Women and socialism

This is more startling to Americans than to most other people, I presume... Special note regarding what she says about the relatively better status of women in the East having incited some improvements in that regard in the capitalist countries too--a similar mechanism was significantly responsible for Roosevelt's New Deal.

Socialism was better for women's lives in Eastern Europe - Kristen Ghodsee & Richard Wolff

Ghodsee has written a ton of stuff. I think I'll pick up a couple of her books to see if I understand them. I wonder if she would consider life for women under the COVID threat another kind of "natural experiment."

Well everything is an "experiment" in that sense when you come to think of it...

Here's a commentary from 2019--I think I may have linked to it before but what the heck.

What Does Socialism Have to Do with Sex?

... In 1950, fifty-two per cent of Soviet workers were female, compared with twenty-eight per cent of North American workers. While American women were being encouraged to find fulfillment as wives and mothers, Soviet women were being sent to universities to become scientists or trained to become cosmonauts. Women in the Eastern Bloc were, like their Western counterparts, encouraged to have children. But they were entitled to state-funded maternity leave, a provision that, outrageously, still eludes American women. Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, the United States remains one of only a handful of countries that lacks legislation guaranteeing any kind of paid maternity leave. (The others include Suriname and Papua New Guinea.) ...

The virtue of Ghodsee’s smart, accessible book is that it illustrates how it might be possible for a woman—or, for that matter, a man—to have an entirely different structural relationship to something as fundamental as sex, or health. ...

A small digression about another point, which I may yet need to elaborate on elsewhere:

The descriptive panels accompanying the displays, which are in German and English, often have an oddly pejorative, snarky tone, even in exhibits on the more benign aspects of everyday East German life. In a re-created kindergarten classroom with books, wooden cars, a shoe rack, and a linoleum floor, the wall text notes that attending kindergarten was an exercise in conformity rather than an opportunity to develop individual skills—presenting the fact that children were all required to nap at the same time as damning evidence of a repressive state, as opposed to an eminently sensible practice observed by caregivers of small children in societies even as capitalistic as the United States.

The tone of superiority—as if the decades of socialism in East Germany were nothing but a misguided aberration—is hardly limited to the curators of the D.D.R. Museum. It is, in fact, a pervasive attitude found in contemporary liberal democracies toward the leftist political alternatives that existed in many parts of the world during much of the twentieth century.

There are SO MANY examples of selective blindness like that with kids napping at the same time--not even noticed by the pearl-clutchers in capitalist paradises; SHOCK HORROR ROBOTIC CONFORMITY in socialism.

Part & parcel of the dehumanisation of those who dare propose alternatives to capitalism.

To underline what Mead (and presumably Ghodsee) are saying, about the importance of the structural situation for women's well-being--it's not just the paid maternity leave. It's also FREE guaranteed kindergarten, FREE education (kindergarten through uni and grad school), FREE healthcare, free-or very affordable--stays in spas, youth hotels etc.

In the eighties when I was in high school there was, about a kilometre from our summerhouse, a Czechoslovak summer camp for kids--I think reconvalescents, kids who were prescribed various seaside therapies. We only glimpsed it from the sea, when out swimming or boating, and used to laugh at how pale and clumsy they were--many didn't seem to be able to swim at all. There was a note of derision with which people spoke of Czech tourists in those years, the Eastern riffraff without hard currency... and for that particular spot, the locals were always muttering about what a waste it was, not developing a luxury hotel or six in all that beauty, but letting it for nothing to the Czechs...

Well, after we were all raptured into the heaven of slum capitalism, the Czechs lost the lease and no more crowds of Czech kids were seen splashing on that lovely beach, no more jumping into water like n00bs, on their asses, no more happy shrieking and masses of lobster pink burns for the kids of Czech workers and peasants.

A fucking luxury hotel did go up there, but guess what, we were having us a jolly Balkan war and practically nobody came.

But never mind that... I sometimes think about those Czechoslovak, Czech and Slovak kids who spent at least a few weeks--perhaps more than once?--in that camp in the eighties and wonder about their kids--does anyone send them, for free, to the seaside? Are they better off than their parents were? Do they have nice memories of those summers, like I do?

