everyone should read philosophical trends in the feminist movement by anuradha ghandy. literally the easiest marxist feminist read i've read and she is so to-the-point about her critiques of different feminist trends.

This is a text written by Anuradha Ghandy, also known as Avanti. She was spearheading the proletarian feminist movement in India, and was a Central Committee member of the underground Communist Party of India (Maoist). This text is considered to be one of the seminal proletarian feminist texts.

Overview of Women’s Movement in the West Liberal Feminism

Critique Radical Feminism

Sex-Gender System and Patriarchy

Sexuality: Heterosexuality and Lesbianism

Critique Anarcha-Feminism Eco-Feminism Socialist Feminism

Socialist-Feminist strategy for women’s liberation

Critique Post-modernism and Feminism Summing up

Hey guys

If you're an Indian Marxist or Dalit feminist you should read about Anuradha Ghandy and her work :)

I might make a long post about her but I am very busy atm.

Ik there is a lack of Marxist feminists here so I found and read about one who was a woman ahead of her time.

The Indian government labeled her as a Maoist terrorist because of her role in Marxism and because she wrote really well about how the call for Hindutva relies on the patriarchy in her article "Fascism, Fundamentalism and Patriarchy".

She also called for the unity of feminist, anti-caste and Marxist movements and thought ignoring role of imperialism in women's oppression is counterproductive.

Please read about her. It might make Indian feminists realize how much more focus we must put on resisting violence against Dalit women and right wing Hindu men's dream of Hindutva.

Honestly I haven't gone deep in this country's Marxist feminist movement but I doubt I will find someone as intelligent and brave as her. But I certainly hope I do.

I haven't read her book yet but I am meaning to someday.

If anyone has or will read it soon then please drop a review :)

Anuradha Ghandy had an amazing militancy that is truly inspiring but her book about feminism has so many weak points and misinformation. While I don't expect her to know every single thing about western feminism, specially taking in account the time she wrote it and the fact that feminism (and particularly radical feminism) was widely twisted through several backlashs, it ended up promoting more misunderstanding about feminist politics and the fact that socialists, specially MALE communists LOVE to use her book as a “gotcha” to dismiss feminism as a whole is very concern. I dislike how she and other female communists kinda tokenize working class women's experiences, even though they came from upper class and even bourgeois backgrounds but bash feminism for holding sex-based oppression as important as class exploitation as a means of implying a special focus on sex-based oppression is useless/dangerous to working class women since it acknowledge men's role as oppressors. I also dislike how she has 0 problems with Marx and Engels (even though they were rich white males) but they use these characteristics to bash feminists as a whole and discrediting their contributions and erasing women of color and proletarian women from feminist story.

Besides that, I really liked her attention to imperialism and how any revolutionary project needs to center around a strong anti imperialist project. Speaking as a Brazilian black woman myself, it's very frustrating to see how USA/European feminists support imperialism and most of them don't make any effort to at least educate themselves about it. Many of them proclaim to be radical but it doesn't last two seconds. When they have to confront the ruling class narrative regarding to the class interests of their own countries, they are so quickly to abandon the women they claim to care about and promote all sorts of anticommunist propaganda we can imagine.

Liberal feminism is a prime example of what happens when self-proclaimed feminists don't care about class but it's very sad how radical feminists is more and more away from its anti imperialist roots and we need to make feminism be a threat again and other perspectives can add a lot to build up this.

Brilliant points, wish I could add more but still haven't read Anuradha Ghandy

"But in fact, reproduction of the species is something humans share with the animal kingdom. That could not be the basis for women’s oppression. For in all the thousands of years that people lived in the first stages of human existence women were not subordinated to men. In fact her reproductive role was celebrated and given importance because the survival of the species and the group depended on reproduction. The importance given to fertility and the fertility rituals surviving in most tribal societies are testimony of this fact.

Marxism understands that some material con­ditions had to arise due to which the position of women changed and she was subordinated. The sig­nificant change in material conditions came with the generation of considerable surplus production. How this surplus would be distributed is the point at which classes arose, the surplus being appropriated by a small number of leading people in the commu­nity. Her role in reproduction the cause of her ele­vated status earlier became a means of her enslave­ment. Which clan/extended family the children she bore belonged to, became important and it is then that we find restrictions on her and the emergence of the patriarchal family in which the woman was sub­ordinated and her main role in society was begetting children for the family."

This is from a book criticizing the radical feminist perspective that women's biological role of reproduction is the main cause of our oppression. Do you think this has any merit?

It’s funny because I have that exact sentence marked as disagreement in this Anuradha Ghandy book. First of all, I feel like western maoists tokenize Ghandy. She didn’t call herself a proletarian feminist. What does that even mean? She was a “means of production owner” on both her and her husbands side. Also, imo it seems that she didn’t understand radical feminism too well as she makes some glaringly incorrect attributions to them (I think she called them pro-porn or pro-prostitution or something, I can’t remember). I do not fault her for it because she’s an Indian woman, radical feminism had a lot of spits and fictionalization, it evolved very quickly. how would she know about all that from India.

