There is hardly a society in the world in which women are not dominated by men. Marxists would argue that there are some societies, or were some societies, in which men and women were relatively equal. For Marxists it is not just a question of men always having dominated women, or that men have some innate urge to dominate women. Instead Marxists look for the historical circumstances that give rise to female domination, paying particular attention to economic factors. This is the distinctive approach that Marxists bring to the study of gender relations.

Probably the first attempt to give a Marxist explanation as to why women are dominated by men was Engels work, "Origin of the Family, Private Property...". In this book he examined, among many other things, how the modern family, the nuclear family, came to be and how women had come to be dominated. In this book Engels takes an historical, even evolutionary, approach to the institutions of the family. Engels, in accordance with anthropological evidence at the time, divided history up into various stages.

The first stage was called savagery. During this stage relations between men and women were more or less equal. Men did not dominate women. There was a sexual division of labour, with men tending to do the hunting while women gathered, but this did not mean female domination. What little private property that existed was passed down the female line. The reason for this was that women could take several partners, thus making it impossible to know who the father was with any certainty.

The next stage is that of Barbarism. During this stage women suffer a "world historic defeat". Men begin to domesticate cattle. They are unwilling to let it pass down the female line and so start to impose restrictions on women's sexual activities. Eventually monogamy comes to be the most predominant form of marriage. As women are pushed into the family and excluded from owning private property so they become dependent on men and are thereby dominated. Because women do not own private property they have little power in relation to men.

Engels was unfortunately writing at a time when details about the past where quite sketchy. Since then later anthropologists have contradicted the work of those early anthropologists. Engels work was, however, to be influential in later theories put forward by Marxist-Feminists. Certainly no one could deny the importance of economic factors in shaping how women were treated in their relations with men. For example, in those hunting and gathering societies in which women play little part in hunting they are usually more dominated than women in societies in which there is much more full participation of the sexes in productive activity. While Engels analysis may have been wrong in its exact details its general approach , its method, has been quite useful in explaining gender inequality.

Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson give a later Marxist explanation for the existence of gender inequality, their work uses the methods used by Engels in his earlier study. They do, however, disagree with Engels on a number of points. Unlike Engels they do not believe that there was a period in history when women dominated men, matriarchy. They do, however, believe that there was a period in history when sexual equality ruled the earth. They believe that it was womens differing roles in production which lead to their being subordinated to men. Their theory is more complex than that put forward by Engel.

Coontz and Henderson accept that there was indeed a sexual division of labour but that this in it self did not mean sexual inequality was inevitable. Early societies according to Coontz and Henderson were communal, that is, resources were shared by everyone. Meat from the kill was distributed between kin and non kin, even to strangers. Identifying the father of a child was thus of no import as there was no private property to pass from generation.

Herding and agriculture however shatter this state of affairs and laid the foundations for gender inequalities. Private property once established lead to social inequalities but first a surplus must be produced. Agriculture and herding made it much more likely that a surplus would be produced, thus enabling some to live off the labour of others. At this stage kin corporate property begins to emerge. Only kin had rights with regard to certain forms of property, communal society was at an end. Non kin were no longer given food, they lost such rights.

So far, however, this has only explained why inequality between people and groups of people came about. How does this explain gender inequality? For this we must look at marriage arrangements. Many societies had a system of patrilocality which involved the women going to live in the village of the husband, with the husbands kin. She as a result lost all rights to the property of her group and that of new group. She was not fully part of that kin group. Also, the produce of her own labour was taken possession of by her husband who used it as he saw fit. What they produced belonged to her husbands kin corporate grouping.

Not all societies had this system of marriage, some were matrilocal-the man went to live with the womans kin group. Such societies argued Coontz and Henderson were much more egalitarian. Such societies, however, tended to be less successful than patrilocal societies. In patrilocal societies a man could take a number of wives, polygny, and by means of which they could produce more member, thus more food gatherers and more people to wage war. Matrilocal societies were overwhelmed.

Whether or not the theories advanced by Engels and later Marxists such as Coontz and Henderson are correct are not is very much a matter of conjecture but what is beyond dispute is that the Marxist method has proved fruitful in the study of gender relations. One such study is that of, "Society and Sex Roles" by Ernestine Friedl. Her work may or may not be Marxist but her method is identical to that used my Marxists, and if not Marxist it is certainly an analysis grounded in the methodology of materialism.