Since the eighties I've swum and rowed by that spot many times and every time I miss those kids.

Anyway--socialism--it was that too.

At the preschool for which I pay more than $1000 per month, my son has to take a nap at the same time as all the other children. Quelle horror.

I am a social scientist and nearly every week of late I've seen a new NBER paper or local dataset or think tank piece about women leaving the workforce to care for children during covid. Everything recommended is teeny tiny policy solutions -- shall we make FMLA a few extra weeks longer? Shall we offer tax credits to send kids back to school (safe or not)?

But what are any of these solutions when women experience dual burden?

>5 sparemethecensor:

It's all so many pathetic band-aids. The problem isn't just something that will last as long as the pandemic--and the long term effects of THAT are already setting in.

It's so frustrating how the plutocrats cling to power at any cost--for others. Does it REALLY take every time a bloody revolution for some justice to get dispensed? Do people have to die defending their right to live?

I heard today a short report about some new book by a German historian, which made little sense to me in the first part of supposed message, that "stable" societies are marked by accumulating inequality (no idea what "stable" even means in context). But the second part seemed obvious--that historically, only armed revolution/wars were followed by a major redistribution of wealth. Can one argue against that?

As many asked before, has there ever been a party in power that willingly gave that power up?

How many rich people divest themselves willingly of their money?--and even if more than a handful did, what good would that do if the mechanisms that created their monstrously unique wealth were left in place?

Someone told me Jeff Bezos could give 100 000 dollars to each of his employees and remain a billionaire.

Not only did Bezos do nothing of the sort, his employees still had to request aid from the state, just as his business was spared having to pay taxes at all for years.

So, yeah... what is it going to take?

In the US, Occupy fizzled out, progressive Democrats are sidelined, liberals (the dominant voice in the media) are insisting on their narrow class interests and have elected Biden, who has already guaranteed to the rich that nothing will significantly change.

Younger people may be getting more predisposed to make structural change but currently there are no mechanisms for them to effect that change. The grip of the pro-capitalist establishment is simply too strong--institutionally and culturally.

When the change comes--and it will--it will not only be too late for many, but I fear will have cost even more in human lives than the disease and neglect alone would have caused.

It probably goes without saying that I agree with all of this, except that I still have hope the US will progress somewhat over the next four years (much less hope for my own country). But, of course, I probably only believe in the goodness and usefulness of democratic socialism because I was indoctrinated with socialist naps at my capitalist-Conservative built, and funded, free state nursery school (which never had enough places because mothers, and it was the mums, always wanted more "socialist" free state nursery places, lol).

I note that Margaret Thatcher is still known to Brits of a certain age as Thatcher Thatcher Milk Snatcher because she ended the national provision of free milk to all young schoolchildren. Imagine giving free socialist calcium to all children!

Yes, social democracies don't fare much better in the worldview of some people (well, considering one has to endure hearing that Biden is a "Communist")...

In the absence of structural support as enumerated above--protected employment, free childcare, healthcare, education--I see the only solution in making housekeeping, as well as child-raising, a salaried job.

I know child support exists in the US but clearly it's not sufficient to compensate for the lack of services nor does it make up for women's job loss.

>8 LolaWalser: I'm still extremely shocked by developed world countries that fail to offer free maternity care and paid maternity "leave" (and frankly also subsidised or free nurseries where women are pushed to work outside the home).

It's possibly not very feminist to say so but I suspect it would be easier to implement a universal basic income in most places than pay for intra-family childcare and eldercare and housekeeping. The pandemic seems to have made attitudes towards UBI more positive, even as women have been pushed out of the workplace and back into the home in many places (and will then be pushed to work outside the home again in places where the pandemic has hit particular demographics of workers).

>9 spiralsheep:

Right, elsewhere the UBI would be welcome. But regarding the US and similar, where there is no free childcare, healthcare etc. no models of the UBI I have seen would give sufficient funds to compensate for that lack.

Since Americans have an inordinate aversion to anything that smacks of "welfare" (for other people especially), it's just a suggestion that it may be easier to make them see housekeeping, as well as child-raising, as regular paying, taxable jobs, with retirement benefits etc.

