Configuración del Módulo de Procesamiento (Plataforma

1.2.1 Marxist feminists.-

The text of Engels, ‘The origins of the family, private property and the State’

illustrated the Marxist perspective on women’s social condition. Engels described

how women were removed from their privileged position in society toward a condition

of oppression consolidated along the development of a capitalist mode of production.

Marxism promised the liberation of women through the change in the correlation of

the productive forces and their full incorporation into the new labour system; in this

way, ‘enabling women to operate on the basis of equality with men in the public

sphere’ (Barnett 1998:137).

The Marxist- feminists have criticised the liberal feminists for overlooking the

differential ways in which women are oppressed in society depending on their class

conditions. However, they challenged the Marxist mainstream pointing out that

because of the pervasive nature of the gender relation an improvement in women’s

to work but it was still assumed they were mainly responsible for childbearing and

domestic chores. Reproduction was a category that was lacking in a traditional

Marxist analysis of women in society. The Marxist-feminists, however, did not take

into account other categories of oppression such as race. (Barnett 1998:138).

For Marxists feminists, as for the rest of Marxists, the law was evaluated as a

‘superstructure of capitalism’ questioning their ‘self-proclaimed rational objectivity’.

It was regarded as a tool that assured the privileges of one class to the detriment of

another (Barnett 1998 136-7, Me Barnet 1984). Under a Marxist feminist analysis few

promises can be expected from the official legal system in a capitalist society.

In South America, and particularly in Peru, feminists were mainly identified with this

political stand. As mentioned in chapter one, the contemporary feminist movement

had its origin in the association of women disenchanted with the left-wing militancy.

In the 1980s the political strategy was to work with the poorest sector of the

population and there was a great faith in the popular movement mainly in the women's

neighbouring organisation and in the unions. In relation to domestic violence there

was an overt challenge to the official legal system and a preference to develop

'paralegal' resources and solidary networks to process women’s demands There was,

for instance, a tacit refusal to work with the police which was dismissed as being a

repressive and patriarchal organisation par excellence. If the legal system had to be

tackled through the individual cases, a great display of social and political pressure

was deemed necessary to assure any acceptable result within the official legal system.

A successful strategy was considered to be that which managed the best practical

formality of a judicial decision4. From 1990 onwards, a switch to a more liberal

approach to the legal system is noticeable.

1.2.2 Radical feminists.-

Catherine MacKinnon (1982, 1987, 1989) is considered the main exponent of this

approach In her analysis, the paradigm of production is displaced by the paradigm of

reproduction (Behabib and Cornell 1987:1-2). Particularly, in her early works there

existed an effort to compare the category of class to gender. MacKinnon (1982:515)

comments: 'sexuality is to feminism, what work is to Marxism’, both constructed,

universal and expropriated social activities.

In relation to law, MacKinnon agrees that the contents of modem law are male but

also, and more importantly, that the whole rationality of modem law is male. In this

sense there is a questioning of the law itself -as a social institution- which does not

appear in the liberal perspective. Law is created and reproduced in the male dominated

social order. Its assigned characteristics: equality, neutrality and objectivity are indeed

masculine aspirations, consequently, to insist on being treated equally under the law is

to 'insist on being judged by the values o f masculinity’ (Smart 1992:32).

MacKinnon’s proposals are considered a ‘dramatic shift’ in the feminist legal

perspective of the eighties on Western feminism. Naffine and Owens (1997:4-5)

highlighted that she was one of the first to reveal that the category of woman was

socially constructed, and was constructed by men, this is the 'social woman' but

especially the 'legal woman' was all that men thought she was. In relation to gender

violence, she has emphasised that every expression of male violence is an exercise of

power. Her writing on rape particularly caused much impact. MacKinnon has also

influenced the feminists to challenge the ‘positivist paradigm’ when studying gender

violence. Objectivity is a male subjectivity. ‘Scientific methods’ separate ‘abstract

concepts’ from the experiences of the social world pretending ‘neutrality’ that simply

means ignoring the perspective of the protagonists: women (Yllo 1998:36). In this

sense, a woman researcher, does not have to be ‘impartial’, but deeply aware of

women’s concern because that condition is inseparable from her own reality. Yllo

(1988:42) adds:

‘For us, wife abuse is not part of the separate, observable, empirical world “out there”. Its existence is intimately connected to our own status as women, whether we have personally been victimized or not’

MacKinnon and her followers have been criticised for reducing all women to a single

category of ‘woman’, -the essential woman-, and for narrowing the understanding of

women's oppression under patriarchy in women’s use and abuse as sexual bodies

(Naffine and Owens 1997:5). There is not just one category of ‘woman’ but also there

is not just one category of ‘man’ and law can be a site of oppression for poor men as it

is for 'subordinated' women, that is, law is not just male but it is also capitalist,

Western, racist amongst others biases.