prosperity of the 1950’s.
To mobilize women behind their own defeat, facts about the pioneer
fighters for women’s rights were distorted. Although m ost of the
feminist crusaders had husbands, children an d homes, they were
depicted as "em bittered sex-starved spinsters” incapable of fulfilling
their " femininity” as wives and mothers. Am ong the unforgivable
traits of these spirited women was their enjoyment of participation
in the struggle for social change!
Also blacked out of the record was the ultra-reactionary source
of this retreat back to the home. It was Hitler in the 1930’s who
enforced the notorious Three K’s for women: Kinder, Kuche, Kirche
(children, cooking, church). By the 1940’s a sim ilar slogan was sold
to American women in the disguised, glamorized package of the
Feminine Mystique.
The author likens the blind docility with which middle-class women
accepted their fate to prisoners in N azi concentration camps, who
became unprotesting " walking corpses” m arching to their own doom:
" I n a sense that is not as far-fetched as it sounds, the women
who 'a d ju s f as housewives, who grow up wanting to be 'just a
56

housewife,’ are in as much d an g er as the millions who walked to

their own death in the concentration cam p s—an d the millions m ore
who refused to believe th at the concentration cam ps existed.”
True, the b arb ed wire su rro u n ding the " com fortable concentration
cam ps” of S ub u rb ia w as invisible. W hat was visible to these victims
of " T h e Am erican D ream ” were the gilded trappings of the sta n d ard
middle-class home. As a lifetime occupation, however, they were
bogged dow n in domestic triv ia requiring the intellectual exertions
of a n eight-year-old. Even then there w as not enough work to occupy
their full time. Thus, housew ork" expanded to fill the time available,”
as the inm ates squandered their energies in m ore frantic "busyw ork”
on m eaningless details. W orking women can usually polish off
in a n h o u r the chores on which full-time housewives spend six hours
an d still leave unfinished at dinnertime. "E v en with all the new
lab o r-sav in g appliances,” the au th o r points out, "the m odem Amer­
ican housewife p ro b ab ly spends m ore time on housework th an her
g ran d m o th er.”
" Like Diogenes with his lam p,” Betty F riedan went in search of
at least one intelligent, capable w om an who felt fulfilled as a full­
time housewife. She found none. W hat she did find, out of a sam ple
test of 2 8 women in an upper-income comm unity was the following:
"Sixteen out of the 2 8 were in analysis o r analytical psychotherapy.
Eighteen were tak in g tranquilizers; several h a d tried suicide; and
som e h ad been hospitalized for v ary in g periods for depression or
vaguely diagnosed psychotic states. ('Y ou’d be surprised at the
num ber of these hap p y su b u rb an wives who sim ply go berserk one
night, and ru n shrieking th rough the street without any clothes on,’
said the local doctor, not a psychiatrist, who h ad been called in, in
such emergencies) . . . Twelve were engaged in extram arital affairs
in fact o r in fantasy.”
It was this conflict of reality with the widely publicized im age
of the h ap p y housewife which caused Betty F riedan to break the
hypnosis of the hfystique in her own life. Asking the key ques­
tion: "W h a t m ade these women go hom e a g a in ? ” she then proceeded
to collect the d ata which explained how the trick was done.

The Brainwashers

A high-powered p ro p a g a n d a m achine was put into m otion to

exalt housewifery and stifle wom en’s desires for som ething more
than a husband, hom e and children. Beginning with the "sex-
directed” educators in the schools and colleges, this cam paign
h as penetrated into every avenue of m ass indoctrination. The key
w ord in this technique of thought control— as effective as a black­
jack o n the skull in a d ark alley —is the word "fem inine.”
College girls, terrified lest they lose their "fem ininity” through
 57