>10 LolaWalser: As so often, I suppose the optimum approach is to campaign on all fronts as much as possible and hope that when enough people join in then the system gives.

However, a developed world country that allows the widespread denial of contraception and STI protection while also refusing comprehensive maternity care for mothers and children is beyond my understanding.

Humans demonstrably can't survive as individuals and must form communities, especially for genetic survival through reproduction aka raising children, so why not prioritise community-building activities for social and economic rewards? But then we'd be paying home-makers and carers and teachers what they're actually worth to our future, and apparently that's not a sufficiently popular practice.

Even in most socialist countries the status and pay of various jobs, such as doctor and professor, were lowered as more women filled those positions in society. As if those roles suddenly became less valuable in some inexplicable way. Which brings us back to wondering how to encourage people to see value in caring and community-building jobs.

>10 LolaWalser: Another problem is a lack of transferable strategies, e.g. low paid workers in capitalist economies have had successes in increasing the perceived value of their jobs by unionising and striking if necessary, but that hasn't been transferred to a strategy useful for a mass movement of home-makers and home-carers (whether childcare or eldercare). Individual rather than collective bargaining leaves mothers (and other home-makers and home-carers) in a weaker position when asking for social and economic rewards for their work.

>11 spiralsheep:

Even in most socialist countries the status and pay of various jobs, such as doctor and professor, were lowered as more women filled those positions in society.

Do you have a reference for that? It doesn't gibe with anything I know of the subject. (Keeping in mind that "socialist countries"--one of Ghodsee's points too--describes a varied bunch.)

In my experience--but I'd be careful to generalise about this from Cuba to Mongolia, 1920s to 2020s--the main advantage of "socialist countries" in regard to jobs and pay was that if you had a paying job, then you could live off it. Same for women as for men. Now, nowhere that I know were all jobs paid the same but gender discrimination in PAY was illegal (at least in the few examples I know best). As to hiring, I'm not sure what the law(s) were like on that account.

I have not heard of any professions losing prestige and pay because women were (over)represented in it AFTER communism, and frankly that sounds like tosh. But that there were professions and occupations that were seen as traditionally female and thus of lower order--popularly if not officially--sure, that's everyone's heritage...

>12 spiralsheep:

Yes, there are some problems in organising women as women, but general strikes are not unheard of. However--and this was the point of every Communist party ever--striking and even loudly merely ASKING for reform never brought about a lasting improvement anywhere.

But one would hope that perhaps we have come to a point where it won't take another armed revolution/war/all out natural disaster to level the ground somewhat.

>13 LolaWalser: There have been studies about pay in previously gendered jobs as the gender balance of workers is altered, but I personally haven't read one since the 1990s (obviously the Eastern Bloc data wouldn't have been available much before then) and can't give you references from that long ago, although they might googlable with extreme determination if they've been archived online (which they might not have been because of their age). There was one especially large cross-Europe data set, Ireland to Russia, which I'm assuming was a combination of several studies, which showed that paid employment traditionally done by men became lower in status and less well remunerated as a larger proportion of women entered the workforce and, yes, the outcomes were similar across Europe and across differing systems of social organisation. As far as I know there aren't a significant number of stable new socialist economies around the world since then so I stand by my assertion that "Even in most socialist countries the status and pay of various jobs, such as doctor and professor, were lowered as more women filled those positions in society." But, of course, no-one is required to agree with my claims and I cba digging out data from the 1990s, lol.

--------

Recent US studies have shown similar effects (which I mention only because being a recent large US study it came up on the first page of google, not because it has any relevance to the topic of women and socialism, and because it confirms what I recall from 1990s Europe despite the fact that I definitely haven't read it or read about it before now).

https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/2235342

Summarised by the NYT as:

"A striking example is to be found in the field of recreation — working in parks or leading camps — which went from predominantly male to female from 1950 to 2000. Median hourly wages in this field declined 57 percentage points, accounting for the change in the value of the dollar, according to a complex formula used by Professor Levanon. The job of ticket agent also went from mainly male to female during this period, and wages dropped 43 percentage points.