Apart from this, I also disagree on how westerners use this book as some kind of gotcha about biological essentialism. Because while she criticizes biological role, she then literally says the following - which is also the radical feminist perspective since it borrows from Engels to begin with. And ofc she mentions it in what you quoted it as well:

So I think in a typical fashion, when Marxist online criticize radical feminism and tell you to go [read this book] they haven’t critically engaged with radical feminism nor the book they’re telling you to read lol, or misrepresent the book they’re citing to you lol.

Anyway I disagree with Ghandy that because reproduction is something that humans share with animals, that it cannot be the source of oppression of women. Engels very neatly argues at the beginning of Origins why this comparison does not make sense. Reproduction in animals is only to reproduce themselves. Whereas reproduction in humans is reproduces society, because only humans have the ability to reproduce from nature itself - ie, bend nature, grow food, modify the means of production etc.

anything to read besides dworkin? a lot of her stuff has left a really sour taste in my mouth

dworkin is definitely the person thats written the most on specifically the topic of the mindset and place of right wing women as far as I know

howeverrrr

Anuradha ghandy, silvia federici, and simone de beauvoir have also explored that topic a decent amount

i can’t find it

does anyone have that post that criticises Anuradha Ghandy’s Philosophical Trends for misrepresenting Radical Feminism?

I think it was about a book by a lower caste woman who criticised Ghandy for being basically an upper caste tourist

some people are SO confused by proletarian feminism which strongly critiques both biological determinism/essentialism and sex trade expansion and its like. just go read anuradha ghandy lol

Do you have any recommendations on resources on asian marxists that's not east-asian centric? I would love to read some stuff on southeast asian, south asian, west asian and etc. perspectives on marxfem

Anonymous

5 Apr

Anuradha Ghandy is the first name that comes to my mind! Her piece “Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement” is a great rundown of all the main feminist branches + critiques

She never misses…

tues 11, july 2023

From a short trip in London

🎧 Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement - Anuradha Ghandy

Sorry about that. I didn't really think that it would be suspicious for an anon to sent facebook links. I totally understand your concerns.

Do you know Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj? She's an mra who made documentaries like Martyrs of Marriage and India's sons. The person I mentioned reblogged a post from her about Shikhar Dhawan and Aesha Dhawan while tagging it as "How greedy bourgeois woman can ruin life of man".

I know it sounds simple but what actually annoyed me were the comments to that post and how she responded to it. Men saying things like "most women are like this" and her responding with "yes comrade, women in bourgeois society care only about money" and such. This isn't the first time she's made posts like this. She was the one who actually introduced me to marxist feminism and seeing her turn into this way was disappointing.

A lot of political discourse about feminism or marxism in our country is dominated by upper castes and classes but I'm willing to listen still, which is why I kept following her eventhough she's been making misogynistic posts for a long time.

I actually do read and enjoy works of Urmila Pawar, Anuradha Ghandy, Shoma Sen, Anand Teltumbde and I'd definitely look at the works of those whom you mentioned.

I'm probably boring you by now and I guess I come across as an idiot so I'll stop. I won't bother you anymore. Again, I apologize for sending that link.

Yeah sometimes links are often disguised and can be ip grabbers or other form of malware. And even then I couldn't see what you sent cause I don't have fb account. You don't need to apologize and you can send me an ask without anon on (I won't publish) and we can talk through DMs if you want. Or you can continue sending anons. I don't have an issue. You're not bothering me dw. Everytime I get an ask like this from an Indian leftist feminist I get excited so you're not boring me and you're definitely not an idiot. It's okay really <3

You're already brighter than most men and yet you're feeling so underconfident. Try to resist that.

And ik her! (Deepika whatever) YouTube wouldn't stop pushing her videos on my feed and so I looked into them and just 🤢🤢

What a class traitor. And the fact I have come across so many such women irl. And that case is just vile. Like wtf. These people always want to blame women for everything. If he had sm problem of being away from his son, then maybe he should have taken up some domestic duties himself lol. But men confine women to a certain role in marriage. And when it backfires they cry and blame them.

And she was a Marxist feminist and then turned to MRA rhetoric? Wow that's new. And you're right, it is dominated by the privileged sections of society. You don't have to listen to such extreme bigoted people. Does she really understand Marxism feminism at all if she thinks it's women who are economically greedy in capitalist system? Maybe you were right, it's just for clout. Sorry you had to see that.

And I am glad you're reading their work! You are already very smart idk why you're so anxious about yourself. I am glad you sent me that and this ask :)

I don't know why people think that a place or culture that shows Goddess worship is matriarchal. As an Indian, worshipping Goddesses and celebrating fertility of women are very common here. There are plenty of rituals here that celebrate the first time a girl has her period(I myself have experienced this), where we are gifted with new clothes, gold, sweets, etc. None of this means that the culture is in anyway matriarchal. In hindu temples, you can see images and sculptures of warrior goddesses who are slaying demons(who are always men) yet it is still a very misogynistic society.

