This session of our Theory Series will introduce attendees to socialist feminism. We will discuss gender oppression in general and its historically specific forms under capitalism. We will consider how gender organizes production and reproduction in capitalist society through an unequal division of labor and through political, economic, and social relations of domination. We will ask - what is patriarchy? And can it be understood as an autonomous social system independent of capitalism? We will explore the concept of social reproduction, or simply, how society keeps itself going–through which we can understand the coercion of women into the essential but undervalued, if not unpaid, labor of child-rearing, homemaking, and caretaking required to reproduce the workforce. We will consider how socialist feminism differs from liberal and other forms of feminism, and how socialist feminists today are rethinking political action to end the brutalities of both gender oppression and capitalism.
[CW: discussions of gender violence]
Core Readings:
Barbara Ehrenreich - “What Is Socialist Feminism?”
Further Reading:
Cinzia Arruzza - “Remarks on Gender”
Angela Y. Davis - "The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective
Where:
RSVP with the form below to get the Zoom link.