The same thing happened when women in large numbers became designers (wages fell 34 percentage points), housekeepers (wages fell 21 percentage points) and biologists (wages fell 18 percentage points). The reverse was true when a job attracted more men. Computer programming, for instance, used to be a relatively menial role done by women. But when male programmers began to outnumber female ones, the job began paying more and gained prestige."

Same researcher also found, in a separate study, that in the US care-giving jobs pay less.

>14 LolaWalser: "But one would hope that perhaps we have come to a point where it won't take another armed revolution/war/all out natural disaster to level the ground somewhat."

Well, unfortunately, we're probably gonna have a widespread natural disaster whether we prep for it or not and I doubt if anyone now can realistically predict the human outcomes of that yet. I'm holding out hopes of the 1970s sci-fi movie future where women are in charge and we all wear sparkly jumpsuits.

>15 spiralsheep:

paid employment traditionally done by men became lower in status and less well remunerated as a larger proportion of women entered the workforce and, yes, the outcomes were similar across Europe and across differing systems of social organisation.

Right, as I said, this is not surprising in the sense that it has happened historically--I'm questioning only the notion that professions might have LOST pay AFTER the institution of socialist (or "socialist", as the case may be) norms. Because if there was one thing Communists everywhere insisted on, it was (real or nominal) gender equality. Taking away people's pay because more women were entering a field would have been, to put it mildly, weird.

The US is a whole 'nother story.

For capitalists, whose whole raison d'être is to test how much they can squeeze out of labour before it squeaks, underpaying is a way of life--their entire quest is for a workforce as close to the state of slavery as possible. And remember, capitalist societies, but not historically socialist ones (today's China is arguably a special case) swear by the market, which is why this sort of thing can happen and get justified by apparently sane, reasonable people. Ah, you're the sort of worker we pay less, and now you're flocking to profession X, well, that only means profession X is now officially a low-paid field.

Furthermore, countries like the US which boast a particularly savage sort of capitalism AND a puritanical religious culture, see other benefits in keeping women's pay low, which is to discourage them from working and encourage stay-at-homing.

>16 spiralsheep:

There are things we could do to mitigate the worst, but as Greta Thunberg says, we are not doing them...

>17 LolaWalser: I can only tell you that I remember a whole long analysis of the relative status and pay of doctors in Russia over time with a direct correlation (usual correlation is not causation caveat) to women's representation in various parts of the profession and that the conclusion was this was a norm across Europe as more women entered the profession after 1945. I don't think that was in any way implied to be a deliberate plan by anyone. It was an outcome of unconscious bias.

But I can't prove my memory.

>18 spiralsheep:

So, for clarity's sake, NOT an actual "communist" policy to pay women less--that's all I'm stumbling over, for all the reasons mentioned above.

If you do come across the source, I'll always be interested to learn more, in case you remember, thanks.

Sexism and misogyny were well and alive in the socialist countries, no one is arguing otherwise. But the political and economical circumstances were not the same as in capitalism, so they didn't always express in the same way.

One example may be the attitude to pornography and prostitution, which were invariably seen as un-socialist because degrading and exploitative of women. This was quite a sacrifice on the men's part, considering how widespread is the notion that treating women like sex-providing cattle is what men naturally do, and what a huge role that attitude has in informing traditional masculinity.

In a capitalist society, this would be seen as cutting women off an important--in some environments their only-- source of income.

>18 spiralsheep: This is far back in my early undergrad years, but to this point:

analysis of the relative status and pay of doctors in Russia over time with a direct correlation (usual correlation is not causation caveat) to women's representation in various parts of the profession and that the conclusion was this was a norm across Europe as more women entered the profession after 1945.

I too remember reading about this in the Soviet context.** Women took over several professions during and after WWII and these professions declined in pay and prestige as they came to be seen less as men's work -- doctors and physicists being two. I recall a misogynistic Russian professor saying that it was nothing because it only happened in Slavic countries where large portions of men died during WWII, as though that were irrelevant.

I remember in Russian class watching a film where this was a small plot point. Can't recall its name. I think the main plot was about pregnancy out of wedlock pregnancy leave (v dekrete) in factories? Wow I feel old now and I can't remember a thing.

