Women’s rights inherent to Marxism, says academic

‘Among the States in India, the lowest number of women employees is in Kerala’

Academic Sunil P. Elayidom

Academic Sunil P. Elayidom had this interesting observation to make while describing the strained, quite often misunderstood, relation between Marxism and women’s rights: “In socialist countries such as Cuba, it is mandatory for men to engage in domestic work much like women. If we apply the same principle in a Left-dominated society like Kerala, many self-proclaimed socialists here will be exposed.”

He was delivering the third of the five-part lecture series on Marx, titled ‘Feminism, sexuality and Marxism’ at the Town Hall here on Thursday. Mr. Elayidom said that the labour movement inspired by Marxism and the women’s movement inspired by feminism had their genesis in the late 19th century. And, nothing else influenced the humankind like them in that period as both the movements raised questions about the freedom of humans from different perspectives. However, self-proclaimed Marxists often derided feminism as they thought women’s rights were an expression of sexual anarchy, Mr. Elayidom pointed out. Women’s rights were suppressed and women domesticated, even in a progressive society like ours. “You may find it curious that among the States in India, the lowest number of women employees is in Kerala, though we have the largest number of educated women,” he said.

Full marks to Marx

That proves the fact that even Marxists were influenced by the patriarchal value system. “It was Marx who held aloft the liberal humanist position that the social progress of a society can be measured by the social position of women, including coloured women,” Mr. Elayidom said.

Quoting from Marx’s book

The Economic and Political Manuscripts, which sheds light on Marx’s view on man-woman relationship, he said, “The immediate natural necessary relation to human being to human being is the relationship of the man to woman. In this relationship between natural species, the relation of man to nature is immediately his relation to the man itself...” Mr. Elayidom said that Marx conceived the relationship between man and woman as something so pure and complete which could light up humanity and help it overcome the alienation created by capitalist modernity. Equal rights for men and women could never be separated from this, he added.