Abstract

After a review of the debate on Marxism and feminism, and a short analysis of the role of patriarchy as a 'genetic factor' of capitalist society that emerges from Marx's exposition of its historical conditions, the essay analyzes the feminist use and critique of his work proposed by Luce Irigaray, Shulamith Firestone, Carla Lonzi, Maria Rosa Dalla Costa, bell hooks and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Rather than questioning the 'correctness' of those reading and measuring their distance from Marx' work, the essays suggests that feminism and Marx converge in their claim to determine the «political difference» that can unveil the antagonism that constitutes society.