EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN 91 beyond the first phase of the exercise, to look critically at the subsequent developments. Interestingly, even though feminist theory actively engaged with Marxism to peg its critique of insufficient analysis, not much reflection on the implications of the 'death of socialism5 is to be found in writings of the last decade. This is vastly different from the ground reality, where activists have found the ground slipping from under their feet even as there is greater articulation and assertion by women. Challenging this pronounced death warrant for socialism from one end of the spectrum stands the women's movement which today knows that the events of the last decade and a half have increased inequalities even as they seemed to hold aloft the banner of democracy. Women activists, the world over, realise that the onward march of the consumerist forces riding high under the banner of free-market ideology has undoubtedly strengthened patriarchal hegemony and turned democracy into an even more distant dream. Far from bringing about the end of ideology, it has made the going tougher with the rhetoric of 'choice9, 'freedom', and 'autonomy5 being bandied about to reinforce patriarchal structures and reactionary ideologies. Hence the dilemma, for those who have tried for long to demarcate between support for women's rights campaigns from the extension of support for socialism. As activists preparing for the global march against poverty and violence outlined in their campaign speeches and publications, the ideals of equality and democracy sit uneasy on the heads of the IMF-World Bank, world architects for capitalism in the globalisation era. This, despite the fact that recent UN documents have shown a fascination for their prescripts and the UN Secretary-general found it appropriate to co-sign an appeal to the recent Copenhagen Plus Five meet in Geneva with the Bretton Woods authorities. It is, nevertheless, interesting and ironical that the most critical engagement that feminism has had is with the very postulation by Marxism of liberation and emancipation as a social goal vis a vis women's rights. Perhaps this is in itself reflective of the fact that it is this critical engagement which has contributed to what Hobsbawm has referred to as one of the lasting achievements of the last century in terms of emancipatory social movements. The compendium of critique of Marxism has in a sense also fashioned feminism's critique of bourgeois ideology, thereby imparting to it an oppositional role within the given democratic space. This may perhaps explain why it has been possible for even women activists on the left to adopt a more open approach in their practice in the 1980s and 1990s.