Elisa,
I don't quite follow your reasoning. If the subjugation of women was the historically first division of labor||economic class, then yes it is true that it is prior to all other class divisions. But the specific form it assumed under the capitalist mode of production was/is an emphasis on the nuclear family (our beloved suburbs of Ozzies and Iggies). The specific form of subjugation of women varies because it has been sublated historically in other modes of production. Not too many anthropologists want to generalize from the non-capitalist systems as they existed during the initial expansion of the capitalist system (that brought them along) but it is clear that the family varies greatly, nevertheless the specific domestic/private::extra-domestic/public organization of male and female labor is present in all in some form or other (at least in all the ethnographies and ethnohistories I've read). When this occurred in the phylogeny of homo sapiens is hard to say, perhaps it occurred before language, who knows? Marx and Engels adopted Morgan's theory of the evolution of the family. Prior to the division of labor it was assumed that some kind of primitive promiscuity prevailed but this was effectively the pre-history of civilization; ie, the development of social productive forces.
But the key to dialectical materialism concerns the sublation of earlier historical moments in later ones. The relations of production that characterized the earlier moments, for example rent in labor or products (a claim part of the social product on the basis of ownership of the land) was the dominant social relation of production in feudal society and only became paid in money in certain parts of Europe after the 16th century. Nevertheless it continues to exist in capitalist society but in a totally different form, subordinated to the market. Pre-feudal tribal societies and early states appear to have had communal tenure of the land; these were the first early agricultural societies. One could speculate that in the early hominid technical division of labor, the lack of female participation in hunting constituted a de facto sexual division of activities. Nevertheless this de facto relation need not have been the basis of a class division and probably wasn't. In agricultural and perhaps horse based hunting groups, the public/domestic division of economic relations removed women from the public spaces where power over the multi-family, multi-lineage decisions and resources were transacted as a group. Men as a class were structurally positioned to exploit the labor of women and did. This exploitation has continued in all succeeding class societies. We know that there is great variation. All class society is dynamic and the opposing classes struggle for the distribution of social product. Inheritance systems are certainly the key to evaluate the way in which the initial class relation: male/female has been sublated and the relative strength of one or the other.
I guess the point being that "oppression", the exploitation by one class of humans of another class's labor, has assumed historically different forms that have developed in conjunction with different levels of the social division of productive activities and the level of development of the technical forces of production. Perhaps you believe that the subjugation of women as a group at the hands of men is the fundamental relation of economic exploitation, and hence the locus of the class relation, in contemporary society. From the perspective of historical materialism, it is the wage relation.
I don't think that the continued subjugation of women in 20th century socialist societies demonstrates that male exploitation of women is a more fundamental relation of exploitation in capitalist society but it very well demonstrates that the kind of socialism that was practiced in these countries didn't really transform the family relation either, as far as I know: the nuclear family certainly didn't go out of existence and Marx and Engels saw that as the primary locus of the exploitation of women in capitalist society. These socialist states however were marred in a number of ways. I see the 20th century socialist experience in terms of the international struggle between capitalist and socialist states. Perhaps the time wasn't ripe yet as Rosa Luxemburg thought, and the formation of the Leninist Party that morphed into the socialist totalitarian state, led to its final demise. More speculation.
I don't know if this clarifies my position about the position concerning the subjugation of women in capitalist society. There is certainly a lot of room for thought.
Paul H. Dillon
But it seems that historical marxist societies persisted in discriminating women. And that non-capitalist societies still discriminate or subjugate women (and have done so). It seems that the subjugation of women is prior to class division, it is more archaic, primitive, atavistic. And even more universal than class opression.
Elisa Sayeg
cyborg@uol.com.br
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