This episode situates debates over transgender identity within a Marxist analysis of capitalist society, arguing that rigid gender roles are historically constructed and reinforced by capitalism’s need to reproduce labour power. It draws on Marx’s base-and-superstructure framework to explain how patriarchal and gender norms originate in earlier modes of production and persist under capitalism to serve economic ends, assigning individuals culturally defined roles tied to reproductive labour. From this perspective, gender identity is not simply derived from biology but is shaped by social expectations that help sustain the capitalist system.

Taken from the December 2022 edition of The Socialist Standard.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

To read more news, views, and analysis please visit: worldsocialism.org/spgb

or, for a free three-issue subscription to The Socialist Standard: spgb.net/podcast

Featuring music: 'Pushing P (Instrumental)' by Tiga Maine x Deejay Boe. Source: Free Music Archive, licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0