All for One, but Not One for All
The oppression of women and the need for their emancipation is an issue that both Shulamith Firestone and Angela Davis identified, one they claimed would not be easy to solve. However, despite their mutual acknowledgment of the problem, these authors proposed different solutions for solving it. This divergence among the two is explained by a different initial understanding of the issue. While Firestone takes a more general approach, Davis takes a more intersectional one, both of which have their strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, it is the combination of their two arguments that would yield the best solution in successfully achieving women’s emancipation.
For Firestone, the oppression of women was profoundly embedded in human biology (Firestone, p. 1). The very division of the sexes, by nature, and how this shaped cultural practice is where this subordination stemmed (p. 2) She claimed that men and women were made differently and not granted the same privileges, ultimately resulting in the domination of the latter, by the former. However, as De Beauvoir explained, and Firestone reiterated, this organic difference could and did not lead to the class system on its own; rather, it was its reproductive characteristics that perpetuated this inequality, having created the biological family (p. 8).
Firestone explained how the family unit was founded on four main principles. The first was that women, prior to the introduction of contraception, have always been subject to their biology, dealing with menstruation, menopause, childbirth and rearing, all of which led them to be dependent on their male counterparts for their livelihood. Secondly, that children are not autonomous and are especially reliant on their parents during this particular period of life. Thirdly, that the two-way relationship between a mother and child has always existed in all contexts and therefore has come to impact the psychology of these two individuals. Finally, that the differences in reproductive biology among the two sexes created the first division of labor at the roots of class, and the discrimination that resulted from it (Firestone, p. 8–9).
Moreover, Firestone made it clear that the oppression of women was a problem rooted in biology, when she insisted that humans had outgrown nature. She claimed that justifying women’s subordination on this premise was something that had to be moved away from. However, she did not believe that the problem could be solved simply by eliminating these natural conditions (Firestone, p. 10). Instead, she asserted that women had to take back the control of reproduction, which extended both to the ownership of their bodies and their fertility. Thus, according to her, the ultimate goal was to banish the distinction between the sexes, so that it was no longer relevant in society (p. 11).
Given that the problem went beyond the dynamics of politics and economics, capitalism was not the only thing women were up against, and so, the redistribution of assets was not the only means toward their emancipation (Firestone, p. 196). Rather, Firestone was confident that technology was the tool to abolish women’s oppression, perpetuated by the biological family. She asserted that the goals of the feminist movement and those of revolutionary ecology were aligned, with both wanting to benefit from new forms of technology (p. 192–193). During her time, advancements in reproductive technologies, such as artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilization (p. 197), were thought to be promising solutions in women gaining back control over their bodies. Once they could seize the means over reproduction with new technology, women would no longer have to bear this responsibility that rendered them inferior to men.
However, Firestone also believed that a complete solution to the problem required a change in the relationship that human beings had to the modes of production, which was only possible by abolishing the caste system. With technology on the rise, the automation of machinery would only continue to improve its quality of production, eventually surpassing that of the human being. This would result in the absence of any premise by which individuals’ skills could be compared, as nobody would truly be working. In this way, technology would also equalize the work environment by creating a cybernation (Firestone, p. 201).
Ultimately, in combining these two benefits of technology, she believed that the double standard of the man as the breadwinner and the woman as the housewife would no longer exist. The final result was a new ecological balance, one where men and women were finally equals, and could both enjoy life (Firestone, p. 202). Firestone envisioned what the future of such a revolution would look like, having revisited the four principles of the family. For example, the domestic responsibility of the woman to bear and raise her children could have been shared with technology, her husband, and her other children (p. 239).
In my opinion, Firestone’s argument is valuable because she targeted the source of women’s oppression in one of the largest and most important institutions: the family. In this way, she attempted to tackle this issue before it hindered other aspects of a woman’s life, such as her desire to pursue personal goals. Moreover, she also recognized that equalizing the position of women in the private sphere was not enough and therefore asserted the need for this effort to be extended to the public realm. In doing so, any form of superiority that males had already acquired would also be eliminated. However, although I agree with what she identifies as the root of the problem, I do not think this could be applied to all women. The reality is that many minority women were not confined to the home, but rather forced to work long hours in the public sphere as low-paid laborers. On top of being mothers and wives, they went to work every day, where they fell victim to many forms of abuse. Therefore, although Firestone was correct in arguing that white women were very much stuck in the home, this did not account for the experience of other women. Consequently, her proposed solution was not appropriate for women’s emancipation.
Although reproductive technology did change fertility for women, it did so in a disproportional way. Firestone did not consider how access to such technologies varied across different groups of women. These services catered to white females, women who were in better social positions because of their husbands. This was because they were extremely pricy and therefore unaffordable for most minority people, who worked, at most, minimum wage jobs. In addition, they were not offered everywhere, which made them out of reach for women who did not live in or could not travel to big cities. Finally, the favored clientele of these technologies were white women, something that granted them priority access. In fact, the abortion rights campaign barely had any women of color as members (Davis, p. 203), which would explain why this service was not readily available to these women. Ultimately, this is a perfect example of the problem within the feminist movement, that unlike other social groups, women were not naturally united. Instead, they were often divided on the basis of their husbands’ positions in society (Roberts, 2021, Davis lecture). Therefore, so long as social class and race were at play, white women had the upper hand. For this reason, when Firestone proposed her solution, without acknowledging the inequality of access to reproductive technologies among women, part of her argument contributed to this divisiveness among them. Ultimately, Firestone failed to study women’s oppression from an intersectional perspective, as she used the term “women” in a way that attempted to generalize the experiences of all females. As a result, her “one solution fits all” approach to the problem is proven to be unsuccessful.
