Subordination (RLE Feminist Theory) : Feminism and Social Theory

__Subordination__ presents a survey of some of the most important ideas developed within feminism since the 1970s. Among the central themes addressed are: the origins of women’s subordination; the private/public split; the nature and the role of domestic labour; the impact of psychoanalysis on feminist theory; the relationship between the State and women’s subordination. One of the book’s purposes is to draw together strands of thought and debate often kept separate. Throughout, the major theoretical developments in Britain, the United States and Australia are reviewed within a comparative perspective. Consistently, the focus of attention is on how, and how far, theorists in these countries have been able to point to ways of explaining the changing but enduring nature of sexual inequalities. SUBORDINATION Feminism and Social Theory 4 Copyright 5 Subordination Feminism and Social Theory 6 Copyright 7 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 10 Technical Note 12 Introduction 14 1 Engels, the Search for Origins, and Feminist Theory 22 Problems of historical reconstruction 24 Prehistoric origins 30 2 Engels, Class and Women 39 Class and women's subordination 41 Lessons from classless societies 44 Conclusions 51 3 Public and Private Worlds 54 Radical feminism 55 Feminist-informed ethnography 58 Marxist-feminist and related approaches 62 The male wage labourer 68 Conclusions 75 4 Domestic Labour and the Political Economy of Women 78 Women as a structural group 82 The domestic mode of production 85 Domestic labour and capitalist production 91 Women, domestic labour and legitimation 95 Conclusions 103 5 Psychoanalysis, Masculinity/Femininity and the Family 107 Juliet Mitchell and psychoanalysis 108 Freud, Lacan and feminist theory 117 Conclusions 122 6 An Extended Theory of Social Reproduction 125 Feminist theory and the state 125 The state and biological reproduction 132 Education and social reproduction 135 Conclusions 151 Notes 155 Bibliography 161 Index 179