Women's Oppression Today - Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis

Michèle Barrett

Verso

1986

270 páginas

9h 0m

ISBN-10: 0860910334

In little more than a decade, the women's liberation movement has grown into one of the most significant challenges this century to the existing terms and scope of socialist politics. At the same time feminists have had to confront the argument of socialists within and outside the movement that no thorough and general end to the subordination of women can be achieved within the limits of capitalist exploitation. A key outcome of this complex encounter is the emergent theory and politics of 'Marxist feminism', within whose problem area and perspectives Michèle Barrett's book is written.

How is 'femininity' constructed and what can Freudian theory add to our knowledge of it? What is the part of ideology and cultural practice in the formation of gender? By what means does the educational system help to maintain a class· and gender·divided society? Is women's subordination in work inherent in the logic of capitalism? How should 'the family' be understood, and what is the role of contemporary household organization in the oppression of women? What is the specific role of the state in shaping relations between the sexes? Can capitalism liberate women? What is the current relationship between feminism and socialism and how must it be altered or developed? These are among the central questions posed by Barrett in a set of analyses that critically reviews the existing discussions of them, testing the latter both theoretically and against the evidence of women's situation in advanced capitalism, as typified by contemporary Britain.

Women's Oppression Today is a book of notable acuity and poise, written with unwavering command of an exceptionally wide range of topics and source·materials. It will be a crucial reference in every discussion of the as yet uncertain common future of Marxism and feminism.