Class

Class, in political terms, refers to a system that positions people in relation to each other, thereby creating groups, rather than to a relationship that comes into being between pre-existing groups.

"The concept of class (...) implies that each group cannot be considered separately from the other, because they are bound together by a relationship of domination; nor can they even be considered together but independently of this relationship. (...) The concept of class starts from the idea of social construction and specifies the implications of it. Groups are no longer sui generis, constituted before coming into relation with each other. On the contrary, it is their relationship which constitutes them as such."

The capitalist class system is not the only class system. Feminists must examine non-capitalist class relations in order to analyse the oppression of women, because the oppression of women extends beyond capitalist modes of production, and indeed underpins the very structure of male-centered waged labour.

Christine Delphy and Andrea Dworkin have both put forward the concept of sex as a class.

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