**The Soviet context, by the way, being perhaps one of the most egregious in terms of dual burden for women.

Ok, I think it may be Menshov's famous Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears (Москва слезам не верит). I would have to watch it again to confirm. The profession appears to be chemist rather than physicist.

I also dated a Ukrainian guy for a bit in college whose mother was a physicist and said that pay declined as women got the Soviet equivalent of PhDs more often. N=1 etc.

>20 sparemethecensor:

If you can recall the reference, I'd love to see it.

I recall a misogynistic Russian professor saying that it was nothing because it only happened in Slavic countries where large portions of men died during WWII, as though that were irrelevant.

Was this in a class of yours? I don't quite follow what was the "nothing" meant--that professions with many women in them were seeing pay erosion?

And, again for clarity--the claim is NOT that men and women in the same field were paid differently, only that certain professions, with many women were seen as low(er) paid?

The Soviet context, by the way, being perhaps one of the most egregious in terms of dual burden for women.

Interesting. I had and have relatively many Russian colleagues, of my generation and thereabouts, but don't recall ever hearing this complaint. That is, as something specific for the entire society; women complaining about the men in their lives was/is fairly common. One thing I've noticed, Russians seem to have married and divorced on a penny. Double and triple marriages being as common as anything, it seems.

"Anecdata", though...

One thing that comes to mind is the relative availability of abortion, but I'm not sure on the dates, just the relative trends. For example, socialist Yugoslavia initially kept the ban on abortion extant in the kingdom, but then legalised abortion in 1951/3 (different republics at different times). The USSR, I remember being told, went from legalisation (with the Revolution) to banning it again under Stalin and (this part is murky) it was never again fully legalised? Or something--my impression is that it was less easy to obtain than was usual for other East Bloc countries.

(But then again I read a few years ago a collection of stories by some Russian doctor which gives a different picture, so who knows.)

Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears (Москва слезам не верит

Haven't seen that since childhood. All I remember is that it was some sad love story with a great soundtrack (or song). I think the Mossfilm channel on YouTube has it free.

So since I know almost nothing about this topic, let me ask everyone -- what would be on your list of must-reads for socialist feminism? Or feminist socialism?

To be brutally honest, I didn't think I had any socialist inclinations per se, until I read the Combahee River Collective Statement a while ago and found myself thinking, oh, yeah, I think I might be turning socialist.

>23 southernbooklady:

I'm glad you asked--I have the same question.

I have references to the classics but--I feel this is important--I hope we don't get bogged down discussing history. I'm hugely guilty of this tendency but I'll try to keep it in check.

I mean, there's a point to studying history, although I don't for a moment believe anyone learns anything from it (in that pious sense of "not repeating the same mistakes"), because it helps us understand how we got to where we are, but it's useless in teaching us how to get out of current problems.

It may be an idea to look up what's on Versobooks on that topic. Or the Combahee River Collective's reading list etc.

Here's what comes up on a search at Verso:

https://www.versobooks.com/search?q=feminism+socialism

Ooh, Imma gonna get that "Revolutionary feminisms" I think...

double post

So, as someone who is very ignorant about socialism vs. communism etc, is there a country that you would consider socialist today? I understand the principles, but I am curious to see how it works in every day life. I always think of the Nordic countries, but I don't know if that is correct.

I guess in the US, we used to call our country a "mixed" economy, but I can see that the capitalist side has gained immense strength to the detriment of many of its citizens.

Thank you. k4k

>28 krazy4katz:

To the best of my knowledge/understanding... the countries that have a Communist party in power--Cuba, China, North Korea--have some aspects of socialism, but don't necessarily fit anyone's "theoretical" model of it.

Scandinavian social democracies are sometimes labelled (tarred :)) as "socialist" in American capitalist press, but they don't fit the "theoretical" models any more than North Korea does.

I understand the principles, but I am curious to see how it works in every day life.

This is where I think misunderstandings start. For one thing, no place is like another. European real-socialist countries led by the USSR had some features in common--the "theory" particularly--but they were more diverse than most foreigners understood then or now. The DDR was not Albania. Yugoslavia was a separate case entirely, trying to build a "third way" between capitalism and real-socialism. Local history and circumstances matter.

