Some would argue convincingly that the oppression of women in advanced capitalistic societies is greater than that in classical patriarchal (agricultural) societies. Not only have the roles of women based on sexuality and motherhood been retained in advanced capitalism, marriage has been weakened and sexuality cheapened (thereby logically reducing the status of women in such societies) and equal opportunity has not been created in the job sphere to compensate for that (Hochschild 1983).

Further, women’s oppressors are hidden (unlike patriarchal societies) leading to self blame and invisibility of targets of resistance (Marcuse 1964:32). Also, added to this mix of ultra oppression is the fact of objectification of women (Kilbourne 1999, Marcuse 1964), something unique to capitalist modes of production. The physical veil has been replaced by an implicit personality veil where women are valued based upon sexuality and motherhood only, making everything else about them effectively invisible.

Hochschild, Arlie. 1983 (2003). The Managed Heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kilbourne, Jean. 1999. Deadly Persuasion. New York: The Free Press.

Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One-Dimensional Man. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.


Marcuse writes "Hatred and Frustration are deprived of their specific target, and the technological veil conceals the reproduction of inequality and enslavement...the slaves of developed industrial civilization are sublimated slaves but they are slaves, for slavery is determined. This is the pure form of servitude: to exist as an instrument, as a thing" (page320)