AHunter: " This is unfortunately true, and it is also true that flavors of feminism and feminist theory that incorporate any variant of marxism still tend to analyze relations overall as if they were fundamentally material economic (i.e., marxist-centric) relationships; and such is NOT TRUE of the perspectives of feminist theorists as a whole, only of a small percentage of them.
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I can’t say I agree with this characterization A3. It’s worth clarifying first that most feminist scholars aren’t in Women Studies departments–so most feminists I’m familiar with are mainly doing whatever it is they do in their discipline (e.g., anthropology, history, cultural studies, philosophy, area studies). It’s hard, therefore, by any stretch of the imagination for me to think of these people as, simply, “Marxists” and still less “economic-centered” Marxists. I’m no expert on Women Studies nationwide, but I’m reasonably familiar with programs at 3 major research institutions. In all of them the departments were small but very diverse in terms of what kind of research people were doing (for example, advertising in US culture; impact of globalization on S. Asian women; sociological work on divorced women in Europe, etc.). So again, too much diversity for all of it to reduce down to "Marxism
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Second, I’m not really sure what you mean by Marxism in this context. As I’m sure you know Marxian or “materialist” theory isn’t limited or even especially focused on the works of Karl Marx (though I sometimes wish it was!). So we’re hardly talking about Victorian-era theory.
So-called Marxist theory is really, therefore, post-Marxist theory and, while I have many opinions on the matter, I don’t see where any of it consists in economic analysis. What is your idea of a contemporary Marxist theorist btw? Jameson? Irigaray? Kristeva? None of these, of course, are making simplistic economistic arguments about base/superstructure. What is more, psychoanalysis and postcolonial theory are at least as important these days as Marxist theory in any of its many varieties.
Finally, I don’t at all disagree that women studies was very often offered as a kind of sop to feminism (I’m not sure if you think I was saying otherwise when I suggested that the origin of women studies was more to do with liberal political movements in the 1960s and 70s than to do with the later influence of Marxist theory on the academic left. That is one reason why I prefer “Gender Studies” to Women Studies (though I’m generally happy to support feminist scholars wherever they are fortunate enough to find good jobs).
Daly, btw, is an example of someone who I respect a lot but disagree with on some basic issues. In particular, I don’t believe that any classroom should exclude men. (I’m guessing you would agree given your own experience.)
Cool website 