I have actually read the book that anon took the passage from. It's called Philosophical trends in the feminist movement by an Indian Maoist named Anuradha Ghandy. It's strange how the author makes such claims despite knowing that Goddess worship and all exist even now in our culture.

I've mainly seen this book recommended as a valid criticism against radical feminism but the truth is the author would've been called a "swerf" or "terf" by them if they read the entire book. At one point, she makes the mistake of assuming radical feminists support prostitution and criticize them -"The radi­cal trend by supporting pornography and giving the abstract argument of free choice has taken a reac­tionary turn providing justification and support to the sex tourism industry promoted by the imperial­ists which is subjecting lakhs (100.000s) of women from oppressed ethnic communities and from the third world countries to sexual exploitation and untold suffering."

However, her criticism of liberal and post-modern feminism is spot on.For eg:" In effect post-modernism is extremely divisive because it pro­motes fragmentation between people and gives rela­tive importance to identities without any theoretical framework to understand the historical reasons for identity formation and to link the various identities." So I'd say it's a good reading for those who want to know why liberal feminism and postmodernism are problematic.

Interesting, I'd never heard of this book before. I wonder when it was written because there were strands of second wave feminists who did support porn and the "sexual revolution" (i.e. Ellen Willis) but surely not enough to constitute referring to supporting porn as a tenet of radical feminism. I think there's so much ahistoricism in regards to prehistory because so many feminsits operate under the assumption that matriarchies prove that patriarchy is unnatural and evil and therefore go to ridiculous lengths to interpret anything as being matriarchal. By the same token, many misogynists love to see matriarchies as proving the opposite, that there were these primitive backwards "nature based" societies run by women that had to be defeated for society to progress. So there's no wonder the idea of prehistorical matriarchy is so prevalent. And like you say, we are so much more skeptical and realistic when it comes to putting women on a pedestal in our modern societies and cultures being indicative of how women are treated, but put these same artefacts or ideas a few thousand years ago and suddenly it's proof of matriarchy!

I like her passage on postmodernism.

Happy International Women’s Day ❣️

[I]t is clear that radical feminists have stood Marxism on its head so to speak. […] In their understanding of material conditions they have taken the physical fact of reproduction and women’s biological role as the central point for their analysis and concluded that this is the main reason for women’s oppression. Marx wrote that production and reproduction of life are the two basic conditions for human existence. Reproduction means both of the reproduction of the person on a day-to-day basis and the reproduction of the human species. But in fact, reproduction of the species is something human beings share with the animal kingdom. That could not be the basis for women’s oppression. For in all the thousands of years that people lived in the first stages of human existence women were not subordinated to men. In fact her reproductive role was celebrated and given importance because the survival of the species and the group depended on reproduction. The importance given to fertility and the fertility rituals surviving in most tribal societies are testimony of this fact.

Marxism understands that some material conditions had to arise due to which the position of women changed and she was subordinated. The significant change in material conditions came with the generation of considerable surplus production. How this surplus would be distributed is the point at which classes arose, the surplus being appropriated by a small number of leading people in the community. Her role in reproduction the cause of her elevated status earlier became a means of her enslavement. Which clan/extended family the children she bore belonged to, became important and it is then that we find restrictions on her and the emergence of the patriarchal family in which the woman was subordinated and her main role in society was begetting children for the family.

Radical feminist have treated historical development and historical facts lightly and impose their own understanding of man-women contradiction as the original contradiction and the principle contradiction which has determined the course of actual history. From this central point the radical feminist analysis abandons history altogether, ignores the political-economic structure and concentrates only on the social and cultural aspects of advanced capitalist society and projects the situation there as the universal human condition. This is another major weakness in their analysis and approach. Since they have taken the man-woman relationship (sex/gender relationship) as the central contradiction in society, all their analysis proceeds from it and men become the main enemies of women. Since they do not have any concrete strategy to overthrow this society, they shift their entire analysis to a critique of super-structural aspects—the culture, language, concepts, ethics without concerning themselves with the fact of capitalism and the role of capitalism in sustaining the sex/gender relationship and hence the need to include the overthrow of capitalism in the strategy for women’s liberation.

While making extremely strong criticisms of the patriarchal structure, the solutions they offer are in fact reformist. Their solutions are focused on changing roles and traits and attitudes and the moral values and creating an alternative culture. Practically it means people can to some extent give up certain values, men can give up aggressive traits by recognizing them as patriarchal, women can try to be bolder and less dependent, but when the entire structure of society is patriarchal how far can these changes come without an overthrow of the entire capitalist system is a question they do not address at all. So it ends up turning into small groups trying to change their lifestyle, their interpersonal relations, a focus on the interpersonal rather than the entire system. Though they began by analyzing The entire system and wanting to change it, their line of analysis has taken them in reformist channels. Women’s liberation is not possible in this manner.

-Anuradha Ghandy, Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement