Heidi Hartmann’s Critical Thought Of Patriarchy

The development of feminist ideas has greatly improved the status of women,but there is still gender inequality in many fields.How can more and more new destabilizing factors become new challenges to achieve women’s liberation? Heidi Hartmann’s patriarchal critique gives a rather profound answer.Her interpretation of patriarchy is not only what distinguishes her from previous feminist thinkers,but also provides important ideas for the development of later Marxist feminism.The discussion of patriarchy among Marxist feminists has a long history,and Hartmann’s uniqueness lies in her use of Marxist class analysis methods and feminist ideas to try to explain the reasons for women’s oppression instead of advocating feminist supremacy based on the opposition between men and women.She believes that the existing combination of feminism and Marxism is a precarious "marriage",and is committed to finding a way for the cooperation between the two theories not to break down.Hartmann defines patriarchy as an independent system with a material basis,trying to explain the double oppression of women in the family sphere.By constantly adjusting itself,patriarchy has established a stable patriarchal authority that now exercises gender class control in the family and social spheres.This paper mainly discusses the background,specific content and characteristics of Hartmann’s patriarchal critical thought.Unlike previous feminists,Hartmann’s feminist theory is a dualistic ideology,and she believes that patriarchy and capitalism have equal status among the factors that contribute to women’s oppression,emphasizing that the two are both independent and intertwined.The introduction mainly introduces the current research results on feminist patriarchy at home and abroad.Domestic research mainly introduces the content of feminist ideas of representatives of different schools,focusing on the overall introduction of foreign feminist theories,and lacks in-depth research on the internal development logic of feminist thought.Foreign research mainly focuses on the development and confrontation of feminist ideas of different schools,mainly focusing on finding the causes of women’s oppression,and conducting dialectical exchanges based on the differences in core points.The first chapter analyzes the formation and development of Hartmann’s patriarchal critical thought from two aspects: the background of the times and the theoretical origin.On the one hand,it focuses on the social structure and feminist movement at that time from the historical background of the time.Changes in the social structure intuitively reflect the fact that gender has become a basis for social class divisions,which in turn has brought about a wide range of effects.The most important of these is that the development of the feminist movement has gradually shifted to deeper thinking,and the demand for the revolution of women’s survival and destiny has become clearer.On the other hand,on the basis of sorting out the content of Marxist ideas on women’s liberation,it is pointed out that the reason for the combination of Hartmann’s patriarchal thought and Marxism is that the two sides have certain similarities and opposites.At the same time,it also explains the content of patriarchy in previous feminist thought,trying to reveal the critical inheritance of Hartmann’s patriarchal thought to the above ideas.The second chapter focuses on the content and characteristics of Hartmann’s patriarchal critical thought.Through historical analysis,Hartmann pointed out that at different stages of social development,the direction of women’s oppression was slightly different,which was the result of the adjustment of the patriarchy to meet the development of capitalism.From this,she concluded that the gender division of labor and hierarchical division of labor became an important factor in maintaining the stability of male power in the patriarchal system.In the process of constant reconciliation between patriarchy and capitalism,the concept of gender has been solidified,and the sense of gender hierarchy between men and women has been strengthened.On this basis,Hartmann explores the practical significance and specific strategies of women’s liberation from two aspects: the revolution in the family and society.Finally,the duality of theoretical content and the focus on gender constitute distinctive features of Hartmann’s patriarchal thought.The third chapter attempts to provide a comprehensive analysis and profound grasp of Hartmann’s patriarchal critical thought,mainly by placing it in a comparative perspective for multi-level examination.Firstly,this paper compares and analyzes with radical feminist thought,and discusses the extension and innovation of Hartmann’s patriarchal critical thought to previous feminist thought.Second,combine the Marxist view of women to objectively analyze the unique value of their ideas.Finally,Hartmann’s dualistic thought is viewed historically in the context of the entire history of Marxist feminist thought.Through multi-level comparison and comparison,the theoretical value and limitations of Hartmann’s patriarchal critical thought are summarized.The innovation of this paper is to try to take the change of patriarchal thought in feminism as a clue,explore how patriarchy as an independent operating system in Hartmann’s dualistic thought of Marxist feminist scholars coordinates with capitalism,comprehensively analyze the content and characteristics of Hartmann’s patriarchal critical thought,and clarify its theoretical contribution to the history of feminist thought.