Women and Work: Feminism, Labour, and Social Reproduction

With #metoo dominating headlines and an unprecedented number of women running for office, the fight for women’s equality has perhaps never been higher on the political agenda. Around the world, women are fighting against unfair working conditions, restrictive abortion laws, and the frayed social safety net. The same holds true within the business world—but there’s a twist: even as some women argue that pushing for more female CEOs would help the struggle for equality, other activists argue that CEOs themselves are part of the problem, regardless of gender. In Feminist Thinking about Work, Susan Ferguson explores the history of feminist discourse, examining the ways in which feminists have conceptualized women’s work and placed labor, and its reproduction, at the heart of their program for emancipation. Engaging with feminist critiques of work, Ferguson argues that women’s emancipation depends upon a reorganization and radical reimagining of all labor, and advocates for an inclusive politics that reconceptualizes women’s work and work in general. --Publisher's description. Contents: The Labour Lens -- Work, Character and Independence -- Domestic Labour as Work -- Emancipation Through Women’s Waged Labour? -- A Political Economy of ’Women’s Work’: Producing Patriarchal Capitalism -- Capitalism’s Complex Social Reproductive Labour: Forces of Dehumanization and Resistance -- Productivist Feminism and Anti-Work Politics.