Women's Oppression Today: The Marxist/Feminist Encounter

by Michele Barrett, Kathi Weeks (Foreword by)

Overview

Women’s Oppression Today is a classic text in the debate about Marxism and feminism, exploring how gender, sexuality and the “family-household system” operate in relation to contemporary capitalism. In this updated edition, Michèle Barrett surveys the social and intellectual changes that have taken place since the book's original publication, and looks back at the political climate in which the book was written. In a major new essay, she defends the central arguments of the book, at the same time addressing the way such an engagement would play out differently today, over thirty years later.

A foreword by Kathi Weeks examines the importance of approaching all feminist theories as events whose repercussions stretch beyond the circumstances of their creation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781781680131
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	08/12/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michèle Barrett is Professor of Modern Literary and Cultural Theory in the School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London. She is the author, among other works, of Women’s Oppression Today, The Anti-Social Family, and Politics of Diversity (co-authored with Roberta Hamilton).

Table of Contents

Foreword: Re-encountering Marxist Feminism Kathi Weeks ix

Introduction to the 1988 Edition xxi

Preface and Acknowledgments 1

1 Some Conceptual Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis 8

2 Femininity, Masculinity and Sexual Practice 42

3 Ideology and the Cultural Production of Gender 84

4 The Educational System: Gender and Class 114

5 Gender and the Division of Labour 152

6 Women's Oppression and 'the Family' 187

7 Feminism and the Politics of the State 227

8 Capitalism and Women's Liberation 248

Afterword: Revisiting the Marxist/Feminist Encounter in 2014 260

Select Bibliography 277

Index of Subjects 281

Index of Authors 283

Editorial Reviews

Michèle Barrett’s excellent and lucid discussion of the issues and debates within contemporary feminist theory makes a major contribution to our understanding of the nature of that oppression.” —Mary Evans, London School of Economics

“This book is a school of thought.” —Frigga Haug, author of Female Sexualization: A Collective Work of Memory

“Historically significant and deeply relevant to today’s discussions, Barrett’s interrogation of Marxism, feminism, patriarchy and the state is serious yet accessible: this is a key text in the history (and present) of both Marxism and feminism.” —Nina Power, author of One-Dimensional Woman

“Barrett’s eloquent elucidation of the ties and ruptures between feminism and Marxism at the close of the 1970s is especially timely today ... as austerity measures hit women in particular hardest.” —Lynne Segal, Birkbeck College, University of London

From the Publisher