Communist principles can be imposed as they are in North Korea, or in Kerala, so it's not straightforward to say how they work even on existing examples, let alone on hypotheticals.

JMO

Speaking of relative rates of pay and institutions which need to be overhauled if not outright discarded:

Abolish the racist and sexist subminimum wage:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/opinion/minimum-wage-racism.html

In 1966, when our nation’s minimum wage was overhauled, restaurant workers were even more formally cut out with the creation of a subminimum wage for tipped workers. Today, 43 states and the federal government still persist with this legacy of slavery, allowing a tipped work force that is close to 70 percent female and disproportionately Black and brown women to be paid a subminimum wage. A nation that once enslaved Black people and declared them legally three-fifths of a person now pays many of their descendants less than a third of the minimum wage to which everyone else is entitled.

Here's an interview with the author of the book she mentioned, Forked
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/02/02/464852535/forked-rates-restauran...

Something I find fascinating, and gives me a smidgen of hope for us in the US, is that while people older than I am consistently associate "socialism" with the USSR, Cuba, etc., a true dirty word to them, people younger than me so much more often associate it with the Scandinavian countries in a truly positive light. There are cons to incremental change of course but maybe as more young people come of age to vote and run for office, and actually do vote like they did in 2020, we'll see more Ocasio-Cortezes.

Even my parents who back in elementary school did bomb drills should the USSR have decided to nuke Wisconsin are really coming around. (They've always been Democrats but are certainly not immune to fear mongering.)

Lola, great questions. This is all recollection for me. Tomorrow I'll see if I still have any of the books about dual burden/double burden in the USSR or post Soviet states. I still have some of my textbooks but others are at my parents' house. Anyway I remember reading a lot of work by Gail Lapidus on this topic, which may be available online. Separately, when I studied abroad in Petersburg the sense of women's work and dual burden despite women being fully in the workforce was also clear from my homestay family and my professors' experiences. This was during Medvedev's presidency (or perhaps I should say "presidency").

There's a brief and unsatisfying discussion of women's economic trajectories and dual burden in chapter six of The Russia Balance Sheet. That's the most modern thing I see on my shelves.

I also have a copy of Women in Russia edited by Atkinson and Lapidus that talks about a few dimensions of this but appears not to be readily available online. Instead you may be interested in this review of the book on jstor:

"The Woman Question in the USSR" (ugh, gross title alert)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2497088

>33 sparemethecensor:

Thanks. I have some English-language material too--I'm just afraid of falling down another historical rabbit hole!

Do you speak or read Russian? Fascinating that you've been there--for some reason it still appears remote and "hard" to go to.

>31 sparemethecensor:

If it can be said I have any hope left, it's in something AOC remarked, in response to someone badgering her about "Marx"... basically that she doesn't care about "Marx" but about solving concrete problems bedeviling society. This to me is really the crux of thinking about the future.

Iow, people (the older the more so, I think) are so used to combat-by-labels that they lost sight of what the labels are really about.

In the end we'll be forced to reckon with dwindling resources and growing populations and no science-fictional extraterrestrial outlet for colonising and destroying more worlds. (Pace people like Elon Musk--and Trump--with their big-dicking of space exploration...)

So it's no wonder that increasingly people with ANY tendency for justice, are admitting that cooperation, collaboration and sharing are more humane than capitalist competition and accumulation.

>30 southernbooklady:

More today--in the US women--in particular PoC and poor women--lost 1 million jobs MORE than men did:

The Shecession: Women Face Staggering Job & Income Losses Amid the Pandemic's Economic Crisis (Democracy Now)

*sigh* doubling again... sorry

>31 sparemethecensor: >34 LolaWalser:

Over the past few years I've come to interpret right-wing slurs against 'socialist this' and 'socialist that' — especially socialist health care — in US discourse as cross-generational racist code for equal access. Reading Dying of Whiteness made this rhetorical co-opting particularly clear.

Am I off-base here?

>36 librorumamans:

I'd say that's quite right, and actually represents the largest part of US specificity--the legacy of slavery/racism shaping the attitudes to the working class to this day.

