Article | France

English title: The Main Enemy
Source: Partisans, Libération des femmes année zéro
Keyword(s): patriachy | capitalism | materialism
Languages(s): French
Manifest: view document
Copyright:

© Copyright Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Summary:
Christine Delphy used the pen-name “Dupont” to first publish «The main enemy». Breaking away from the prevailing analysis of the time, she claims: first, women are exploited through the appropriation (by their husband) of their (unpaid) domestic work; second, this production mode based on patriarchy must be added up to the one based on capitalism; third, this exploitation being common to all women and building the ground for their over-exploitation by the capitalist system, it is the principal one; fourth, since men benefit from this exploitation, men and women must be viewed as two antagonistic classes. This article later became a founding text for “materialist feminism”, a movement born in France, then developed in the journals “Questions féministes” (Feminist Issues) and “Nouvelles Questions féministes” (New Feminist Issues).