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Women in the International Division of Labour Maria Mies It is my thesis that this general production of life, or subsistence production - mainly performed through the nonwage labour of women and other nonwage labourers as slaves, contract workers and peasants in the colonies - constitutes the perennial basis upon which capitalist productive labour can be built up and exploited. |
This now classic book traces the social origins of the sexual division of labour. It gives a history of the related processes of colonization and housewifization and extends this analysis to the contemporary new international division of labour and the role which women have to play as the cheapest producers and consumers. First published in 1986, it was hailed as a major paradigm shift for feminist theory. Eleven years on, Maria Mies' theory of capitalist patriarchy has become even more relevant; this new edition includes a substantial new introduction in which she both applies her theory to the new, globalized world and answers her critics.
From the reviews of the first edition
Feminist theory at its very best.
-Off Our BacksCompelling. One of the most ambitious projects undertaken by a feminist scholar in recent years.
- Deniz KandiyotiMaria Mies' vision is huge, the scale of her project breathtakingly bold.
- New InternationalistA major contribution to authentic development theory and practice.
Women cannot hope for justice from a mode of production built on subordination either as housewife in the West or cheap labour in the third world. Mies produces an alternative feminist concept of labour and some strategic elements of its implementation. The critique is compelling.
- World Development.
Maria Mies is a sociologist and author of several books on women, economic sustainability and the environment as well as articles in numerous journals. After returning from many years in India, she became head of the Women's Studies Programme at the Institute of Social Sciences in the Hague, and subsequently Professor of Sociology at the Fachhochschle in Cologne. Having retired from teaching in 1993, she continues to be active in a range of women's and environmental movements. She is currently writing on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and, with Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, a book on the subsistence perspective.
She is co-author with Vandana Shiva of Ecofeminism, Spinifex Press, ISBN 1-875559-23-X
272pp 180x280mm pb
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