Un-/Re-Productive Maternal Labor: Marxist Feminism and Chapter Fifteen of Marx's Capital

摘要

Marxist feminists often refer to Capital to justify their explanation of women's (un-)productive domestic labor in a capitalist, patriarchal society, yet there is considerable slippage between the phrase “productive labor” as used by Marx and as used by feminists in the 1970s. This paper closely examines Marx's language as he explains how women were (and failed to be) integrated into a capitalist labor market. Although he claims to work toward “a higher form of the family and relations between the sexes,” he occasionally conflates patriarchy and capitalism and quotes extensively from sources that suggest that married women working outside the home are “tainted” and “customarily immoral.” This essay examines Marx's deployment of words like “reproduction” and “prostitution” in gendered and de-gendered contexts, and compares his explanation of the relationships between women, reproduction, and labor with that of contemporary Marxist feminism.View full textDownload full textKeywords Capital , Marxist Feminism, Productive Labor, Gender, ReproductionRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2011.536327