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In recent years there has been both a renewed interest in theories of social reproduction and an explosion of womens struggles and strikes across the world. This collection offers both historical and contemporary Marxist feminist analysis of how the reproduction of labor and life functions under capitalism, using Dalla Costas insights into the vibrant and combative womens movement that emerged in Italy and across the world in the early 1970s. Since the first publication of Women and the Subversion of the Community in 1972, Dalla Costa has been a central figure in the development of autonomist thought. Her detailed research and provocative thinking deepens our understanding of the role of womens struggles for autonomy and control over their bodies and labor.
About the author
Mariarosa Dalla Costa is an influential Italian Marxist feminist and activist. She is the coauthor of the classic feminist text
The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community, with Selma James. This text launched the "domestic labor debate" in the early 1970s by redefining housework as reproductive labor necessary to the functioning of capitalism and as work that has been rendered invisible by its removal from the wage-relation. Her research has been translated into multiple languages and published in journals, edited collections, and monographs.
Summary
This collection brings together key texts and previously unavailable essays of the influential Italian feminist author and activist Mariarosa Dalla Costa. In recent years there has been both a renewed interest in theories of social reproduction and an explosion of women’s struggles and strikes across the world. The collection offers both historical and contemporary Marxist feminist analysis of how the reproduction of labour and life functions under capitalism.
Dalla Costa’s essays, speeches, and political interventions provide insight into the vibrant and combative women’s movement that emerged in Italy and across the world in the early 1970s. Since the publication of Women and the Subversion of the Community (1972), Dalla Costa has been a central figure in the development of autonomist thought in a wide range of anticapitalist and feminist social movements. Her detailed research and provocative thinking deepens our understanding of the role of women’s struggles for autonomy and control over their bodies and labour. These essays provide critical and relevant ideas for anticapitalists, antiracists, and feminists who are attempting to build counterpower in the age of austerity.
