Materialist feminism
theoretical current of radical feminism that was formed around the French magazine Questions féministes; characterized by the use of conceptual tools from Marxism—notably historical materialism—to theorize patriarchy and capitalism and theirabolition
Materialist feminism is a theoretical current of radical feminism that was formed around the French magazine Questions féministes. It is characterized by the use of conceptual tools from Marxism—notably historical materialism—to theorize patriarchy and its abolition.
Materialist feminism views both sex and gender as social constructs produced by reproductive exploitation and domestic subordination. Its body of literature includes an analysis of women's work within marriage and in the formal economy, criticism of other streams of feminism, deconstruction of sexuality and advocacy for an autonomous women's movement.
Jennifer Wicke defines materialist feminism as "a feminism that insists on examining the material conditions under which social arrangements, including those of gender hierarchy, develop... materialist feminism avoids seeing this gender hierarchy as the effect of a singular... patriarchy and instead gauges the web of social and psychic relations that make up a material, historical moment".
History
The term materialist feminism emerged in the late 1970s and is associated with key thinkers such as Christine Delphy, Colette Guillaumin, Nicole-Claude Mathieu, and Monique Wittig.
Rosemary Hennessy traces the history of materialist feminism in the work of British and French feminists who preferred the term materialist feminism to Marxist feminism. In their view, Marxism had to be altered to be able to explain the sexual division of labor.
“Materialist feminism” enters the record as theoretical current of radical feminism that was formed around the French magazine Questions féministes; characterized by the use of conceptual tools from Marxism—notably historical materialism—to theorize patriarchy and capitalism and theirabolition. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Materialist, feminism and theoretical can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3567204. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Materialist feminism” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.