Abstract

Marxist dialectics contain several features that can help feminist theorists gain a better understanding of social life. First, Marxist dialectics call for the development of alternatives to Enlightenment accounts of what is to count as truth or knowledge. Second, Marx's work provides materials for a more nuanced and socially embedded understanding of subjectivity and agency than is available from either contemporary liberal theories or post-structuralist theories. And third, the understanding of the relation between knowledge and power present in Marx's work provides important criteria for what can count as better, or privileged, knowledges.