Socialist Feminism : A Contemporary Reader in Theory and Politics

by Holmstrom, Nancy

• ISBN13: 9781583670682
• ISBN10: 1583670688
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-08-01
• Publisher: Monthly Review Pr

Summary

Socialist feminist theorizing is flourishing today. This collection is intended to show its strengths and resources and convey a sense of it as an ongoing project with a vital role to play in struggles for emancipation from all forms of oppression and exploitation today. Not every contribution to that project bears the same theoretical label, but the writings collected here share a broad aim of understanding women's subordination in a way which integrates class and sex--as well as aspects of women's identity such as race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation--with the aim of liberating women.Socialist Feminismbrings together the most important recent socialist feminist writings on a wide range of topics: sex and reproduction, the family, wage labor, social welfare and public policy, the place of sex and gender in politics, and the philosophical foundations of socialist feminism. Although focusing on recent writings, the collection shows how these build on a struggle for women's liberation with earlier beginnings.These writings demonstrate the range, depth, and vitality of contemporary social feminist debates. They also testify to the distinctive capacity of this project to address issues in a way that embraces collective experience and action while at the same time enabling each person to speak in their own personal voice.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(12)
Nancy Holmstrom
Foremothers/fathers	13	(17)
PART I SEX, SEXUALITY, AND REPRODUCTION
A Question of Class	30	(16)
Dorothy Allison
Gender, Sexuality, Political Economy	46	(17)
Micaela di Leonardo
Roger Lancaster
Premenstrual Syndrome, Work Discipline, and Anger	63	(11)
Emily Martin
Human Rights, Reproductive Health, and Economic Justice: Why They Are Indivisible	74	(9)
Rosalind P. Petchesky
Reclaiming Marxist Feminism for a Need-Based Sexual Politics	83	(7)
Rosemary Hennessy
PART II FAMILY: LOVE, LABOR, AND POWER
The Family Is Dead, Long Live Our Families	90	(12)
Judith Stacey
Stories of Survival: Class, Race, and Domestic Violence	102	(19)
Janice Haaken
Redefining the Home	121	(2)
Purvi Shah
My Brother's Sex Was White, Mine Brown	123	(2)
Cherrie Moraga
Revisiting Marx and Engels on the Family	125	(3)
Stephanie Coontz
On Conceiving Motherhood and Sexuality: A Feminist-Materialist Approach	128	(9)
Ann Ferguson
Bargaining with Patriarchy	137	(15)
Deniz Kandiyoti
The Disappearing Fathers under Global Capitalism	152	(8)
Temma Kaplan
PART III WAGE LABOR AND STRUGGLES
Women Workers and Capitalist Scripts: Ideologies of Domination, Common Interests, and the Politics of Solidarity	160	(21)
Chandra Talpade Mohanty
The Hidden History of Affirmative Action: Working Women's Struggles in the 1970s and the Gender of Class	181	(16)
Nancy Maclean
Making Fantasies Real: Producing Women and Men on the Maquila Shop Floor	197	(7)
Leslie Salzinger
Machos and Machetes in Guatemala's Cane Fields	204	(3)
Elizabeth Oglesby
An International Perspective on Slavery in the Sex Industry	207	(4)
Jo Bindman
Globalizing Sex Workers' Rights	211	(5)
Kamala Kempadoo
PART IV ECONOMICS, SOCIAL WELFARE, AND PUBLIC POLICY
Still under Attack: Women and Welfare Reform	216	(12)
Mimi Abramovitz
Toward a Strategy for Women's Economic Equality	228	(11)
Chris Tilly
Randy Albelda
Public Imprisonment and Private Violence: Reflections on the Hidden Punishment of Women	239	(11)
Angela Y. Davis
Conceptualizing Women's Interests	250	(10)
Maxine Molyneux
PART V POLITICS AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Appreciating Our Beginnings	260	(9)
Sheila Rowbotham
Listen Up, Anglo Sisters	269	(8)
Elizabeth Martinez
Capitalism and Human Emancipation: Race, Gender, and Democracy	277	(16)
Ellen Meiksins Wood
Militarizing Women's Lives	293	(5)
Cynthia Enloe
Democratization: Reflections on Gendered Dislocations in the Public Sphere	298	(15)
Mary E. Hawkesworth
Mapping Gender in African-American Political Strategies	313	(23)
Leith Mullings
Intersections, Locations, and Capitalist Class Relations: Intersectionality from a Marxist Perspective	336	(14)
Johanna Brenner
PART VI NATURE, SOCIETY, AND KNOWLEDGE
The Feminist Standpoint Revisited	350	(10)
Nancy Hartsock
A Marxist Theory of Women's Nature	360	(17)
Nancy Holmstrom
The Ecopolitics Debate and the Politics of Nature	377	(19)
Val Plumwood
Women and the Third World: Exploring the Dangers of Difference	396	(12)
Meera Nanda
Expanding Environmental Justice: Asian-American Feminists' Contribution	408	(8)
Julie Sze
Acknowledgments	416	(3)
Index	419