any display of brains o r serious study, learn to cam ouflage their

intelligence o r obediently empty their minds altogether. Their m ain
preoccupation, fostered by parents and educators alike, is "the
pursuit of a wedding ring.” As one educator put it, college for
women was the "w orld’s best m arriage m art.”
Higher education for women was readjusted to fit the new goal;
it became a veneer for suburban wifehood. Courses in advanced
cooking, in m arriage and family adjustm ent displaced courses in
chemistry, physics, etc. Old-fashioned educators, repelled by the
" sophisticated soup” dished up as Liberal Arts courses, were brought
into line —or pushed aside. Even such Ivy League colleges as Vas-
sar, Smith, B arn ard and others, "which pioneered higher education
for women in America and were noted for their uncom prom ising
intellectual standards,” tumbled from their heights. As the spokes­
m an of a famous w om an’s college put it:"W e are not educating
women to be scholars; we are educating them to be wives and
m others.” With comm endable irony the girls prom ptly abbreviated
this to " WAM.”
Summing up the consequences of this deterioration in education,
the author writes:
" Sex-directed education segregated recent generations of able
American women as surely as separate-but-equal education segre­
gated able American Negroes from the opportunity to realize their
full abilities in the m ainstream of American life.”
Along with this lowering of educational standards, the age level
for m arriage took a sharp plunge (often beginning even in the
high schools), while the birth rate soared. The fashion for
"W AM ism ” swept the nation, spearheaded by middle-class women
who "led all the others in the race to have m ore babies.”
"T h e average age of first m arriage, in the last 15 years, has
dropped to the youngest in the history of this country, the young­
est in any of the countries of the Western world, alm ost as young
as it used to be in the so-called underdeveloped countries. . . the
annual rate of population increase in the U. S. is am ong the highest
in the world — nearly three times that of the Western E uropean
nations, nearly double Ja p a n ’s, and close on the heels of Africa
and India.”
Sustaining and extending this redirection of women are the power­
ful molders of public opinion: editors and writers of the slick m aga­
zines for women, newspaper columnists, TV shows, movies, popular
novels, pulps, and all the rest. Insidiously and unremittingly they
w arn women that even yearning to express their intellects and
talents would be "heavily paid for” by the loss of their "fem ininity.”
The social sciences: applied sociology, psychology and anthro­
pology are likewise misused to buttress this Feminine Mystique.
Even alert and intelligent women find it difficult to question p ro p a ­
58

g a n d a when it is disguised as science. The m ore dubious findings

of the eminent psychologist, Freud, are perverted and vulgarized
to lend au th o rity to the theme that w om an’s place is in the home.
" F o r reasons far rem oved from the life of F reud himself, F reudian
thought h as become the ideological bulw ark of the sexual counter­
revolution in Am erica,” says Betty Friedan. F or example, "penis
envy” becam e a psychological catch-all; the answer to women’s
resentm ent ag ain st their inferior status. It was invoked as a blud­
geon ag ain st such "unfem inine” dem ands as freedom and equality
with men.
The noted "functional” anthropologist, M argaret M ead (perhaps
unwittingly) h as been one of the m ost influential contributors to
the pseudo-scientific cam paign p ro p p in g up the Feminine Mystique.
A ccording to this " m a jo r architect’ of opinion about women, it
is the "en tran ces and exits” of the body which are decisive in
shap in g the individual in society.
Utilizing bits an d patches of F reud’s teachings, she returned
from the South Seas where she charted tribal personality according
to literal " o r a l” a n d " a n a l” tables, bringing women the good
news th at in their bodily o rg an s they are, after all, the equals of
men. Since wom en possess that supremely feminine "entrance,”
the v ag in a, the equality of women stems from the fact that for
every penis — there is a uterus! She" equated those assertive, creative,
productive aspects of life on which the superstructure of a civiliza­
tion depends with the penis and defined feminine creativity in terms
of the passive receptivity of the uterus,” says the author. Thus,
"th ro u g h h er influence, procreation became a cult, a career, to
the exclusion of every other kind of creative endeavor.”
Ironically, M arg aret M ead did not guide her own life by what
she wrote in her books, as Betty F riedan points out. "S he has
dem onstrated feminine capabilities that go far beyond childbirth;
she m ade h er w ay in a m an’s world without denying that she was
a w om an.” But not until recent years has M argaret M ead modified
her position an d begun to chide women —as well as their over­
dom esticated hu sb an d s —for too much preoccupation with home
and family.
However, all these educators, scientists an d other molders of
public opinion are not independent thinkers. They are themselves
molded by the controllers of o u r economy and directly o r in­
directly serve their needs. Param ount am ong these, of course, is
the need for ex panding sales an d greater profits.
The "Sexual Sell”
Betty F ried an generously says th at the "S exual Sell” in con­
sum er’s goods is not the result of a n "econom ic conspiracy” by
big business. However, she presents ample evidence that the prof­
 59

