It is very common for feminists to say : the oppression of women is linked to our bodies. Or: we are oppressed and exploited because of our biology (because we have a vagina, ovary, uterus, vulva). Or, yet: the oppression of women is linked to our reproductive capacity

These are not false propositions, but they are incomplete; and precisely because they are said like this - "incompletely" and without any further context - feminists are accused of being "biologicists" or "essentialists" or that feminists naturalize oppression female.

So I will try to explain here briefly.
First, all of these explanations revolve around the discussion: where does the oppression of women come from? How and why did it start? How and why does it remain?

The short version is: we relate the oppression and exploitation of women with their bodies because that is what is evident when making a historical analysis.Analyzing the history of humanity feminists have found that the exploitation of women is the oldest form of exploitation.

More than just controlling the reproduction of women to generate labor or to guarantee the maintenance of wealth in a given family - that is, in a society where supposedly private property already existed,

as is the most orthodox Marxist explanation -, the exploitation of woman as a reproducer, some feminists will say, it is related to the broader and earlier act of exploring and controlling one's own life, removing from women this “authority” over life.

The rise of agriculture, private property, and the beginning of the exploitation of women, therefore, all happen at the same time. But how did this process take place? What happened first?

Feminists work with the hypothesis that, first, there was an exchange of women, keeping in mind their capacity to generate more human beings: more human beings working to obtain food guarantees the survival of the group

As Gerda Lerner describes,
Neolithic tools were relatively simple, so anyone could make them. Land was not a scarce resource. Thus, neither tools nor land represent opportunities for appropriation.

But, in a situation in which ecological conditions and irregularities in biological reproduction threatened categories in the group, as people sought more breeders - that is, women.

The appropriation of men, such as prisoners (which occurs only at a later stage), would not meet the group's need for urgency. Therefore, the first appropriation of private property is the appropriation of women's work as reproducers.

The beginning of the exploitation of women as a resource - similarly to the exploitation of land as a resource - thus occurs historically at some point during the Neolithic agricultural revolution.

Before agriculture - and think about what agriculture is, because this is important: the human being controlling, dominating nature, ceasing to be at its mercy for its survival, as a consequence of technological development and its ability to observe the world

evidence suggests that most early societies were matrilineal (that is, when tracing kinship with the mother as a reference) and matrilocal (that is, when the person who moves, when the marriage takes place, is the man, for the home of women - do not confuse this w matriarchal

After the agricultural revolution, however, the vast majority of civilizations became patrilineal and patrilocal - and the reverse process (the transition from a society of patrilineality / patrilocality to matrilinearity / matrilocality) simply never happened.

The woman, then, in this beginning, would be exchanged (guaranteeing alliances and peace between different tribes.Later, they would be bought and sold and enslaved, not only for their reproductive capacity but also for their sexuality (to serve as sex slaves).

In the first invasions of a tribe by the other, it was not customary to enslave men or make them “prisoners of war”; they were killed. It was women who were preserved - and why ?

The accumulation of women - and their reproductive potential -, then, allows greater production of surplus; which, in turn, enables the growth, organization and cohesion of the tribe in which they participate to continue to grow and expand.

this is the basis for the emergence of the first archaic states.
The exploitation of women's reproductive capacity also goes through the emergence of the slave system: women were the first class of people enslaved; and it will serve
as a basis for the class society itself.

Capitalism itself can only arise due to the process of primitive accumulation that includes the accumulation of women's reproductive potential through the control of their sexuality.

The mechanics of patriarchy are therefore related to the fact that women produce people. The dynamics of patriarchy are related to the control of sexuality. This control process has become more complex throughout history, being institutionalized by laws and religions

and, as feminist epistemology puts it, it is a process that also had the active participation of women themselves.

Submission to men is also related to a choice for survival. Women throughout history have had to choose between their own freedom and the livelihood of themselves (and often their children), and this implies cooperation with oppressors.

It is necessary to be clear to realize, however, that such cooperation does not mean that these women are privileged or are less oppressed.
Women have always been linked to their oppressors through sex ties.

Men dominate the relations of material and sexual production: women do not. At any specific time in history, each "class" is made up of two distinct classes - men and women. The class position of women became consolidated and established through their sexual relations.

For men, the class was and is based on their relations with the means of production: those who owned the means of production could dominate those who did not.

The owners of the means of production also purchased the merchandise of female sexual services, both from women of their own class and from women of subordinate classes. (…) For women, the class is mediated through their sexual ties with a man.

It is through men that women receive or lose access to means of production and resources. It is through their sexual behavior that they gain access to the class.

The sexual definition of "deviation" marks a woman as "not respectable", which in fact gives her the lowest possible social status.

This is the history of human females. The history of human females is the history of our exploration because we are females. And we are historical subjects: the society we live in today, the way we live today, did not just emerge out of nowhere, as in a big bang, out of emptiness

It is the result of thousands of years of historic construction. Four thousand years of patriarchy seems like a long time, but humanity is much, much older than that (search on google - “when homo sapiens appeared”).

Identifying the roots of our exploration in a natural fact - the fact that we gestate and give birth - is not synonymous with "naturalize it" or "biologize it"On the contrary its putting a start date on patriarchy

and demonstrating, precisely, that this is not the modus operandi of the human species as a whole That patriarchy arose under specific conditions, for specific reasons.
And the truth is that sex remains the primary reason for oppression and exploitation for most women

When some say they want to “deconstruct” the female class and rubbing rubber in four thousand years of oppression is the most colonizing and detached thing from reality that could be proposed. Facts are facts

Bc we gestate and give birth and menstruate and are considered dirty and impure for that reason, we are subject to having our genitals mutilated within our first months (sometimes even days) of life.

Because we menstruate, gestate and give birth, our access to education is hampered, because when we are menstruating we need access to bathrooms and basic sanitation. Because we menstruate, we are placed in huts, in isolation, in different parts of the world.

Because we have a vagina, we are raped, trafficked and sexually exploited. Because we have the presumed ability to conceive and give birth, we are not considered a good investment for companies, and we receive less

we have fewer job opportunities, and it takes us infinitely more time than men in the same situation as us to progress in their careers.

Because we gestate and give birth, we are socially obliged to raise the children who left us, even against our will, which leads to eternal impoverishment, since we can hardly count on men for financial support.

The material oppression of women has not yet been overcome. Do you know why? Because they still need us to make their babies and they still explore our sexuality as a way to show off power.

DISCLAIMER !
This text was originally written in portuguese by 'Furiosa' from QG Feminista and i took the freedom to translate it to english so more people can read it. Heres the link to the original text https://medium.com/qg-feminista/qual-a-rela%C3%A7%C3%A3o-da-opress%C3%A3o-da-mulher-com-seu-corpo-17dab4d6fc0e