The argument put forward by Friedl is that in hunter gatherer societies the more men control the process of production, that of food production, so the more women are dominated. There is a direct correlation between the two variables.

But first what is a hunter gatherer society? Friedl defines such a society as follows:

"Hunter-gatherers are people whose ways of life are technologically simple and socially and politically egalitarian. They live in small groups of 50 to 200 and have neither kings, nor priests, nor social classes..."

According to Friedl the source of male power lies in their control of a scarce resource - animal meat. Meat is hard to acquire, it must be hunted and the animal killed. Only then does it become meat in the full sense of the word. In most societies there will be some system by which the meat of a hunt will be distributed. It might be distributed first amongst the hunters, then amongst the kin of the successful hunter and so on. The vegetables that gather are on the other hand not shared out beyond the immediate kin group, it is women who gather such things. Vegetables and berries are given to the husband and children but that is as far as they tend to go.

The hunter provides meat, social meat, meat that is seen as a gift to the community and which carries with it obligations. The more successful the hunter so the more obligations that exist between them and those who share this social meat. The good hunter also receives prestige, they are looked highly upon for it is they who provide this scarce resource. As a result the opinions of hunters are listened to when it comes to making decisions that pertain to the community. They are the chief players in the politics of the group. The more dependents, each obligated to give support, so the more powerful does the hunter become. Gathering vegetables does not give women this same power that hunting gives to men.

Friedl gives various examples to prove her point but I will only outline two of the examples she gives. The first is that of Eskimo society which is (or was?) very male dominated, the other is of the Washo Indians which is presented as a society in which a greater degree of sexual equality existed.

Eskimo men hunt, inland Eskimo men hunt caribou while maritime Eskimo (those existing near the sea) hunt, or to more precise fish, for whales. The women process the carcasses, they use the meat to cook for their children and make clothes out of the hides of the various animals hunted. They do not, however, engage in any way in the process of food production, that is, they do not hunt or even gather. They are totally dependent upon the men for their food and for the food of their children.

In Eskimo society women are also dominated, a high degree of sexual inequality exists. Women are treated like objects, to be done with as one likes. An Eskimo girl who is not yet marries is considered "fair game" by Eskimo men. The Eskimo male is perfectly within his rights to force himself sexually, rape, the Eskimo girl is she resists his affections. Eskimo men use their wives to establish trading relations with other Eskimos. They will usually offer their wives sexual services to the other Eskimo man in order to cement the trading or hunting relationship. To put it simply women are dominated completely in this society in which the productive process, that of hunting, is controlled my men.

The Washo Indians were a society  who inhabited that region of America know called southern California. It was a very egalitarian society, at least with regard to sexual equality. Unlike Eskimo society men and women participated almost equally in the process of food production, both in the hunt and in gathering vegetables.

In the spring the society fished and men, women and children participated in the hunt. In the summer women gathered berries and seed while the men continued to fish. In the autumn both men and women combined together to hunt the staple source of meat, rabbit. Men and women together drove them into nets. Then in winter both men and women combined in gathering nuts to sustain the society through the winter months.

The Washo Indians exhibited a high degree of sexual equality. Both men and women were free after marriage to take lovers, women did not have to remain separate from "male" activities, both could separate when they chose to and rituals celebrated not only hunting but also gathering. All in all women enjoyed much greater equality in this society than that of Eskimo women. Friedl argues that this is related directly to the involvement of men and women in hunting, or, the production of food in general. In Washo society both men and women participated thus both were much more equal. What status that came from the hunt not only attached to male hunters but also to female hunters.

In a way there is a certain logic to what Friedl writes. Even in our own Western industrial societies it would appear that women have emancipated themselves to a much greater extent only when they have emancipated themselves from the home. Women have probably gained much more power and prestige since they began to participate more fully in the "public sphere", that is, in paid employment and politics. There does seem to be a link between the process of production, the economic, and the relations that exist not only between the sexes but also between individuals. To be in employment gives much greater prestige, it also allows the establishment of "connections" which in turn bring power. 

Marxist theories may be true or false but the Marxist method remains eternally true. It is this method, developed by Engels and later Marxist scholars which has perhaps stood the test of time and provided the most useful insights into womens subordination. Within the anthropology of gender Marxist insights still fuel much research.