>36 librorumamans: It is very sad that every time one attempts to help people with equal access to food, healthcare, affordable living, it is labeled as socialist. I have heard this more in the past 4 years than previously. I don't mean to turn this into a political rant but calling Joe Biden a socialist is the height of idiocy. Of course, this happened to Roosevelt too. As an American, I am somewhat used to this, despite resenting it, especially now. I can imagine that for many Europeans, it must seem amazingly stupid.

Yes, I studied abroad in St. Petersburg in 2008 and took 3.5 years of Russian language. My speaking is mediocre since I'm out of practice these days. I can read low level news articles, etc., but sadly I never mastered participles, so any literature more modern than Lermontov is out of my reach :(

>36 librorumamans: Yes, I think you're right on the money there. It's highly racialized.

This is interesting, both as intro to this figure (I hadn't heard of her but that's not surprising) and as an illustration of the conflicts between bourgeois and radical feminists all the way back to the 19th century (and even earlier):

A Socialist Feminist: Anna Kuliscioff and the Woman Question

... Besides the early libertarian imprint of nihilism, the later immersion into anarchist and socialist milieus nurtured Kuliscioff’s political consciousness and brought her to associate the “woman question” with the “social question.” Socialist convictions shaped and oriented Kuliscioff’s feminist views, and rapidly distanced her from the liberal feminist circles that she encountered in Milan, in particular the Lega promotrice degli interessi femminili (League for the Promotion of the Interests of Women) founded in 1879 by outspoken feminist journalist Anna Maria Mozzoni, the translator of John Stuart Mill’s “On the Subjection of Women” and a key figure of Italian suffragism.

In spite of Mozzoni’s rapprochement with the socialists during the 1880s and her participation in the Lega Socialista Milanese (Milanese Socialist League) founded in 1889 by Turati and Kuliscioff, the polemical duel between the two feminists, sparked by Kuliscioff’s proposal of a labor legislation for the protection of women and children in the late 1890s, mirrored the divergences between the two main orientations of Italian feminism at the time: on the one hand, a majoritarian independent feminist stance that focused on the defense of women’s rights (and especially women’s right to vote), considering “women” as a universal subject beyond class divides; and, on the other hand, Kuliscioff’s isolated “socialist feminism” that viewed the oppression of women through the lens of class interests and class struggle, foregrounding the combat of the “feminine proletariat.” 

However, it would be unfair to reduce Kuliscioff’s feminism to a — so to speak — monistic class inclination. In fact, Kuliscioff always provided a twofold understanding of the woman question, and consistently developed a twofold strategy for women’s liberation within the workers’ movement and against its patriarchal structures. In Kuliscioff’s view, since woman “is not only a slave to the capitalist, but also a slave to her man,” women’s battle is doubled: on the one hand, women have to fight alongside men against capitalism; on the other hand, they have “an immediate struggle to sustain which is different from the one fought by men” and addresses them as a target.

...

As she remarked, if “for bourgeois women, men and exploiters are synonymous, for working class women, the exploiter can also be a woman.”  Kuliscioff thus deemed “sentimental and utopian” a feminist struggle that ignored social divisions and concealed the conflicting interests of women opposed to one another across class divisions.

(This sentence, by the way:

No doubt, liberal and socialist women may share common goals; yet while “socialism and the emancipation of women are connected issues that permeate each other, and the triumph of the former cannot be separated from the latter,” she maintains that socialism and feminism can only be “parallel social currents” that “will never make one cause.” 

is confusing--given the subject is described as a "feminist socialist"--unless the "feminism" in the quoted text refers specifically to that feminist movement she criticised.)

for her, socialism was not merely an economic solution to the evils of the world, but a “moral solution” that would transform humanity into the “consortium of the free and equal.” Woman “belongs to socialism” as “a worker, as a mother, as a woman”: thus women cannot desert the socialist fight, since if half of the army is missing, the war is most likely to be lost. Hence her vigorous appeal for women to join the Party: “Oh comrades, you outcasts, you forgotten, eternal victims, rise up! Oh slaves, be citizens! Oh females, learn to be women!”