Over the course of the last twelve months, due to developments in the small Australian, British and Indonesian lefts, the issue of the Marxist orientation to feminism has become higher up in the current discussion agenda. Over the last 30 years, I have been part of a tradition that has tried to explain the origins of the society wide systematic oppression of women, throughout several periods of history, within a Marxist analytical explanation. This has involved – to summarize super succinctly – identifying processes of subjugation of women as connected to the evolution of various production practices as they in turn produce antagonistic class relationships in which various forms of property emerge and where women, historically, become property. This always also fulfills some function to make it easier for the system’s mechanisms of exploitation of a tiny minority over the mass of people to function effectively. Under capitalism, the oppression…