iteers are the m ain movers and prime beneficiaries of the immense
apparatus generating the drive toward keeping women in the home.
Women are the m ajor buyers of things for the hom e and its in­
mates. Thus, as the author points out, " In all the talk of femininity
and women’s role, one forgets that the real business in America
is business.”
To step up the sale of things and m ore things, through rapidly
changing fashions, is the job of the commercial advertising and
sales prom otion agencies. Women’s weaknesses are carefully studied
and ruthlessly exploited by the most unscrupulous members of the
M adison Avenue brainw ashers, the "m anipulators in depth.”
T aking advantage of the knowledge that most housewives are rest­
less, unhappy and bored, the "Depth Boys” have come up with
m agic form ulas prom ising "feminine fulfillment” through the p u r­
chase of things.
The endlessly "h u n g ry ” women who do not understand that
they are really starved for means of expressing their productive,
social, cultural and intellectual potential become easy prey for
this gigantic sales swindle. Since her own identity as a hum an being
has collapsed, writes Betty Friedan, "she needs these external
trappings to buttress her emptinesss of self, to make her feel like
som ebody.”
One of the chief professional "m otivators,” who is paid about
a million a y ear for his services, told the author how cunningly
this fraud is perpetrated:
"Properly m anipulated (if you are not afraid of that word) Amer­
ican housewives can be given the sense of identity, purpose, crea­
tivity, the self-realization, even the sexual joy they lack —by the
buying of thin gs. . .
" I n a free enterprise economy we have to develop the need for
new products. And to do that we have to liberate women to desire
these new products. . . This can be manipulated. We sell them
what they ought to want, speed up the unconscious, move it along
. . . The m anufacturer wants her back into the kitchen—an d we
show him how to do it the right way. If he tells her all she can be
is a wife and mother, she will spit in his face. But we show him
how to tell her that it’s creative to be in the kitchen. We liberate
her need to be creative in the kitchen.”
To stimulate the housewife into becoming a passionate thing-
buyer, the "D epth Boys” overstimulate her appetites for food, sex
and procreation. Thus the slick m agazines feature dram atic full-
page color spreads of " g arg antuan vegetables; beets, cucumbers,
green peppers, potatoes,” not to speak of succulent roasts dripping
with g rav y an d fluffy pies an d cakes. In large-sized print usually
reserved for a first-grade primer, foods are "described like a love
affair.” This " o ra l” satisfaction requires, in turn, the buying of the
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right hom e with a gorgeous kitchen, sometimes decorated with

