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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminist economist's lecture: Women’s Work And The Limits of Capitalism

3 replies

ForkfulOfTabouleh · 31/03/2011 17:54

There is a guest post on the blog phd in parenting from the blogger blue milk (both great feminist mothering/parenting blogs btw).

It's a write up of a lecture, given by feminist economist Nancy Folbre entitled "Women?s Work And The Limits of Capitalism". There is also a youtube link to the actual lecture.

I haven't watched the video yet, just read the write up but it looks really interesting and covers things we often debate here:

-patriarchy
-capitalism
-equality of wages/opportunity
-SAHM/WAHM
-value of unpaid work - mothering/caring etc
-use of low paid women for cleaning/childcare by professional women

"Which factor is most to blame for the modern predicament of mothers ? over-worked, exhausted, stretched to capacity, idolised yet invisible, and financially vulnerable ? the patriarchy or capitalism?"

The conclusion from the write up is that "nothing will change until we can rally a larger coalition and to do this we need to first document and explain inequality better, and to do that? ? we need to start counting unpaid caring work!".

Will watch the lecture later and post back.

I'd be interested to hear others thoughts on this.

OP posts:
dittany · 31/03/2011 17:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ForkfulOfTabouleh · 31/03/2011 18:06

Thought some of you'd say that. Wink

Not sure - haven't watched the lecture yet.

The thing is, pre-capitalism I am sure women were pretty effectively controlled by the patriarchy.

Perhaps this tag line is to spark interest - and to look at different impacts of capitalism and patriarchy?

OP posts:
TeiTetua · 31/03/2011 18:14

You can't point to socialist countries and say that women get a significantly better deal there!

The countries that have made the most progress in a feminist direction seem to be the Scandinavian region, where they haven't abandoned capitalism, but they regulate and tax it heavily, with the proceeds supporting a lot of social services. Maybe that's the key, keep the productivity of capitalism but direct plenty of it to people's welfare.

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