On the contrary, Davis took a much more specific approach to women’s oppression, studying the experience of black female slaves in particular. She dedicated her writing to describing the daily dynamic of these minority women, something that greatly differed from their female counterparts. Black women were labourers outside the home, unlike most white women during this period. However, while this did not make these women the equals of their white sisters, it did make them those of their black brothers. From the perspective of a slave-owner, the work of either a female or male was equally valuable. Consequently, the black woman was the exception to the femininity of this period, which upheld the idea that women were primarily domestic workers. For black women, their title as workers came before those of mothers and wives (Davis, p. 5). Furthermore, these women were also subject to additional forms of oppression, compared to their male equivalents. They lived a double standard, where they could be exploited both like and unlike men, depending on which was more profitable for their masters (p. 6). As a result, black women were often victims of sexual violence. For instance, rape was a way for slave owners to exercise their economic control over them, ultimately making their exploitation much easier (p. 7).
Davis explained that feminism, resulting from industrialization, popularized the notion that white women existed completely outside the working sphere. This separation between the private and public realm was created by the capitalist system, which affirmed the inferiority of all women. Females were thought to be merely caretakers in the home, both for their husbands and children. Thus, the hierarchy introduced by this ideology had females placed below males, despite the fact that this could not apply to black women (Davis, p. 12). Ultimately, although life within the home was also a crucial element for them, it did not degrade their position in society, as it did for white women. This was because black women predominantly worked in the public sphere, and so being subject to the four walls of their home was not necessarily a punishment for them. Rather, it really offered them the only escape from slavery and the ability to be an equal of the man (p. 14).
Ultimately, the struggle for women’s emancipation within the black community was rather ironic, as it was only because of their common subjection to slavery that black women became the equals of black men. Therefore, any work they did in their personal lives was already shared equally between both sexes (Davis, p. 18). In addition, their different experiences as women also caused them to develop personalities that distinguished them from their white sisters (p. 27). Consequently, as Davis asserted, achieving emancipation for black women was a two-step process; it was first about achieving their equality with white women and then about working with them to achieve equality with all men.
In demonstrating how oppression was multilayered for women of color, Davis proved that there could be no single solution for the emancipation of all women, as Firestone suggested. In fact, she believed that black and white women could come together to form a united movement, however, this required the acknowledgement that not all women were subject to the same conditions (Davis, p. 240) In fact, beyond having just believed in the unity among black and white women, Davis claimed that this was crucial. She seconded Eleanor Flexner’s point, that women had to form a collective effort in order to achieve emancipation for all. Therefore, although white women had not been directly affected by the institution of slavery, their own oppression indirectly derived from its survival. This was simply because slavery only reinforced the already existing cleavages among women in society. Ultimately, so long as the women and black movement were interconnected, there could not be the liberation of one without the other. Thus, it was up to all women to fight for the abolishment of slavery and eventually move on to that of female oppression (Davis, p. 44)
In my opinion, Davis held great weight in feminist literature because she advanced women’s emancipation through an intersectional lens. Her contribution allowed the movement to explore new avenues, no longer having to generalize the experiences of women to that of the white middle-class female. However, despite her respectable work, there is one weakness in her argument that should not be overlooked. Evidently, Davis greatly focused on the overlap of race and gender in her work, by placing the black female slave at the center of women’s oppression. While this introduced new conversations in the movement, the way in which she approached the topic of overlapping systems of oppression limited the scope of her message. Davis advocated for unity among women, as she believed that they could accomplish many things together. She claimed it was the differences in their oppression that failed to concentrate them, therefore it was up to women to rally amongst themselves (p. 104). However, in certain ways, her work contradicts this notion of unity. In attempting to account for the multidimensional experience of black women, Davis undermined the role of gender alone in the struggle of white women. While it is extremely important to recognize how oppression operates in intersectional ways, this does not mean that white women thrived off of their race. The reality was that the position of these women greatly relied on their male partners. Unlike black women, they did not have any equality to males in their racial community, neither in the workforce or household. Thus, they were not in better social positions in terms of their status as individual women. Ultimately, in attempting to highlight the important differences among women, Davis also contributed to further their divisiveness.
In conclusion, I recognize that the divergence in the solutions proposed by these two authors is likely due to a later introduction of the concept of intersectionality in feminism. Being more popular at the time of Davis’ writing, this would explain why her theory encompassed this approach more than Firestone’s did. Nonetheless, despite any counter arguments raised against either of their theories, I do believe that both Firestone and Davis make valuable points. Consequently, my own solution to women’s emancipation is a combination of both of their arguments. Therefore, like Firestone, I do believe that reproductive technologies can be used to break the traditional roles of the biological family and eventually lead to women’s emancipation. Indeed, the evidence of this progress is clear; from the time of Firestone’s work to the present day, the use of these technologies has only been on the rise. However, it is also important to recognize that many of these services still remain inaccessible to many groups of women, predominantly minorities. For this reason, there must be an explicit effort on the part of the movement to make these practices available to all, by taking an intersectional approach to women’s oppression, just as Davis did. Ultimately, while all women are working towards one end, no one solution can apply to all women.
Word Count: 2450
Works Cited
Angela Y Davis. Women, Race, and Class, Vintage Books, 1983.
Shulamith Firestone. The Dialectic of Sex, 1970.
William Roberts. Radical Political Thought Lectures, 2021.
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