m osaic m u rals an d original paintings, equipped with gleam ing
electric m ixers, red stoves with rounded corners, and all the other
p a ra p h e rn a lia an d gadgets th at subtly tie in status with stomach.
Sexual gratification is likewise prom ised in glam or ads featuring
lip stick a n d h a ir dyes, hi-fashion clothes, perfumes, chrome-plated
cars an d the like. The sacred joys of procreation dem and a great
diversity of products from pink an d blue, toy-filled nurseries to
Dr. Spock’s current b a b y bible. T hrough some oversight, that
bodily "ex it,” the anus, is least im aginatively treated; soft toilet
tissue is still toilet pap er even if it comes in four different colors
an d white.
If, after all their frenzied purchasing, the results do not stack
up with the prom ises, the housewives are invited to slake their thirst
with salt water. They can double an d triple their purchases of
things, but, as the au th o r points out, women have m inds and ca­
pacities th at food, sex o r procreation by themselves cannot satisfy.
And those who think th at their discontents can be rem oved by more
m oney, a bigger house, two fireplaces instead of one, three cars,
ano th er baby, m oving to a better suburb, "often discover it gets
w orse.”
The Fem inine M ystique p lays as big a role in supporting the
consum er m arket as cold-war p ro p a g a n d a does in the dom ain
of producers’ goods. Com m enting on the explosive sales boom
of the F ab u lo u s Fifties, the au th o r writes: " It would take a clever
econom ist to figure out w hat would keep o u r affluent economy
going if the housewife m arket began to fall off, just as an economist
would h av e to figure out w hat to do if there were no threat of
w ar.” In short, just as the M erchants of Death prosper by exploiting
the "m enace of Com m unism ” on foreign fronts, the M erchants of
the M ystique get rich by exploiting the "m enace of unfemininity”
on the hom e fro n t
But the real menace, which lies below the level of general con­
sciousness, is the dehum anization of the Am erican people—a pro­
cess th at affects not only the housewife but sucks the whole family
into its vortex.
The Vortex
The pu rch ase of things —even a m ountain of junk —fails to
produce the H appy Fam ily of Togetherness pictured by the ad­
vertisers. On the contrary, family relationships degenerate into
relationships am o n g owners of things. There are m any millions
of im poverished women who are deprived of the necessary things
th at w ould m ake their lives more bearable and fruitful. But am ong
these surfeited middle-class women, the possession of things pos­
sesses them — and im poverishes their personalities.
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When the wife is reduced to a thing-buyer, the husband becomes

a "thing around the house’’ who justifies his own frantic activities
in the rat-race by claiming it’s all necessary for the "wife and
kiddies.’’ The children, too, become converted intolivingpossessions
in a home filled with ornam ents of all kinds. Unable to understand,
much less articulate, the real source of their resentments, husbands
and wives, parents and children, become alienated from one another,
often blam ing one another for their stunted lives.
M ost desperate are those housewives who have abandoned
attempts to kill all their time with housework. But they seek for
relief in the w rong direction. Some, guided by the all-pervasive
exaltation of sex, become the " sex-seekers” inside o r outside of
m arriage. But the m ore aggressive they become in the pursuit
of sexual bliss, the less they find w hat they are seeking. Betty Friedan
sums up the "faceless, depersonalized” sex-seeking of today as
follows:
"In stead of fulfilling the prom ise of infinite orgiastic bliss, sex
in the America of the feminine mystique is becoming a strangely
joyless national compulsion, if not a contemptuous mockery. The
sex-glutted novels become increasingly explicit and increasingly
dull; the sex kick of the women’s magazines has a sickly sadness;
the endless flow of m anuals describing new sex techniques hint
at an endless lack of excitement This sexual boredom is betrayed
by the ever-growing size of the Hollywood sta rlets breast, by the
sudden emergence of the male phallus as an advertising 'gim m ick.’
Sex has become depersonalized, seen in terms of these exaggerated
symbols.
" But of all the strange sexual phenom ena that have appeared
in the era of the feminine mystique, the most ironic are these—the
frustrated sexual hunger of American women h as increased, and
their conflicts over femininity have intensified, as they have reverted
from independent activity in search for their sole fulfillment through
their sexual role in the home. And as American women have turned
their attention to the exclusive, explicit, and aggressive pursuit of
sexual fulfillment, or the acting-out of sexual phantasy, the sexual
disinterest of American men, and their hostility tow ard women,
have also increased. . . The sellers, it seems, have sexed the sex
out of sex.”
Other housewives turn tow ard their own children as the closest
and most m alleable m eans for relieving their dissatisfactions. F or
the wom an who "lives through her children,” mother-love becomes
converted into "sm other-love.” Even worse, women who are robbed
of norm al, adult relationships carry on what am ounts to "love
affairs” with their children. The more susceptible young males
can be "v irtu ally destroyed in the process.” Women and boys
comprise the m ajority of patients in the psychiatric clinics.
62

