Pre-revolutionary working-class women had more economic autonomy than bourgeois women.

Evidence

While feminist supporters like to think that feminism has been the motivating force behind changes in woman’s role, in actuality changes in the American capitalist economy have had the greatest impact on the status of women. More women than ever before are in America’s work force not because of feminism but because families can no longer rely on the income of the father. Feminism has been used as a psychological tool to make women think that work they might otherwise see as boring, tedious, and time consuming is liberating. For whether feminism exists or not, women must work. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 303 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

The Socialist Congress of 1879 proclaimed the equality of the sexes, and as of that time the feminist-socialist alliance would no longer be denounced, but since women hope for their liberty through the emancipation of workers in general, their attachment to their own cause is secondary. The bourgeoisie, on the contrary, claim new rights within existing society, and they refuse to be revolutionary; they want to introduce virtuous reforms into rules of behavior: elimination of alcohol, pornographic literature, and prostitution. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 278 (#complicates, via linked claim)

However, there are quite a lot of privileged women today who have gained economic and social autonomy in their professions. They are the ones who are at issue when the question of women’s possibilities and their future is raised. While they are still only a minority, it is particularly interesting to study their situation closely; they are the subject of continuing debate between feminists and antifeminists. The latter maintain that today’s emancipated women do not accomplish anything important, and that besides they have trouble finding their inner balance. The former exaggerate the emancipated women’s achievements and are blind to their frustrations. In fact, there is no reason to assume that they are on the wrong track; and yet it is obvious that they are not comfortably settled in their new condition: they have come only halfway as yet. Even the woman who has emancipated herself economically from man is still not in a moral, social, or psychological situation identical to his. Her commitment to and focus on her profession depend on the context of her life as a whole. And, when she starts her adult life, she does not have the same past as a boy; society does not see her with the same eyes; she has a different perspective on the universe. Being a woman poses unique problems to an autonomous human being today. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1920 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Worker and bourgeois women pursued fundamentally different routes to liberation — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 278; Capitalist economic change, not feminism, drove women into the workforce — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 303; Economic emancipation alone does not place women in a situation identical to men’s — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1920 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Worker and bourgeois women pursued fundamentally different routes to liberation #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 278
• Capitalist economic change, not feminism, drove women into the workforce #qualifies (0.75) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 303
• Economic emancipation alone does not place women in a situation identical to men’s #expands (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1920
• Economic and social structures still subordinate women despite overturning the femininity myth #complicates (0.70) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 675