Back to Marx: reflections on the feminist crisis at the crossroads of neoliberalism and neoconservatism

The paper situates contemporary feminism in the wake of the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade and within the broader rise of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. It asks how the combined assault of these ideological forces affects the struggle for gender equality and what strategic responses are possible. The authors argue that neoliberalism co-opts feminist language in service of market logics while neoconservatism frames feminism as a threat to traditional values—together reinforcing a familial welfare model. Given the materialist nature of these dynamics, the paper proposes returning to Marx’s historical materialism to analyze women’s oppression through labor, capital, and class relations, aiming to reorient feminism toward structural transformation and solidarity.

The paper synthesizes scholarship on neoliberalism’s marketization of social life (Mirowski; McCarthy & Prudham; Vallier) and its co-optation of feminism (Fraser; Prügl; Littler), as well as critiques of identity politics and corporate feminism (Crenshaw; McRobbie; Fraser; Eddy & Ward). It reviews analyses of neoconservatism’s resurgence emphasizing traditional gender roles, family values, and anti-gender politics (Brandon; Butler) and documents policy turns such as the Geneva Consensus Declaration opposing abortion rights. Examples like commodity activism (Repo; Banet-Weiser & Mukherjee), pinkwashing critiques (Wigley & Dornelles), and global garment labor exploitation (Brooks; Lu) illustrate commercialization’s obfuscation of capitalist exploitation. The authors also draw on Marx, Engels, and Marxist-feminist critiques to ground arguments about class, patriarchy, and capitalism’s role in gender oppression.

This is a theoretical and conceptual analysis grounded in Marxist historical materialism. The authors conduct a critical synthesis of secondary literature across political theory, feminist theory, sociology, and policy documents to analyze how neoliberal and neoconservative rationalities shape contemporary feminism. They use illustrative cases (e.g., Roe v. Wade overturning, Geneva Consensus Declaration, pink ribbon campaigns, garment industry labor conditions) to demonstrate mechanisms of co-optation, commercialization, and conservative backlash. No original empirical data were collected or analyzed.

- Neoliberalism has hijacked mainstream feminism by emphasizing market participation, individual empowerment, and consumer activism, pushing many women into precarious, informal, and under-protected labor while legitimizing welfare retrenchment. Data cited include: in lower-middle-income countries, 84.5% of employed women are in informal work; in low-income countries, 92.1% (ILO, 2018). In several developed economies, women’s average pensions are more than 30% lower than men’s (Eurostat, 2020). - Commodity activism (e.g., pink ribbon campaigns) raises awareness but often fails to deliver structural change, can serve corporate interests, and tends to center middle-to-upper-class, white women—obscuring marginalized groups and reinforcing inequalities. - Neoconservatism challenges feminism through anti-gender politics, populism, and white nationalism (e.g., 2019 Geneva Consensus Declaration by 32 countries opposing abortion as a right), reasserting traditional family roles and unpaid reproductive labor for women. - Despite differences, neoliberalism and neoconservatism converge in reinforcing the family as a substitute for welfare provision and in downplaying structural gender inequalities, thereby creating a class of poor, contingent female workers juggling underpaid work and unpaid care. - Feminism faces a crisis of alienation due to: (1) divisions from a shift toward identity politics that obscures shared class-based adversities and fuels masculinist backlash; (2) commercialization that substitutes citizen politics with consumerism, masking capitalist exploitation (e.g., exploitation in global garment supply chains where some women earn as low as $26 per month and many Bangladeshi garment workers earn less than $55/month); (3) instrumentalization of feminism in domestic and international politics by parties, states, and corporations. - Historically, women’s oppression is rooted in class relations tied to the primacy of material production over reproductive labor; patriarchy operates as an instrument of class oppression within capitalism. The paper argues that focusing solely on patriarchy risks obscuring capitalist structures enabling exploitation. - A strategic response requires returning to Marxist analysis, centering material life and class reproduction, and building cross-movement alliances (labor, environmental, anti-racist) to confront capitalist exploitation that undergirds gender oppression.

Addressing the research question, the paper shows that the dual assault of neoliberalism and neoconservatism reshapes feminism away from collective emancipation toward individualized market and moral discourses, eroding solidarity and masking structural exploitation. By reframing women’s oppression through Marxist historical materialism, the analysis connects reproductive labor, wage labor, and class power, explaining how gender oppression sustains capital accumulation. The significance lies in redirecting feminist strategy from consumption and representation politics toward class-conscious organizing and alliances capable of confronting welfare retrenchment, labor precarity, and reproductive labor devaluation. This reframing clarifies why reforms confined within capitalist logics tend to be absorbed or reversed, and it highlights the need for coordinated struggles that integrate gender, class, race, and care economies.

The paper contends that contemporary feminism, pressured by neoliberal co-optation and neoconservative backlash, risks straying from liberatory goals. To regain transformative capacity, feminism should return to Marxist critiques of capitalism, interpret bodily autonomy and power through material life and class reproduction, end the marginalization of Marxist feminism, and unite with broader struggles (labor, environmental, anti-racist) for systemic change beyond capitalist reform. True gender equality is framed as collective emancipation rather than elite individual choice. Future directions include revitalizing Marxist feminist education and praxis, building cross-movement coalitions, adapting strategies to diverse cultural-political contexts, and leveraging new media and technologies to broaden reach and impact.

- The analysis is theoretical and does not employ original empirical data; conclusions rely on secondary sources and illustrative cases. - The scope explicitly centers feminism in the Global North, which may limit generalizability to Global South contexts or local specificities. - The broad synthesis may oversimplify variations within neoliberal and neoconservative formations across countries. - While proposing a Marxist framework, the paper does not detail concrete policy blueprints or empirically tested interventions.