The Fight Against Sexism and Homophobia Shows Need to Abolish Private Property
“I liked your article,” wrote Alice. “Makes me long for a more collective way of living.”
I had sent her an article from this year’s International Working Women’s Day Red Flag. It talked about how eliminating class society will transform everyday life and family relations and allow us to end sexism.
She and I go to the same “social justice” church. Every Sunday, and in smaller groups, we talk about how to end racism, sexism, and homophobia. And I often share something from Red Flag with the whole group, or with a few friends.
This month we’ve talked about how to end homophobia. I’ve shared our pamphlet “The Communist Fight Against Sexism” and the article “Fight Against All Attacks on LGBTQ Members of our Working-Class Family.” I talked about how homophobia and transphobia are linked to the oppression of women—and how that is based on class society and private property.
Class society controls women’s sexuality in order to control private property.
Pre-class societies were egalitarian, without private property or gender-based inequality. Private property, in cattle herding and farming, created the conditions for class society about ten thousand years ago in most of the world. With private property came systems of inheritance through the father’s family line. This required monogamy, at least for women. It imposed strict limitations on female autonomy and sexuality.
These restrictions require rigid adherence to male and female gender roles. They discriminate against behavior that does not conform to those gender roles. This holds everyone back from developing our full humanity.
The fight against homophobia and transphobia means the defense of all our working-class siblings and the unity of ALL the working class regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. This is as necessary for our victory over capitalism as the unity of workers of all genders and “races.”
But to build a world without sexism and homophobia in all their forms, we must put an end to class society. Only by fighting directly for communism and eliminating private property, can we eliminate patriarchal family structures.
In communism, all productive property will be owned and worked in common, and there will be no private property for men to pass down to their children. Only then will we will be able to see society as one human family, where we produce for the good of all and take care of all the children (and adults).
This is the discussion that I will continue to have with Alice, and all my friends, allies, and comrades in the church and beyond.
-Communist churchgoer
Read our Pamphlet
“The Communist Fight Against Sexism”
Available here