Women and the Politics of Class

Women and the Politics of Class engages many crucial contemporary feminist issues—abortion, reproductive technology, comparable worth, the impoverishment of women, the crisis in care-giving, and the shredding of the social safety net through welfare reform and budget cuts. These problems, Brenner argues, must be set in the political and economic context of a state and society dominated by the imperatives of capital accumulation. Drawing on historical explorations of the labor movement and working-class politics, Brenner provides a fresh materialist approach to one of the most important issues of feminist theory today: the intersection of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class.

Contents

Introduction

Part I. Toward a Historical Sociology of Gender

1. Rethinking Women’s Oppression
2. Gender and the State
3. Gender and Class Relations in U.S. Labor History

Part II. Women and Social Policy

4. The Feminization of Poverty, Comparable Worth and Feminist Political Discourse
5. The Politics of Welfare Reform

Part III. The New Politics of the Family

6. Socialism Versus Communitarianism
7. Imagining the Transcendence of the Family

Part IV. Class Politics and Feminist Strategy

8. The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: U.S. Feminism Today
9. Meeting the Challenge of the Political Right

Conclusion

Index

Johanna Brenner is coordinator of women’s studies at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, has written for Monthly Review, New Left Review, Gender & Society, among other journals, and is a longtime activist for reproductive rights, welfare rights, and socialism.