Comparing Mao Wittig's Mao Tse-Tung And Monique

Mao Tse-tung and Monique Wittig are two influential revolutionary figures whose ideas and works are largely influenced by the social revolution theory proposed by Karl Marx. Mao, just like Marx, pays particular attention to the conflicts of interests between classes and revolution movement as a manifestation of those contradictions. He adopts Marxist theory and adapts it to China, where instead of a proletariat revolution, he considers an agrarian revolution led by the peasant. Wittig recognizes the social reality of oppression between the two different sexes. She applies Marxist thinking and provides a revolutionary theory for sexuality from a material feminist perspective, yet she is able to distinguish her theory from Marxism as she extends materiality to the level of idea. In this paper, I will …show more content…
In saying this, she means that Marxism, by exercising ideological and political power over the workers and all other political groups for the purpose of achieving communism, does not leave room for individual subjectivity, and fails to enable the masses to fight voluntarily because essentially, the people themselves did not change. Wittig points out that generating individual subjectivity and class consciousness is the first condition of a successful revolution, for “without which there can be no real fight or transformation” (Wittig, p.19). The world would not change spontaneously without individual’s own personal and ontological consciousness and actions. To do this, it is necessary to destroy the categories of sex and to abandon “women” as a class, for “the category of sex is a totalitarian one… it shapes the mind as well as the body since it controls all mental production” (Wittig,