Girls, b ro u g h t up under the influence of the Feminine Mystique,

are likewise vulnerable to becoming em otionally arrested at an
infantile level. Those who m arry young become the transm ission
belt for conveying this infantilism to their own children. Betty
F ried an calls this "p ro g ressiv e dehum anization.”
E qually d am ag in g is the p arasitism encouraged in the middle-
class hom es where everything is done for the children, everything
supervised for their com fort an d pleasure down to the "c u rl of
their h a ir.” The advertisers feed this indulgence with sales cam paigns
directed at the "gim m e” kids. This excessive pam pering is imitated
by better-income w orking-class parents who are deluded into believing
this is giving their own children "the b e s t” But in homes where
the living is easy, the children tend to grow up soft, passive, lazy
an d incom petent U nable to organize a p ro g ra m of serious study
and work, an d lacking am bition to achieve m aturity, they seek
to fill up their v acan t time with "kicks.” As the author writes:
" A questionnaire revealed th at there was literally nothing these
kids felt strongly enough ab o ut to die for, as there was nothing
they actually did in which they felt really alive. Ideas, the con­
ceptual thought which is uniquely hum an, were completely absent
from their m inds or lives.”
This absence of vital purpose, this indifference to hum an values,
w as noted by arm y doctors an d psychologists who studied G. I.
prisoners of the K o rean war. M any of them, unlike their Yankee
forebears, lost all resourcefulness, became inert, uncommunicative,
did nothing to help their sick com rades, an d even cast others
out in the snow to die. Such dehum anized behavior, opined one
doctor, w as " th e result of some new failure in the childhood and
adolescent train in g of o u r you n g men.”
Social Connections
Betty F ried an connects all the consequences of the flight back to
hom e an d fam ily with the predom inant state of conservatism and
loss of interest in public affairs and social struggles:
"W h a t happened to women is p a rt of w hat'happened to all of
us in the years after the war. We found excuses for not facing
the problem s we once h ad the courage to face. The American spirit
fell into a stran g e sleep; men as well as women, scared liberals,
disillusioned radicals, conservatives bewildered an d frustrated by
ch an g e—the whole nation stopped grow ing up. All of us went back
to the w arm brightness of home. . .
" I t w as easier, safer, to think about love and sex th an about
Com m unism, M cCarthy, an d the uncontrolled bomb. It was easier
to look for F reudian sexual roots in m an’s behavior, his ideas,
a n d his w ars than to look critically at his society an d act construc­
tively to right its wrongs. There was a kind of personal retreat,
even on the p a rt of the m ost far-sighted, the most spirited; we
 .63

lowered our eyes from the horizon, and steadily contemplated our
own navels.”
This is certainly true. But what is the alternative to total sub­
mersion into family life? Betty Friedan’s diagnosis of the disease
is superior to her remedy for it She suggests that more serious
education an d study, together with interesting, well-paying jobs,
will open the door of the trap. This is the same kind of limited,
individual solution that the feminists formerly proposed — and that
subsequently proved so ineffective. Some fortunate women can do
what the author h as done—turn around, m ake a "new life plan”
and escape the domestic cage. But the life-plans for the great
m ajority of women are determined for them by forces outside their
personal control—the ruling powers.
The sickness that Betty F riedan describes with so much pene­
tration an d courage are the products of a diseased social organism ,
in which the rights, welfare and opportunities of hum an beings
are subjected to the dictates of the profiteers. During a capitalist
w ar women can be taken out of their homes by the millions and
put to work in the factories. But when they are no longer needed
as producers, they are sent back home to become prim arily con­
sumers. In both instances, what is decisive is not the needs of women
as hum an beings but the interests of the monopolists. These masters
of America shape the lives and livelihoods of w om anhood and the
whole family according to their own corrupt and corrupting aims.
W om an’s destiny cannot be fundam entally transform ed until this
truth is understood and acted upon. The feminists of the past could
achieve their limited reforms within the framework of a still-ascending
capitalism. But today it has become dead-end capitalism. It is good
but not enough for women to become more social-minded, as Betty
Friedan advocates. They should now become socialist-minded, be­
cause only a root-and-branch change in the whole venal system can
save us all from further dehumanization.