Women's Studies - to interpret or change the world - the Marxist question

Abstract

Karl Marx writes in his Theses on Feuerbach (1845) ‘the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it’. This is key to the work called Women’s Studies — to interpret or change the world - the Marxist question. The thesis queries this concept of transformation through hypothesising that ‘If the academic programme of Women’s Studies is based on feminist theoretical principles, then it will empower their students to praxis’. In contrast to other streams of thought within the feminist perspectives, Marx and Engels locate women’s oppression in capitalism within the drive for profit. It is argued here that this analysis is still relevant for contemporary Australian women as the Marxist philosophical and theoretical perspective critiques capitalism as a source of exploitation, subordination, and oppression of women as mother and worker: reproducer and producer.

The dissertation’s hypotheses emerge from the literature review in Chapter One, which forms the contextual framework for this inquiry. The review provides an insight into Australian women’s political history beginning with the Suffragist Era at the end of the nineteenth century, and facilitates an understanding of how political changes occur for women and/or are resisted by the state. Enfranchisement for the Suffragists proves not to alter a culture of antipathy towards women into one of acceptance and inclusion: this type of historical reading of social movements attempts to make intelligible the past one hundred years of women’s political orientation within the capitalist state’s need for worker-friendly reform. From the feminist perspective the state is informed by liberalism, and is still identified as the arena to contest women’s social and economic positioning. This approach does not politically seek disengagement from the state, instead aiming to ‘appease’ and ‘assuage’ it without calling for basic structural reform.

This study locates Women’s Studies, and its genesis in the 1970s Australian Women’s Liberation Movement. The programme is seen to have a feminist theoretical and philosophical foundation that encourages debate in the classroom; develops critical perspectives; fosters appreciation for diversity; and induces a sense of social IV responsibility and political participation by the student — praxis. This dissertation raises questions as to whether or not this occurs, and whether Women’s Studies is an agent for social change and the role of feminist theory in this process.

For this reflexive study of women and their place in the contemporary world, the thesis draws from a sample of tertiary students: predominantly women, enrolled in academic Women’s Studies programmes at twelve Australian universities between 1999, and 2004. The attitudinal survey approach discussed in Chapter Two is used as the data-gathering strategy as it allows original data to be drawn from within the Australian academic context to test the dissertation’s hypotheses. The sample population of students are asked to respond to three questionnaires conducted at different times, and were designed to assess, and document, the impact of the Women’s Studies experience on its relevance to their ‘feminist’ development; primarily in a ‘post-feminist’ politically conservative environment.