Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence

When women enjoy their own sources of income, and the state guarantees social security in old age, illness, and disability, women have no economic reason to stay in abusive, unfulfilling, or otherwise unhealthy relationships.

You are not a commodity. Your depression and anxiety are not just chemical imbalances in your brain but reasonable responses to a system that thrives on your dehumanization.

Whether we like it or not, capitalism commodifies almost every aspect of our private lives, as sexual economics theory predicts. Personal relationships take time and energy that few of us have to spare as we scramble to make ends meet in the precarious gig economy. We are often exhausted and drained, unwilling to invest the emotional resources necessary to make loving relationships without compensation.

Most importantly, reclaim your time, emotional energy, and self-worth from the reductive logic of capitalism. You are not a commodity.

the growing millennial support for socialism had less to do with the inherent radicalism of youth and more to do with the failures of traditional parties to rein in the worst excesses of capitalism:

The state of being female is complicated by other categories such as class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, and so on.

as citizens we need to shake off the shackles of Western post–Cold War triumphalist history and cultivate our knowledge of the widest array of political possibilities.

If done properly, socialism leads to economic independence, better labor conditions, better work/family balance, and, yes, even better sex.

...much overt sex work, as well as the subtler forms of commodified sexuality for sale, is the result of an economic system that provides little material security for women, and encourages all people to turn everything they have (their labor, their reputations, their emotions, their bodily fluids and ova, and so forth) into a product that can be sold on a market where prices are determined by the caprices of supply and demand.

Many will argue that there is nothing morally wrong with sex work, and it should be legalized, protected, unionized, and fairly compensated for those who freely choose to seek employment in this sector of the economy. Sex work existed long before the advent of capitalism, it continued to varying degrees throughout the state socialist countries, and it will no doubt exist in some form well into the future. But overt sex work, as well as the subtler forms of commodified sexuality for sale, is the result of an economic system that provides little material security for women, and encourages all people to turn everything they have (their labor, their reputations, their emotions, their bodily fluids and ova, and so forth) into a product that can be sold on a market where prices are determined by the caprices of supply and demand. This form of amorous exchange is not sex positive empowerment for women, but a desperate attempt to survive in a world with few social safety nets.

When states need to slash government spending on education, health care, or old age pensions, mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives must pick up the slack, diverting their energies to care for the young, the sick, and the elderly. Capitalism thrives on women’s unpaid labor in the home because women’s care work supports lower taxes. Lower taxes mean higher profits for those already at the top of the income ladder—mostly men.

Women’s economic independence correlates with their ability to make decisions about their own bodies, their relationships, and their futures. When women don’t have to rely on men for financial survival, they can choose partners based on love and mutual respect rather than economic necessity.

Economists call this “statistical discrimination.” The basic idea is that since employers can’t directly observe the productivity of individual workers, they can make observations about demographic characteristics that are correlated with worker productivity. They make decisions based on the averages: if women are more likely to quit than men for personal reasons, employers assume that any given woman is more likely to quit than a man. Economists observe that the theory of statistical discrimination can create a vicious cycle. If women are (or used to be) more likely to quit, they will be paid less. If they are paid less, they are more likely to quit. This vicious cycle provides a very good justification for government intervention.

Women’s free labor in the home subsidized the profits of employers because workers’ families bore the cost of reproducing the future labor force. Without birth control, access to education, or opportunities for meaningful employment, the woman was trapped within the confines of the family in perpetuity.

For example, the state socialists in the USSR and Eastern Europe were so successful at giving women economic opportunities outside the home that initially, for two decades after the end of World War II, women’s wage work was conflated with the evils of communism.